Some things that have been left around my apartment lately:
Robes of various sizes and colors
Banners with Maltese crosses on them
One smoke machine
Kippahs of various colors
Walkie-Talkies
A large container of quick oats
Renaissance-y dresses and more robes
Bags of boots
Random bits of make-up equipment
18 May 2011
15 May 2011
I've Lived Near...
1988-1990 around the corner from Western Beef
1990-1991 a couple doors down from Veniero's
1991-1993 between Downtown Beirut and the Village Idiot (the "Rent" years)
1993-2004 down the street from The Village Voice
2004-2009 overlooking J. Hood Wright Park ("In The Heights")
2009-2010 around the corner from Katz's Deli
2010- ? across the street from Corlear's Hook
1990-1991 a couple doors down from Veniero's
1991-1993 between Downtown Beirut and the Village Idiot (the "Rent" years)
1993-2004 down the street from The Village Voice
2004-2009 overlooking J. Hood Wright Park ("In The Heights")
2009-2010 around the corner from Katz's Deli
2010- ? across the street from Corlear's Hook
07 May 2011
The Plant Is An Ominvore
Walking the dog this evening, I ran into people completing The Great Saunter. They started out at the South Street Seaport at 7:30 this morning and were nearing the end of their 32-mile walk around the periphery of Manhattan. I'm completely entranced and want to go walk around Manhattan right now. I don't want to wait until the next event next May.
-----
I'm a vegan. I cut animals products out of my diet gradually, starting with meat and ending up with eggs and dairy, over about a ten-year period. I've been vegetarian for around 25 years, vegan for around 15. It was (obviously) a slow process, and not something I thought through in any kind of serious way as it was happening; the reasons included politics, health, and kashrut. Long after becoming vegan, I realized I felt spiritually sounder if I wasn't killing animals for my own nutrition.
-----
About three years ago, we got a dog. We did some research and determined it was safe to feed him a vegetarian diet. Then we ended up getting a lizard, an omnivore that eats fruits and vegetables but also needs live crickets and such things to survive.
And then the day before yesterday The Offspring came home from school with a Venus Fly-Trap. Now we have a plant that needs to eat meat to survive.
-----
I'm a vegan. I cut animals products out of my diet gradually, starting with meat and ending up with eggs and dairy, over about a ten-year period. I've been vegetarian for around 25 years, vegan for around 15. It was (obviously) a slow process, and not something I thought through in any kind of serious way as it was happening; the reasons included politics, health, and kashrut. Long after becoming vegan, I realized I felt spiritually sounder if I wasn't killing animals for my own nutrition.
-----
About three years ago, we got a dog. We did some research and determined it was safe to feed him a vegetarian diet. Then we ended up getting a lizard, an omnivore that eats fruits and vegetables but also needs live crickets and such things to survive.
And then the day before yesterday The Offspring came home from school with a Venus Fly-Trap. Now we have a plant that needs to eat meat to survive.
03 May 2011
Cooking from Scratch
The Daily Mail published an article today that says British women can't cook as well as their mothers did.
The article says some women "admit" their husbands cook, making it clear that what's really at stake is the desire for women to adhere to traditional roles. And it's terribly written -- it's not clear what they think counts as "cooking a meal from scratch." Boiling eggs?
Oddly, the author writes disapprovingly of making a meal from whatever is at hand -- which is, in my opinion, an important skill if one wants to eat locally and avoid food waste.
But here you go... here's a list of a few things I can make from scratch (no cans, no freezer) without resorting to a cookbook:
Minestrone, split pea, various kinds of lentil soups. I could probably come up with a gazpacho without consulting a recipe. I can also make a chicken soup -- starting with a whole chicken with the feathers still on and the guts still inside -- but I haven't chosen to do that since around 1988.
Stir fries of various flavors and with various ingredients. Does that count as one dish, or as various dishes? I might flavor with garlic, ginger, and jalapenos, or with thai curry and coconut milk, or with sesame oil and soy sauce.
