Short Week

Ah, the dual-beauty of the long weekend is the short week that follows.

My 3rd place in the 4k was the poker highlight of the weekend. One $11 turbo win and then the continued journey of losing races, favourites, and running KK into AA, etc.. ie.- Out 21st in the MATH when my KK failed to hold up against AK. Then again, my AJ (unbeatable in the MATH) knocked out bdidde's KK earlier on, so who am I to complain?

But poker was but a small part of the long weekend. I went out to a BBQ on Sunday that (as usual) involved me putting together a BBQ sauce for the chicken and doing all the Q'ing. Not that I mind, since I don't BBQ at home nearly enough. I also picked up a few items I've been meaning to get for a while - a new gravity waffler (my old one up and died a loooong time ago), and a massage chair cushion (Quad-roller baby). Sitting at the keyboard losing my 16th race in a row is much easier when you have shiatsu and heat going on your lower back.

Necessary supplies for livinig (read: toilet paper and paper towels) was the excuse to hit Costco. Ribeyes and striploins were also emitting their siren calls. Somehow, I walked out with a cart's worth of stuff... again.

But before all that was a stop at a Turkic grocery store in the north part of the city. I'd been meaning to go for a couple months and was finally in the neighbourhood. Why? Well, I now have 3 cezves and a turkish grinder. I went with my coffee-loving best friend who picked up a similar stash of supplies. I can now make a proper turkish coffee... with style. I think we made the owners' day when we rung out. "Are you opening a coffee shop?" Maybe we should.

Throw in surprise dim sum yesterday afternoon, and a nice marinated steak for dinner (less apple cider vinegar next time methinks... too sweet), and it was a good weekend.

I was also struck by a desire at about 1am this morning. So instead of going to bed, I pulled out a mixing bowl and tossed in some oil, vodka, two hot sauces, dijon mustard, spicy sundried tomato pesto, chili powder, cayenne pepper, habanero pepper, ground lemongrass, kosher salt, and fresh minced garlic. This got dumped in a ziploc with a chicken breast and has been in my fridge since. I haven't completely figured out step 2 yet... but it could go something like this:

- Rinse breast (because it will be salty)
- Grate some fresh ginger
- Mince some more garlic
- Toast and grind some szechuan pepper
- Combine ginger, garlic, pepper and orange juice in a pan and reduce until syrupy
- Maybe add some more spicy heat to the sauce
- Steam rice
- Pan roast chicken with butter and herbs
- Serve chicken on rice, covered with orange sauce

With luck, it will be a spicy orange ginger chicken on rice. If I'm wrong, it will be sticky-orangey chicken on rice that sets my tongue on fire. We'll see how it goes. All that from watching Alton Brown make Buffalo chicken wings, and Heston Blumenthal make his perfect Chicken Tikka Masala (which is apparently little more than butter chicken... mmm... butter chicken). I almost pulled out some yogurt for this one.

The BBT3 continues to wind down (8 more to go!) with the Skill Game tonight. I haven't checked what the game is, so I have yet to decide if I'm in or not. I'm fairly resigned to not doing as well as I'd like in this BBT... as it would take some phenomenal results in the next 8 matches for me to make a run at anything. There's always the freeroll though.

There's a good chance I'll be in front of my Wii playing No More Heroes or Boom Blox tonight instead. Two less-similar games I can't think of. One involves being an assassin-for-hire with a lightsabre-like weapon, wrestling moves, and Tarantino-esque amounts of blood. The other has blocky-cute animal-things and a Jenga-like play system. They're both fun.