Cacti and Chocolate

Continuing my off-the-beaten-path Vegas series... here is my account of my visit to Ethel M Chocolates and Cactus Garden in Henderson, NV. Ethel M was founded by Forrest Mars (of Snickers and Mars fame). After his retirement 30 years ago he decided to build a new factory where he could make chocolates the way he remembered his mother Ethel making them when he was a child.

First stop, cactus.

The cactus garden is pretty cool - it's Nevada's largest and one of the largest collections of its kind in the world with over 300 different species on 4 acres.

The golden barrel cactus. Apparently these things are critically endangered and rare in the wild. Which is strange as they are very wildly cultivated - I remember we had one growing up.

I thought this plant was cool - the Mojave yucca. According to the helpful label on display, Native Americans used to eat the flowers and fruit from the plant and use the stringy fibers to make rope, sandals, and cloth.

Currently it's used in animal feed, in herbal medications, and in pet deodorizers. It's been used to treat headaches, arthritis, and gonorrhea. How on earth does someone realize that this plant can be used to treat gonorrhea? I'm picturing some poor schulb with burning pee wandering around in the desert chewing plants.

The Prickly Pear cactus. I use its fruit for margaritas and martinis. Not as noble as sandal making, but still important.

I touched this plant. The prickly parts looked furry and soft. I tried a gentle touch. Then got more aggressive. Guess what? It hurt like a bitch.

This is ephedra, otherwise known as Mormon Tea (heh - those silly Mormons).

It contains ephedrine which is a stimulant for the central nervous system. It was used as a weight loss medication, but then was pulled off the shelves because it was screwing up people's blood pressure. But it still packs a wallop as an energizer. I should have taken some for the ride back to Los Angeles. Oh well.

Aloe vera...

After my serene stroll through the catcus garden, it was a little jarring to step into this room - the preamble to the Ethel M chocolate factory tour. The ipod speaker in the upper corner was blaring some sort of techno music. Too much color. Too much stimulation.

Too much junk.

Okay. Let's begin the tour.

Apparently chocolate makers don't work on Saturday. Strike two. So nothing to see here.

And nothing to see here either.

But then I stepped into here. One fancy gift shop.

With rows of chocolate truffles. And another counter for ice cream. And peanut brittle.

I see that this whole tour and experience was just an excuse to sell me chocolate. Well I accepted the challenge and prepared my "present for Mr. Insomniac". The dark chocolate was okay, better than the rest of the M&M/Mars crap, but definitely no Pierre Marcolini.

The finished product after my picking and choosing. 12 pieces of dark chocolate. I got a cosmo flavored one, pudding pie, an espresso, a toffee crunch, blueberry, Tahitian vanilla, a Macadamian nut, and some others I don't remember.

Nice.

"Best Thai restaurant in North America"

Of the many restaurants available to me in Las Vegas, the one at #2 on my list was Lotus of Siam.

Look at these reviews.

"The single best Thai restaurant in North America"
- Jonathan Gold, Gourmet Magazine

"The greatest Thai meal I've every eaten outside of Thailand."
- The Rosengarten Report, David Rosengarten

"Lotus of Siam is the best Thai Restaurant I've tried in this country"
- Heidi Knapp Rinella, Las Vegas Review Journal

"There's nothing as good- -or as lip-numblingly hot- -in L.A."
- S. Irene Virbila, Los Angeles Times food critic

"It was the smartest gamble we'd made all day."
- Budget Living, Liza Schoenfein and Mark Jannot

"I can't think of any other Thai restaurant I'd rather go to."
- Las Vegas Life, Max Jacobson

"Sticky Rice with Mango and Coconut Cream at Lotus of Siam,
is at once sumptuous and seductive-and biochemically, a perfect,
cooling finish to spicy Thai cooking."
- Las Vegas Weekly, Max Jacobson

"Don't skip dessert, or you'll regret it deeply"
- Chow, Ellis Weiner

"This famous hole-in-wall introduced me to extraordinary Thai dishes."
- Food&Wine, Dana Cowin

"The most addictive place to eat in the city."
- USA Today, Jerry Shriver

Look at the pages devoted to it on chowhounds.

Mr. Insomniac was spending the day at his conference, so I decided to plan a special sojourn out to Lotus of Siam. After careful examination of the interweb knew that I should stay away from the buffet and order off the menu and to get some barbeque and one of the northern thai dishes. Oh and to get sticky rice with mango and coconut cream for dessert.

