I say “tar,” you say “jhay!”
Tar-jhay!
Tar-jhay!
Yes, Target is here. The oft-Frenchly-pronounced-with-irony big box sailed in last week to anchor DC USA, the first non-snooty mall in the District.
And it’s got a café. Continue reading
Category Archives: Philosophizing
Topless carrots and deleted pages
A piece of writing does not appear fully formed on the page with just a wiggle of the pencil. We all know that. But do writers really believe that writing is work?
Measuring, prodding, covering, uncovering, failing, creating, cutting off, throwing away, paring down, then layering on again…. If we really think out our concept and have some talent and skill, we secretly believe, our little guy will show up all ready to go without all that bother. And how should I think about writing, anyway? Is it a sea that one can navigate smoothly as long as a good compass and some sea smarts are on hand? Is my next piece a golem that, if molded with just the right tools and spirit, will spring to life?
With or without a good working metaphor, I began assuming that I could “master” writing and be able to churn out lovely, neat prose in no time with just a little forethought. As you may have guessed, food came to the rescue, saving me from this sad misconception.
I happened to be making three-bean soup and slicing up the requisite onions, carrots, celery, garlic, and potatoes the other day. By the end of my prep, I was left with a pile of onion skins, carrot tops, celery leaves, and so on. This reminded me of the parings from an assignment I had just written, a short memoir about the first time I (Mom, cover your eyes) smoked pot. In my preparation for writing, I came up with some memories and then some nicely-written paragraphs about the DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) program that we loved to hate as middle schoolers. I even found a few drug quizzes online and came up with a structure that would play on questions in a hypothetical DARE test. I also wrote an amusing description of the uniformed and mustachioed Officer Gary who taught the class.
In the end, I used none of it. Continue reading
Eating (and reading) to save the world
It’s been a while since my passionate vegan days (around ages 15-20). But as a Google search of my name reminds me, I was once a teenaged vegan idealist who snatched at the first glimmers of the e-networking world as a member of the Vegetarian Youth Network (scroll down to “New Paltz”). On this proto-listserv, we exchanged recipes for egg-and-dairy-free baked goods along with plots for a vegan revolution.
That well-spent youth all came back to me when I picked up the book Veggie Revolution: Smart Choices for a Healthy Body and a Healthy Planet by Sally and Sara Kate Neidel (Sally is a Ph.D. — Sara Kate I think is her daughter). This book argues that vegetarianism can help alleviate climate change, water pollution, world hunger, and pretty much every other bad thing you can think of. I bought it this weekend at Busboys and Poets and the 16-year-old vegan in me is cheering. Continue reading
A bleeding heart coagulates
At the Green Festival a couple of years ago, I wandered through a fair trade coffee display and picked up a free copy of Julia Alvarez’s A Cafecito Story. It is a literary “eco-parable” about the ravages of free trade and the benefits of fair trade. Better for the campesinos, better for the environment, better for your conscience, it argues.
I’ve since given it away or contributed it to a book swap, but I recall one scene in the book in which a Dominican coffee farmer who raises a delicious, pesticide-free product drinks a cup of cheap instant coffee. He is reduced to this sad state because he is paid so little that he can’t even afford to drink his own wonderful and life-giving joe. This concept is used a lot in fair trade arguments, pulling at heart strings and appealing to pampered Americans’ guilt. They can’t even drink a cup of their own coffee! They can’t even have a bite of their own chocolate!
At some recent moment I can’t put my finger on, this argument ceased to have any punch for me. I was probably cooking for clients at the time. I shop and cook for hours at a time and my food comes out pretty damn good. (I base this not on my own judgment but on the fact that clients have called and emailed me just to describe in detail how knee-trembling my food was, where they ate it, who they shared it with, and how they wish they had ordered more). But I don’t eat it myself. Continue reading
The market for your palate
Tyler Cowan, author of Discover Your Inner Economist and a professor of economics at George Mason University, came to DC a little while ago.
The fun thing about Cowan, according to my friend Alok who became riveted by the guy’s speech, is that he applies his normally snored-at field to everyday life, giving an economist’s perspective on falling in love, job searches, and—yes, you knew this was coming!—food.
Cowan’s talk was on part of his book dealing with food and how economics can help you determine the best restaurants. In the Washington environment, where the buzz and the scene at a dining establishment can mean even more than what it serves, I was interested in what Alok had heard. Continue reading
If Pythagoras had been a chef…
The Joy of Cooking is hiding things–ancient secrets that it does not deign to share with the general public. But I’m on to them.
