Taking A Break

This has been a rough couple of months for me.  I had my knee replacement surgery, and 8 weeks later I am still struggling.  I'm still in pain, not sleeping well, and on Aleve and Tylenol every day.  It has really unsettled my life.  So, I am going to take a break from writing this blog for awhile, and just wanted to let you all know that I'm still here and plan to be back to writing around Labor Day.  I need a break.  My computer, ten years old, is on its last legs, and I'm waiting for a new one to arrive in a few weeks.  So even getting the computer up and running is a challenge right now.  So, I will rest for a bit, get healthy, and be back to blogging in September.  Have a wonderful summer aeveryone, and look forward to renewed energy when I return in September.

My Most Memorable Day

I overheard a conversation last week where the people were talking about a workshop one of them had been to, and one question asked was, "What day would you want to relive in your life?"  In other words, what was the most memorable day you've ever had.  That's really hard.  Wedding, birth of children come to mind immediately, but when I thought more about the question, I had another that was truly memorable.

In 2000, we went to Tokyo with our entire family.  Mom, dad, and the three boys.  We also had with us Renee and Jose Valdivia, our jockey and his wife, who were very close friends of ours and remain so to this day.  Our horse was invited to run in the first ever Japan Cup Dirt.  It was a big honor, and having our entire family with us made it so special.  Our horse ran third.  Any of the days we all spent together would be my most memorable day.  I would love to live that day over again.

What has been your most memorable day?  It's hard to single out just one day, but give it a try.  It brings up a lot of memorable days to choose from.  The fact that our whole family was together made it special for me.

Eureka Finds Its Way To Carlsbad

You might have eaten at Eureka in UTC.  It's a popular lunch, dinner and happy hour bar and restaurant with good food and drink, and lots of noise.  Eureka has now opened on Palomar Airport Road, just a block east of El Camino Real.  Ron and I tried it for lunch after it had been open for about 6 weeks.  Beautiful spot with a big play area outside for waiting patrons and kids when they get antsy at the table.  The tables are very close together, so likely to hear the conversation at the next table, which I don't like.

The lunch mix was a combination of men who wokr int he center, women out for lunch together, and a few families.  The menu is heavily hamburgers.  All sorts of hamburgers, with lots of different toppings.  They also have about three salads on the menu, all very large.  Then, theres an appetizer section, with brussels sprouts, corn dogs, grilled cauliflower, and mushroom toast with goat cheese and balsamic vinegar.  I had the latter.  It was good, but too much balsamic vinegar for my taste.  Ron ordered a cup of chili, which he liked very much.  Our problem with the menu was that everything was huge, and we were not that hungry.  There were not many small portion items that interested us.

I guess Eureka is good for big eaters or for happy hour, when you can share a lot of items.  Soft drinks are a little bit pricy, but I guess that's to be expected in a bar.

Eureka is a beautiful restaurant with good food, but the noise level and close proximity of the tables and NOISE make it uncomfortable.  If you want to go where the action is, go to Eureka, but if you want to go to dinner and talk, try someplace else.

Smorgasburg Brooklyn

If you're lucky enough to be in Brooklyn on a Saturday or Sunday from April through October, you will definitely want to stop by Smorgasburg Brooklyn.  It's the largest gathering of food trucks in the country, up to 100 vendors, which attracts 20,000-30,000 people each weekend.  Brooklyn is one of the foodie capitals of the world right now, and you will find every old and new at this gathering.

Darren Wong is a New York chef who has a booth at Smorgasburg, where he is exciting guests with his raindrop cake.  The cake was inspired by traditional mizu shingen mochi from Japan.  It is light and delicate and has no calories.  It's a jiggl, translucent ball made from water and agr.  Some people add a little sugar.  It is molded and refrigerated, then served in a ball with sugar syrup and roasted soy flour.  It doesn't sound like much, but it is intriguing.  There are lots of recipes out there, but apparently it's a little tricky to get the right consistency.  I have not seen it on the west coast, but my guess is it will be here soon.  If you're adventurous, get a recipe and try to make it.  Better yet, go to Brooklyn and try the rainbow cake made by Darren Wong.  It's exciting that there's always something new in food.  We won't like everything, but if I have a chance I will give rainbow cake a try.

Mikkos For Great Japanese Food

I've never reviewed Mikkos, one of my favorite Japanese restaurants.  They have two locations:  one on Carlsbad Village Drive near the 5 Freeway, the other, newer location, on Main Street in Vista.  We frequent the Vista location often.  It is good, fresh, and very reasonable.

The best part of Mikkos is that my husband Ron, who does not really like Japanese food, LOVES this place.  It's not just sushi, although the sushi is excellent.  During the evening there are four sushi chefs working furiously to send out delicious rolls, nigiri and sashami.  Mikkos has tempura, and Ron usually gets the tempura dinner for $9.95.  A cup of miso soup, and delicious, fresh salad, rice, and a piled high plate of shrimp and vegetable tempura.  Ron can't possibly eat it all, so I have his soup, and some of the vegetable tempura (he doesn't like the sweet potato).  Then I get a sushi roll, and we've got a feast.  And cheap!   We love Mikkos.

Mikkos also offers noodle dishes, ramen, poke bowls and teriyaki bowls.  So much to choose from, so even for those that don't like Japanese food, there are options.  Hope you get a chance to try it soon.  By the way, it's also great for lunch.  You can get a bento box for $9.95 which includes soup, salad, two pieces of sushi and a meat option, like sesame chicken and rice.  Great value.

Who Was Esther Lederberg?

Esther Lederberg was a major pioneer of bacterial genetics.  She discovered the lambda phage, a bacterial virus which is widely used as a tool to study gene regulation and genetic recombination.  She also invented the replica plating technique, which is used to isolate the analyse bacterial mutants and tract antibiotic resistance.  (I don't konw what any of this even means!)



Esther was born in 1922, during a time when it was rare to even have women studying the sciences.  She was raised in an Orthodox Jewish family during the depression, and learned Hebrew from her Hungarian grandfather.  This was unusual at the time.  Boys were supposed to learn Hebrew, but Esther insisted she learn too and learned the language easily.  In 1946 Esther married Joshua Lederberg, a doctoral student at Yale at the time, who was interested in her lab work as part of her masters program at Stanford.  They remained married for 20 years.  During that time, Joshua went on to win the Nobel Prize.  Although they worked together on many studies in microbiology, Esther was never given the credit she deserved as an important part of Joshua's achievements.  This was just the way it was at the time.

In 1956 the Society of Illinois Bacteriologists awarded the Pasteur Award to both Joshua and Esther Lederberg, given in recognition of their contribution to microbiology and bacterial genetics.  Esther was another brilliant female scientist who never got the recognition she deserved.