Yes, a lot of food, but I wasn't planning on eating all of it... after all, I had to save room for my #1 meal at L'Atelier de JR. And our room had a fridge, microwave, plates and silverware, so I could always eat the leftovers. Okay. Bring it on.

I hop in my car and drive away from the strip. Like 20 minutes away. The restaurant is located in a dusty strip mall - the store front isn't visible from the main road and I passed by the restaurant a couple of times before I finally found it.

Definitely off the beaten path. I smile smugly to myself. Take that, buffet eaters. I'm about to get authentic. The *real* Vegas.




I finally find it. Very unassuming store front. Excellent. Only the truly informed probably even know about this place, I thought.

I head to the door, taste buds a-tingling.

But wait, what's this?



Rage.

Rage against the glass door.

Lunch, Take Two

After this, I was angry, but still hungry.

So I looked around my surroundings and headed to the restaurant where the most cars were parked. It's sort of like foraging for food in the wilderness... anyway, this is where I ended up - Jin Mee Korean Restaurant.



Some sort of Korean restaurant.

I like Korean. Some kalbi or bulgogi would be nice.




Bonus points for being the only non Korean-speaking person in the room.

They had grills for folks to cook meat on on the opposite side of the restaurant. Walking around Vegas, I reeked of cigarette smoke, so I figured a little meat smoke would enhance my flavor.

But then I got annoyed that I had to pay for a full order of raw meat (like $25). But I'm just one person, I said. No dice.

So then I looked for something else on the menu.

Settled on a seafood soup.






It was good. Not amazing, but good. The beast within was mollified.

Off to the next adventure.

Getty Goodness

My good friend Nellie was visiting Los Angeles for a national art history conference. She arrived a few days earlier so we could play. Nellie recently accepted a position as a curator... now all she has to do is finish the dissertation! Go Nellie! Even though she's been to LA a couple of times, she's yet to visit the Getty. So after a lunch on the beach and a stroll on the Santa Monica Pier, we headed to the hills.


The Getty is absolutely breathtaking. The day had started off cloudy, but by hour 2, the skies were blue and the views were spectacular. The Getty Center consists of the museum open to the public as well as research centers.

We decided to take the architecture tour of the grounds.

Cathy, our tour guide.


The most striking thing about the Getty campus is the use of the natural travertine. The travertine that covers much of the Getty hails from Bagni di Tivoli, Italy. It changes color depending on the time of day - it's a whitish color during the morning and mellows to a honey colored beige in the afternoon. Some of the pieces were cleft-cut with a crazy sharp guillotine to provide an interesting jagged texture, and others are smooth.

Apparently the cleft cut stones can reveal cool looking fossils. Look! Leaves.

(image from Charles S. Rhyne, Reed College - http://academic.reed.edu/getty/)

I tried to find some on my own, but came up short.

Each of the primary squares are 30 by 30 inches. The smaller paving stones that make up the walkways are perfect multiples.





In addition to stone, the center uses metal in the form of aluminum. The undulating curves provide a nice contrast to the straight lines of other parts of the Getty.



Although the Getty can appear whitish during certain times of the day, a true white, as evidenced by the tram station in the picture below would actually be rather glaring.



The only splash of color in the architecture is the trellis near the restaurant. Why is it pale purple? To pay tribute to James Stirling, the late English architect, who was a friend and a finalist who lost out to Meier for the Getty job. Aparently Stirling used a lot of color in his work.



Speaking of color, check out this monstrosity.
This Lichtenstein sculpture "Three Brushstrokes" stands out. And not in a good way.



A travertine portal frames the view toward the ocean and announces the entry towards the Research building. Apparently on the shortest day of the year, the sun sets right in the middle of the frame.



The Getty was built in a posh neighborhood. And the posh neighbors didn't want trucks of mud going down their posh streets. So it was built as a "balanced site", meaning that all the dirt that was dug up on the hill was used elsewhere on the site (like for filling canyons). Waste not, want not.




The actual art of the Getty is rather humdrum to me. I prefer contemporary art. Once you've seen one Jesus painting, you've seen them all. Sure, they're pretty and all, but they all look the same to me. Boring.




This painting caught our attention.


The modern styling of a peasant woman cut through all the idealized images of plump little cherubs and lounging ladies.

See what I mean?

Striking.




Meh.



I liked the sketching gallery that was available for visitors. They rotate the featured works on display and provide visitors with all materials. Nellie demurred, and I knew any efforts of mine wouldn't make the display wall, so we passed.






About here is where my iphone died. No more pictures. Sad.