For instance, the other day I noticed something in their flan recipes. The JoC recipe calls for a caramel made with 3 parts sugar and 1 part water and then a custard with 5 eggs, 3 cups of milk, and a few other things. It served 8.
Then I decided to make coffee flan and checked the recipe for that. Replacing 3/4 c. of the milk with strong coffee was the only change, with the 5 eggs, 3 cups liquid, etc. all the same. This recipe, JoC says, serves only 4 to 5. Continue reading
The power of sun
The other night, I discovered a charred gash as long as my pinky finger and about as thick marring the hardcover spine of a book. The image startled me. How had The Omnivore’s Dilemma received a burn two inches long and half an inch deep, through layers of dustcover and binding, without my noticing? My glasses, which had been sitting next to the book, were also burned. One lens now oozes permanently, creating a warped spot in the lower right corner of my vision.
Did someone break into my apartment, burn my stuff with the lighter I had nearby to light candles, and leave? That seemed highly unlikely. But just to check, I tried holding the lighter to the book. It began burning a wider, messier gash than the one I had. The pinky-sized gash seems to have been made by a slower, more patient endeavor.
Had it happened while I was sleeping? Did a spark leap from the electrical outlet and ignite the book cover in a flame that went out a few minutes later? It was possible, but I would have surely smelled that or felt the heat.
Confused and unsettled, I gave up until the sun enlightened me the next morning. I picked up the book, put it down in the usual place on the night table, and noticed a bright, hot stream of light. The sun itself, with a slow and powerful presence, had reduced the work of human hands to ash and a carefully crafted pair of glasses to a fun house mirror.
It seemed fitting that such a thing would happen to a book that dedicates a great deal of time to talking about the sun and the “free lunch” it provides. In Michael Pollan’s estimation, humans would be far better off if more of them followed the example of farmers who raise grass-fed animals (or, as the farmer Pollan follows calls it, farming grass).
The idea is to let the grass soak up the sun and grow up to be tasty food, have the animals graze and poop on it, then eat the animals and/or their eggs and milk. The alternative is letting corn grow on sun and chemicals, processing the corn using polluting fuels and more chemicals, then feeding it to animals who may never have seen a blade of grass. Additional work comes in because the processed corn lacks antioxidants and generally animal-friendly elements found in grass. To round out this convoluted chain, the sun-shunning farmers must give their corn-fed critters tons of antibiotics.
We could avoid this long second scenario, Pollan concludes, if we just harnessed the free and abundant power of the sun and kept it simple. I know for sure that it’s abundant, but its power is far from simple.
Solar cookers in action
Here’s a video about solar cookers! It features Louise Meyer, my neighbor who spreads the sun-cooked love.
It’s interesting that the everyday chores we take for granted can be wasting time and resources. Gathering wood for stoves, for the women in this video, takes hours at a time. While the amount they use likely doesn’t cause deforestation on the scale of paper and lumber companies, that’s also something to consider.
What do we do that’s similarly inefficient? Do solutions exist that we are unaware of or unwilling to try? Questions to ponder, my friends!
Check it out and let me know what you think.
Note: unfortunately, this does not have captions. Its story is pretty clear, though. And there are subtitles for the parts in Spanish.
More on the organization is at www.she-inc.org.
The refrigerator test
I just realized this: anyone who wants to date me, or even be good friends with me, must pass the refrigerator test. This is actually a two-way litmus test. If you look in my fridge and feel at home or at least intrigued, you will enjoy hanging out with me and vice versa. If what you see weirds you out or you make a face–and especially if you feel compelled to make fun of me–then we just don’t have a future.
So what might you see when you look in my Frigidaire? Continue reading
Heat and Baring of Teeth (or, What Sets Humans Apart)
I’ve been reading about the idea that cooking sets humans apart from our fellow animals. Many deep dudes (and dudettes) have argued that this is true. Cooking allowed humans to render more foods digestible, preserve nutritional resources, and come together around a fire.
Cooking and communal eating also changed the meaning of social signs, according to Alfred W. Crosby. For example, baring your teeth, for most species, is a sign of aggression. If you’re going to eat together, you have to get over that notion. And we did.
Then again, there’s the argument in Ishmael, which as I recall blamed our current state of being on agriculture. See, if you think about it, we are the only animals that make food grow and cultivate it. This allows us to stay in one place and gives us extra time to have all manner of mischievous thoughts.
If we were spending six hours a day chewing raw leaves like our primate brethren and sistren, and trying not to show our pearly whites, don’t you think we’d be different?
Discuss.
You Are Delicious 