The best things in life come at unexpected times. I recently unexpectedly went to a Polish Punk Concert (featuring the band "Hey") in Chicago. On the way to this unexpected concert, we made a stop at a small Mexican Grocery Store in Kankakee, the Gonzalez Grocery Store. We had called ahead and placed an order - in Spanish of course - for 6 tacos and a gordita. There were three tacos al pastor [pork], and three tacos de pollo [chicken], while the gordita was al pastor. Now I'm not a big pork eater, or a big person on spicy food, but those tacos al pastor were perfect. Genuine authentic Mexican tacos al pastor...none of that American Mexican taco bell stuff. Plus, it was faster than going to Macdonald's - we called ahead, said we'd be there in 15 minutes, and they were ready when we got there. Who knew?

Hanging around as many Italians as I do might have made me a bit snobbish when it comes to pizza. I'm still waiting for my genuine home made Italian pizza, but until then, I try to have less bad pizza (pizza hut, etc.) and more good pizza (everyone else). So when I walked past Pizzalley in Saint Augustine, I was really really curious. We decided to ask the locals for recommendations on places to eat. When a random stranger on the street stopped us just to tell us we should eat at Pizza Alley, we took it as a sign.

Being three hungry girls, it took us a while to make up our minds. We started with an appetizer, an assortment of salad, cheeses and meats. After some help from the waiter, we chose a new white wine for us, Sauvignon Blanc and a pizza called White Pie, which had alfredo, mozarella, spinach, lots of other yummy stuff, and at the suggestion of the waiter, two extra toppings, chicken and mushrooms. It was superb. The crust was just right, the mixture of toppings was just right, the wine had a very clean taste, everything was just wonderful.

I promised a blog about food, so here's my first entry that's actually about food.

Yesterday we went to the Sea Oats Caffe for lunch. We were all feeling like seafood (could it be the fresh sea air?). Anna and I had a sandwich that I think was called the Grouper Florentine - grouper, cheese and spinach. So good.... Dasha had a Shrimp Melt sandwich, also tasted quite good.

After feeling full from lunch, we were still thinking about food, so we went to Publix and shopped our hearts out. For three Computer Science Women we can be quite girly...we spent at least 15 minutes in the cosmetic type stuff aisle!

Today, we went to The Oasis for food. We headed upstairs and were greeted by a blast of live music. This group with an amazing fiddler played a great selection of songs, such as Rolling. Being by the seaside, we once more ordered seafood. I had a tasty Shrimp Scampi, Anna had the Captain's Platter (shrimp, calamari, oyster, clam, scallops and flounder) and Dasha had the Whaler sandwhich (which did not contain whale). We were really hungry after our day on the beach so we decided to order Nachos Grande, which were delightful (almost as good as the nachos at Guidos...more on that in a blog post to come). The Shrimp Scampi...pretty good, but could have had just a little bit more flavour. Everything I tasted on the Captains Platter tasted good, though the baked potato might have been overkill. We left the place with four huge boxes of leftovers. They won't go to waste.

Being the geeks we are, we were desperate for internet, so we headed to Starbucks for internet and caffeine. Tip: Green Tea Latte - not so good. A little bitter, the green tea was too concentrated. Second Tip: If you order a drink you don't like at Starbucks, they replace it and give you a coupon for a free drink the next time you come! Excellent music of course, they were playing from a Toots and Maytails compilation. Got a recommendation from John at Starbucks re a Jack Johnson soundtrack for the movie "A Broke Down Melody". I think he was excited to find a fellow reggae/ska lover!

I just had to blog about this, this is such a nifty little trick. My grandmother, Nana Farika, was just interviewed on wmbr. I couldn't get the live stream to work and wanted to be able to listen to the interview in the car. So how do you get the mp3 file from the streamed m3u file? It's so ridiculously simple!

1. Right click on the m3u file
2. Click Save Link as
   
3. Save the file
4. Open the file with a text editor, such as Note Pad or Word Pad or Emacs
5. Inside the file you will see a link to the actual mp3 file
6. Copy the link and open it in your browser (Firefox, Safari, Opera, Explorer)
7. Now you can save the mp3 file!

It's times like this that I love being a computer scientist.

I remember scoffing at the idea of blogging. Imagine, I thought, after all those years of (a) struggling (and I do mean struggling) to keep up a diary/journal and (b) struggling to ensure that my thoughts were private from my parents. What could possibly convince me to start a blog? Three things. 1: I love food. 2: I have a bad memory and want a way to remember good food places and anything else. 3: I used twitter, the gateway drug to blogging. So now, here I am, ready to join the blogosphere. Now let's see if this blog goes the way of all my childhood diaries.