Chirish Eats

Tonight we attended a fun, fascinating Science Cafe about epigentics, put on by the Pacific Science Center and held at the Wilde Rover Pub. Boxty, beer, and biology - you can't beat that, really! 

In celebration of the upcoming St. Patrick's Day, here's a recipe for what we call kong-cannon.

Kong-cannon is part of a balanced meal. Here, it accompanies veggie meatloaf and some unidentifiable purple/green stuff. 

This is a colcannon (Irish potato, cabbage, and scallion skillet) recipe from Nava Atlas' Vegetarian 5-Ingredient Gourmet, altered for the Chinglish (Chinese and English family) household. We typically serve this with veggie sausages (Field Roast apple sage is our favorite - according to Field Roast's marketing material, they're a "blend of English and Asian heritage", whatever that means) and beer (your choice - British or Chinese beer).

4-6 servings

• 4 large potatoes (Alan, the English half of the Chinglish household, thinks there should be more potatoes in this recipe)
• 1.5 tablespoons light olive oil
• 2.5 cups of chopped Napa cabbage
• 5 Shiitake mushrooms (optional)
• 6 scallions, white and green parts, sliced
• 1 handful of chopped cilantro
• 1 cup milk or soymilk
• Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

1. Bake, boil, or microwave the potatoes in their skins until done. When cool enough to handle, peel, and coarsely mash.
2. Heat oil in a large skillet. Add the cabbage and saute, covered, over medium heat, stirring occasionally until limp. Add scallions and mushrooms and saute, uncovered for about 4 more minutes. If the skillet becomes dry, add small amounts of water as needed.
3. Add the potatoes, cilantro, and milk, stir everything together, and turn the heat up to medium-high. Cook without stirring until the bottom of the potato mixture gets nicely browned. Fluff with a wooden spoon, season with salt and pepper, and serve.

Safari in Sandusky

Jen and I attended a software development conference recently, and it was a wonderful combination of techno-geekery, education, and fun!

The conference is called CodeMash and was started by developers who were jealous of the developers on the coasts who have lots of conferences to attend in San Francisco, LA, Seattle, New York, Boston etc. They then decided to make their own that was central for developers in Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh etc.

The organizers wanted to keep the cost as low as possible but needed a large hotel and meeting rooms. They found the perfect location in the Kalahari Resort waterpark and kept the costs low by having the event in January. Yes, a water park, in Ohio, in January!

Everything was African themed in a delightfully tacky way - from the decorations and furniture in the rooms to the huge poster hanging on the apartment complex next to the hotel.

The conference was very well-organized, and the sessions covered a great range of software development topics. I suppose this conference is not to everyone's taste but we thoroughly enjoyed it by cramming in as much info as we could and attending the parties as well.

You can tell that it is Sub-Saharan Africa by the elephants and 2 inches of snow on the ground.



The bar was full of "exotic" animals, and the food had a flavor that might be fusion cuisine (a fusion of African and Midwest America; mostly Midwestern meat and potatoes, to be honest).

Highly recommended to anyone who wants to hang out with 1200 software engineers in their bathing costumes!

Some highlights of the conference:

RubyBuddha's Pecha Kucha on love

RubyBuddha's Pecha Kucha (tie breaker)

Jon Skeet's Pecha Kucha (Coding in the Style of Glee)

Wat

The other photos can be viewed by following this link.