My dog flips out

Yay! My Flip and Tumble shopping bags arrived in the mail yesterday! They came rolled up in their little balls and Doggy Insomniac took an instant liking to them and went to town.




Although he managed to get the blue one unraveled, he was unable to cause permanent damage. These things are hardy!


I love my dog. Even when he's wrecking my stuff, he just looks so cute doing it, I can't do anything but grab a camera. I am going to make a horrible parent one day.

While he was busy with the brown bag, I snapped a quick pic of the other one. Rather wrinkled. Hmm.


Definitely not like the one on the website.



Apparently, smooshing the bag into a ball wrinkles it. lol A quick spin in the dryer ensured that my bags were camera ready. Too bad I didn't take a final picture.

Don't divorce us

If you haven't seen this video from the Courage Campaign, please take a moment to watch it and sign the accompanying petition to the CA Supreme Court that asks them to invalidate Prop 8.  It brings home the importance for keeping marriage for gay and lesbian couples like nothing else I've ever seen. The community goal is 500,000 views and 200,000 signatures by Valentine's Day:

http://www.couragecampaign.org/Divorce

And if you want to get even more involved in the fight for marriage rights, come canvass with me Saturday afternoon!  What's a better way to celebrate Valentine's Day than by talking directly with voters in an effort to change people's hearts and minds about same sex marriage. It is important that folks see what a supporter for LGBT marriage looks like - we come in all colors, sexual orientations, ages, religions, sizes, and income levels. During canvassing, it takes a lot of courage for our LGBT friends to come out to people who repudiate their very existence - and it's important for us to support them and stand along side them. Training and lunch will be provided - bring a friend!  Email me for details: nest.insomniac at gmail dot com.

Vinturi Review

Here's my review of the Vinturi Wine Aerator!

I bought it at Amazon.com for $33 and free shipping, but it's available at other places and some will offer a discount if you buy in bulk.

The box looks attractive enough.



The actual device is made of plastic with a rubber grip that provides a secure hold.




You get all this! The vinturi, a holder/stand, an attractive velvetish carrying bag, and some verbage about how great the vinturi is. Note: bottle of wine not included.



I actually made my own demonstration video with the Flip camera that Mr. Insomniac gave me for my birthday, but (1) it came out crappy - Mr. Insomniac's out of town on business and so I had to create a makeshift tripod with doggy Insomniac's dog food container so I could operate the vinturi effectively; (2) by the time "take 2" rolled around, I was drunk and laughing a lot and sounded stupid. My written voice sounds a lot better than my high squeaky speaking voice. No one wants to hear that, I realized; and (3) I couldn't figure out how to put it on my computer. So three strikes on that one.

So you're stuck with this video I found on youtube. Which is also pretty hilarious.



Shout out to envinoveritas! I used mine to pour glass after glass, as opposed to in a decanter. What wasn't shown in this video (but what I showed in mine) is that you can see the bubbles in the glass as it gets aerated. But I love that sucking sound. Pretty neat.


For my first tasting, I used a run of the mill wine - a Robert Mondavi Pinot Noir that I got at Trader Joes for 8 bucks.



Scientist that I am, I did a comparison test with a glass from the same bottle, but made sure it was un-vinturied. I must add this caveat though... this was not a blind taste test. Like I mentioned earlier, Mr. Insomniac's away and so we couldn't set up our customary taste experiment.

BUT (and this is very important) the difference between a glass right out a freshly opened bottle and one that's been poured with the vinturi was actually dramatic. Wow. I even said that out loud (I have the tape to prove it). Wow.

Here's what the website advertises:

• Better bouquet - Sample the nose. You'll appreciate the subtle aromatic differences and the full aroma of the wine. Vinturi allows wine to display its intended aromas.

Now I actually didn't do this. I just drank it. Eager beaver insomniac. My bad.

• Enhanced flavors - Go ahead, take a sip. Vinturi's wine tastes better. It is more flavorful and has better mouthfeel. It tastes like a richer, more expensive wine. It tastes like it was intended to and is more enjoyable.

Check. I'm no oenophile, but even my 2 buck Chuck drinking ass could tell a difference. Amazing.

• Smoother finish. Ahh. Vinturi's aeration is very effective at softening tannins which results in a much more pleasant finish. Any bitterness or bad aftertaste is reduced or eliminated.

Double check. Smooth as silk. A much more pleasant and drinkable wine.

Overall recommendation? Two thumbs up. A great way for making cheap wine taste good. I'm very curious to see what a better bottle will taste like... I suppose that will have to wait for the weekend!