Next Hawaii Trip Booked!

So, Hawaii, right? We just got back, like, less than three weeks ago. And now we've laid in plans for our next trip to Hawaii!

The planning for this return trip actually started before we even left for our previous trip. While I was on the phone straightening out a cancellation with Hilton Hotels I let them transfer me to Hilton Grand Vacations for a brief sales pitch. Long story short, we decided to take the plunge on one of those junket trips where you stay in a nice hotel for a low rate in exchange for sitting through a hard-sell timeshare presentation one day. What caught my ear about the offer was that one of their properties is on the Big Island of Hawaii— a place we wanted to go anyway.



The Big Island didn't work our for our December trip but we knew we could get back there sometime in 2022. We penciled in April on our calendars but were open to going in October/November as well.

"Let's plan the dates when we get back from this trip," we agreed while we were in Hawaii a few weeks ago. But then I put off calling back the timeshare people to pick dates for a few weeks. I finally did it Friday. We got dates in April, though not the week that was our top choice. Enh, close enough!

We'll be leaving April 8th, returning the 17th. We'll fly to Honolulu first and spend a few days there. There are a few things in/around Honolulu we didn't get to see in December, including the Pearl Harbor memorial. Then we'll hop islands (well, actually we'll fly) and stay near Kona for 5 nights. On our list there is to visit the volcano parks a bit more. We only saw them briefly, and in poor weather, when we visited a few years ago.

We're looking forward to going back!

Hiking "In" the Bay

Last weekend we took advantage of the warm (60-ish) weather Sunday afternoon for a hike "in" the San Francisco Bay. I say "in" only half jokingly because while we weren't submerged in water, it was all around us as we walked atop man-made structures.

We visited the Don Edwards National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) in Alviso. Or maybe it's in San Jose. It's hard to tell; either way it's like the part of Silicon Valley that time forgot.



Don Edwards NWR extends from the edge of what could reasonably be called where dry land meets the bay. From there it extends out miles across levees, sloughs, marshes, and ponds. It's a great place to go to see birds, especially marsh birds; and a great place to get a different view on the Bay Area. It's so near and yet so far from the hubbub of the urban area all around it.

The boardwalk section of the park shown above is just one little bit of it. And it was closed this visit. Instead we hiked a loop across a series of levees. They were closed, too, putatively for our safety. We figured we were more able to judge safety for ourselves atop well-trod earthen berms than weathered wooden planks, so out we went. And we were joined by a few dozen fellow law breakers.



The first stretch of levees in our loop has a few small piers you can walk down onto. With the water at low tide on Sunday, it was quite a drop down onto the piers. And from down at the pier the rushes obscure all the civilization ringing the bay. You could almost believe we were far away from civilization, with only the mountains in the distance and this Great Egret joining us.

We saw lots of birds, of course. Out in the larger ponds were scads of geese and cormorants. In the smaller sloughs, like above, we saw scores of Shovelers— a kind of duck— and a few Great Egrets. I even spotted a Black-Crowned Night Heron hiding among the rushes. They are predators but they are reclusive during the day while other, bigger predators are around.

I wasn't able to photograph the night heron this trip because I didn't have my "bird shooter" lens with me. I foolishly decided to carry just one lens with my camera. I was half right in that decision; I took my mid-range zoom and didn't miss the ultra-wide I left behind. But I was half wrong because, with all the birds, I totally wished I'd had my "bird shooter" telephoto lens. BTW, this blog entry from a nearby park shows a Black-Crowned Night Heron.



While I refer to this area as the part of Silicon Valley that time forgot, not everyone has forgotten it. A few of us still know how to find it. Well, a few dozen, at least, because that's how many people were out there with us. Including the pair of bikers on a different levee, above. In the distance, to the right of those green mounds, is Google's headquarters.

BTW those train tracks in the foreground are active. We saw two trains motoring through while we were hiking. The tracks are part of the Capital Corridor service (external link) that connects San Jose to Sacramento. This stretch of the line runs rails atop levees through the bay— an unusual route for a train! I might buy tickets on the train sometime just to see these unusual views of the Bay Area.

Paneer Tikka Masala

I realized this week I haven't blogged much about cooking lately. I wrote a flurry of entries about cooking last winter then posted only infrequently on the topic since. It's not that I'm not cooking anymore.... I guess I just got so accustomed to it I started thinking of it as ordinary and not worth sharing. But some meals are worth writing about! Like the paneer tikka masala I cooked last week.



Here's the finished product (above). I steamed some green beans as a veg dish to go along with the paneer (right). The beans taste pretty good dipped in the tikka masala sauce, too. On the left is a piece of paratha, and Indian style bread.

"Why not just order in Indian food?" some might ask. "Don't you have good Indian restaurants nearby?" Let me tell you, I live in an area with a large south Asian population. There are tons of Indian restaurants nearby. But I don't always want to go out for food or game out how much I have to pre-tip a delivery driver to get them to bring me the food before it gets cold. Plus it's fun to cook at home. Especially when I can buy the right ingredients to make it easy to get great results.

Paneer is an Indian style farmer's cheese. I can buy it in blocks at various stores. I don't think Safeway carries it, but our local green grocer does. And, of course, the area's many Indian groceries do. And even Costco around here has stocked it for years.



I bought the cheese at Costco in a package of 2, 1.1-kg blocks. They're wrapped separately so I used just one of the 1.1 kg blocks here. I cubed it into 160 pieces and sauteed them. Yes, exactly 160 pieces. You can count the bits in the picture if you like; I know it's 160 from multiplication (I cut the block in 10 slices then 4x4).

After browning the cheese to get a slightly crispy edge on it I scooped it out, patted off the cooking oil, and added it to a pan with tikka masala sauce to simmer.



Tikka masala is a tomato, onion, and cream based sauce with a variety of spices. I've experimented with making it from scratch. The results were good but it takes a lot of time. I find it easier to buy it in a jar. Tikka masala sauce, even Safeway carries. In fact now they carry 2-3 brands of Indian sauces. I got this particular one at Costco, though. It's cheaper there.

While the cheese was simmering in the sauce I steamed the green beans and thawed and toasted the paratha. Paratha is an Indian style flatbread made with wheat flour. I've never tried making it from scratch though I imagine it's not too difficult, theoretically. I've just had... underwhelming... results making bread so I prefer to buy something good. The paratha in the first picture came in a frozen package from Trader Joe's. I thawed and browned each piece in 2-3 minutes on a skillet with a dab of olive oil.

Et voilà!