Sunday, February 11, 2007
Okonomiyaki
When I was in Japan about 8 years ago I went out to lunch for "Japanese pizza" which is called Okonomiyaki. It really bares almost no resemblance to American pizza other than the fact that it is round and there are some optional toppings to put on it. I found I liked it much better than American pizza (which isn't too surprising because I'm not a huge fan of pizza).
When I saw my friend, Katsuyuki, a few months ago we got to talking about Okonomiyaki. He said he liked to cook it at home and that I should try it. When he got back to Japan he sent me several recipes. So Saturday I decided to bite the bullet and give it a try. While the prospect of following these recipes was a little intimidating (I had never heard of a number of the ingredients, all measurements were metric, etc.), it turned out to be pretty easy to make. The "dough" if you can call it that ("base" would probably be a better word) is made of Chinese yam, eggs, flour, green onions, squid and lots of cabbage. Cabbage is the main ingredient. You basically put a thick round circle of this mixture on a hot griddle, put some sliced pork (bacon) on top with other toppings, let it cook, flip it over, let it cook some more and then flip it back and put it on a plate with special Okonomiyaki sauce (which tastes a lot like Worcestershire sauce but is a lot thicker).
We happened to have two of our girls' friends over for sleep-overs, so we served it to 5 girls under the age of 10. Amazingly, everyone liked it. I didn't mention the squid until everyone was done (which turned out to be a brilliant move). It was a huge success and we'll probably do it again.
Thanks, Katsuyuki.
When I saw my friend, Katsuyuki, a few months ago we got to talking about Okonomiyaki. He said he liked to cook it at home and that I should try it. When he got back to Japan he sent me several recipes. So Saturday I decided to bite the bullet and give it a try. While the prospect of following these recipes was a little intimidating (I had never heard of a number of the ingredients, all measurements were metric, etc.), it turned out to be pretty easy to make. The "dough" if you can call it that ("base" would probably be a better word) is made of Chinese yam, eggs, flour, green onions, squid and lots of cabbage. Cabbage is the main ingredient. You basically put a thick round circle of this mixture on a hot griddle, put some sliced pork (bacon) on top with other toppings, let it cook, flip it over, let it cook some more and then flip it back and put it on a plate with special Okonomiyaki sauce (which tastes a lot like Worcestershire sauce but is a lot thicker).
We happened to have two of our girls' friends over for sleep-overs, so we served it to 5 girls under the age of 10. Amazingly, everyone liked it. I didn't mention the squid until everyone was done (which turned out to be a brilliant move). It was a huge success and we'll probably do it again.
Thanks, Katsuyuki.
Saturday, February 10, 2007
TLA Soup
Well I made it through my first week at my new job at Tesla motors. Having been at Intuit for 15 years, many days would go by when no big new ideas came my way. There were plenty of hard problems, but I was rarely faced with new concepts. As I'm sure you can imagine, the first week at Tesla was the exact opposite. In my first meeting, it seemed like the average sentence had 3 acronyms, none of which I understood. By the end of the first day, my head was spinning. I'm taking notes, reading and studying, but I've got a long way to go.
Don't get me wrong, it was a great week. I remain extremely excited by what the company is doing, both because of the great match with my personal interests and because of what they are trying to do for the world. I'm also optimistic that I'll be able to help them in meaningful ways. But I certainly can't yet. At the moment, I'm in learning mode and am in no position to help. But by the last meeting of the week, amazingly I understood 90% of the acronyms I heard. So that's some progress. Maybe by the end of the month I'll actually add some value.
Don't get me wrong, it was a great week. I remain extremely excited by what the company is doing, both because of the great match with my personal interests and because of what they are trying to do for the world. I'm also optimistic that I'll be able to help them in meaningful ways. But I certainly can't yet. At the moment, I'm in learning mode and am in no position to help. But by the last meeting of the week, amazingly I understood 90% of the acronyms I heard. So that's some progress. Maybe by the end of the month I'll actually add some value.
