I've been trying a lot of new recipes lately, and one of them was how to make sourdough bread, which involves growing wild yeast.What's that? It's yeast that you catch from the air and grow in a mixture of flour and water over a week. So, a little more like a science experiment than a cooking one. Pretty fun right?

My camera is still being repaired, so photos from Google.

Apparently the wild yeast in San Francisco is special either because of the vineyards nearby or the fog. One of the specialties here served along the Fisherman's Wharf is a sourdough loaf that is hollowed out to make a bowl and filled with clam chowder.

It's a pretty simple process which I got from Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's River Cottage Everyday, but summerised, all you have to do is mix flour and warm water to a thick paint consistency, wait for it to bubble and then each day for a week, discard half the mix and add in more flour and water to maintain it's consistency. And you have yourself a 'starter', which you use more or less like commercial yeast.

I was pretty pleased since it came out tasting like it should, although I made the dough a little too watery, so it made a flat loaf. Out of curiousity, I tasted the starter directly, and it was sour enough to actually sting a bit, but it was ok after adding all the rest of the flour to make the bread. It feels kind of like when you are in primary school and you grow green beans in soggy cotton, part of the fun is watching to see what happens, but also this time you get something useful for the thrifty student's cooking arsenal. Which reminds me, maybe I should try growing some herbs at home, since they'll be fresher and cheaper in the long run, especially good for those recipes that required a tiny teaspoon of herbs and you end up buying a monster sized bunch, use a little and watch the rest wilt.

Grocery shopping for recipes you don't usually try; like from other cultures can be pretty fun. It's like a treasure hunt looking for weird creatures in the jungles of various markets. I like trying new things, so it's rewarding to start picking off unknown things from shelves and trying them at home anytime I've gone too long eating "stew-of-whatever-was-stuck-to-the-bottom-of -the-fridge".

I particularly like stalking around the aisles of supermarkets that are a bit more geared towards gourmet/ organic food, because that's where the more exotic items can be found, like grains produced on small scale, or artisan bread and cheese. Even if I don't buy anything, it's fun to read the labels. It's also a little game if you have problems finding items because they are called different things in different parts of the world. My recent ingredient list was taken mostly from BBC Good Food, so there were some UK/US English problems. Here's what I found out:

Rocket: Arugula
Double cream: Not available in US, but similar to heavy (whipping) cream
Single cream:Similar to Half and half in the US (since when did dairy products become so mathematical?)

Pine nut: Pignolias

photos culled from Google

I found this series while channel surfing recently, but now I've grown onto it. Through the Wormhole is a documentary series focusing on theoretical physics and questions about existance(think: string theory, multiverse theory, is there a God?, where did time come from?). Each episode presents one question and features several scientists with strange ideas that they are trying to prove. It feels kind of like theology for atheists. Although some of the ideas are difficult to understand, and some don't really make sense, it's still interesting to listen to the many possibilities of what the universe really is, not just what we can perceive with out 5 senses. And, yes, some ideas do make sense in a very roundabout way, so that's when things start to seem strange and a bit scary.

You've maybe seen these things on my Facebook, but I'll post it here anyway. I've been doing some modeling as my self-imposed holiday homework. It's strange that I'm supposed to be a 3D modeler but don't have many models, so that has to change. I'm aiming to make as many Maya models as possible, and let one of the lecturers check them when uni starts, only after

that will I go on to finishing off with ZBrush/textures/fur/rendering/rigging if I'm lucky. I have a few categories in mind:

Disney style: Goofy

Cartoon characters, from 2d or 3d designs. Useful to practise translating different art styles into models.

Amphibian: Poison dart frog

Animals from various families. Useful for thinking up plans to solving limb variations. Also I think it's more practical to focus on animal or creature modeling for a portfolio since there are more occasions to model those rather than human characters when it comes to movies. You can always use live footage or 3d scans for humans, but animals might not be cooperative, and creatures just don't exist.

Fish: Veiltail goldfish

Bird: Sparrow

Mammal: Grey wolf

Invertebrate: Rhinoceros beetle

One more category I want to do is other people's art pieces; from painting, or art dolls, etc.

photo culled from Google

The other day, I went for another free day, this time to the Exploratorium, which is an interactive science museum at the Palace of the Fine Arts. Standing in line, I wasn't very sure that it would be the right kind of museum for me since every adult in line had at least a few kids in tow. The museum seems to be aiming for a younger age group audience.(although they do have adult nights where drinks are served to the visitors as well)

It's a little different from the average science museum, because they don't just have exhibits by themselves, most of the displays are more like simple experiments or games that you can try yourself. Probably more fun to go with friends though(or as the website recommends, go with a date), because some exhibits require more than 1 person to make it work, and also if you read the description and don't really understand how it works, it's more fun to figure it out as a group than just by yourself, when there's probably a few people watching you to see how it works, and you look a little stupid when you don't succeed.

The museum's layout is like a warehouse with sections divided into your senses; sight, hearing, etc, so you have a lot of curiosities to play with, like trying to make different coloured light, making things show up in thermal cameras, and playing with substances of strange consistencies, or steam, or water. There are also some demos, like dissections of flowers or cow eyes (probably a little slow for adults since they are explaining to kids, but still interesting)

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lousy handphone quality picture taken before the performance

Besides that, I went to Stern Grove's concert again, this time it was the SF ballet performing. Since it was an outdoor performance, there was no elaborate stage backdrop. Half the show was more of a modern version of ballet, which suited the venue better, I think. My favourite piece was one with quite a minimalist costume (just leotards) with modern instrumental music and more unconventional choreography. I found it better than the 2nd half of the show done with seasoned professionals to classical music and white tutus (the first half was performed by apprentices). Perfect day for a picnic, except that I had no company, so the sad part was watching people around me, whole families with kids, groups of friends or couples having fun and sharing food, with me as the odd one out. I did get to do a lot of sketches of people posing candidly though, which is better than models since they are naturally relaxed, but then again they keep moving every 5 seconds, so ended up with lots of extremely rough lines, sometimes overlaping a few poses when someone I was watching moved about.

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Photos taken by me will be on hold for awhile, my camera gave up on me. It's from that time I went to the beach and sand got in. Apparently that broke a few gears in the focussing mechanism (what? and the beach sand in SF is so fine!)so I have to get that fixed for some disproportionately high price. So be warned. Cameras + sand =not good. I totally forgot about that the last time, I've never had this problem before.