Curry. Potatoes and chick peas, spinach and dal, various other possibilities.
Breakfast foods, which sometimes get served for dinner: eggs scrambled, fried, omelette-d; pancakes (with bananas, apple sauce, flax seed, zucchini hidden inside), french toast. Do those count as "meals"?
Refried beans with rice and fried plantains and some salad, with or without tacos. Tofu fried with herbs or curry, with one or another leafy green or other vegetable, steamed or sauteed, or over salad greens. Black bean and corn salad with cilantro and lime juice. Root vegetables (beets, potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots) roasted, steamed, mashed, or fried.
Apple pie, hot fudge sauce, apple sauce. I could make jam without a cookbook-- half fruit, half sugar, boil until it reaches the right texture when dropped on a plate -- but I usually use low-sugar pectin, and follow the instructions in the box.
I don't bake much, and when I do, I use a recipe. I've made cakes and muffins and quick breads and pies and cookies, but I don't have much patience for any of that. Mostly because I don't like to follow a recipe; I like to cook with what's fresh and in season, and make things up as I go along. I read cookbooks, but mostly for ideas.
How about you?
The article says some women "admit" their husbands cook, making it clear that what's really at stake is the desire for women to adhere to traditional roles. And it's terribly written -- it's not clear what they think counts as "cooking a meal from scratch." Boiling eggs?
Oddly, the author writes disapprovingly of making a meal from whatever is at hand -- which is, in my opinion, an important skill if one wants to eat locally and avoid food waste.
But here you go... here's a list of a few things I can make from scratch (no cans, no freezer) without resorting to a cookbook:
Minestrone, split pea, various kinds of lentil soups. I could probably come up with a gazpacho without consulting a recipe. I can also make a chicken soup -- starting with a whole chicken with the feathers still on and the guts still inside -- but I haven't chosen to do that since around 1988.
Stir fries of various flavors and with various ingredients. Does that count as one dish, or as various dishes? I might flavor with garlic, ginger, and jalapenos, or with thai curry and coconut milk, or with sesame oil and soy sauce.
Curry. Potatoes and chick peas, spinach and dal, various other possibilities.
Breakfast foods, which sometimes get served for dinner: eggs scrambled, fried, omelette-d; pancakes (with bananas, apple sauce, flax seed, zucchini hidden inside), french toast. Do those count as "meals"?
Refried beans with rice and fried plantains and some salad, with or without tacos. Tofu fried with herbs or curry, with one or another leafy green or other vegetable, steamed or sauteed, or over salad greens. Black bean and corn salad with cilantro and lime juice. Root vegetables (beets, potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots) roasted, steamed, mashed, or fried.
Apple pie, hot fudge sauce, apple sauce. I could make jam without a cookbook-- half fruit, half sugar, boil until it reaches the right texture when dropped on a plate -- but I usually use low-sugar pectin, and follow the instructions in the box.
I don't bake much, and when I do, I use a recipe. I've made cakes and muffins and quick breads and pies and cookies, but I don't have much patience for any of that. Mostly because I don't like to follow a recipe; I like to cook with what's fresh and in season, and make things up as I go along. I read cookbooks, but mostly for ideas.
How about you?
28 April 2011
Direct Democracy At Its Finest?
A Facebook screenshot. I know, it's tiny; here are some of the groups:
And also, in ALL CAPS,
How did Facebook end up with five different groups declaring that soldiers are not heroes, in the first place? Was it a single person who kept creating different groups in some kind of confusion about what had or had not already been accomplished? Friends? Strangers, all coincidentally up to the same thing?
And then, four different groups petitioning for the removal of the original groups... one very offended party? Four different ones? And the person asking for the removal of the groups asking for the removal of the other groups.... one of the original groups' creators? Someone else entirely?
If you're reading this, you may object that Facebook has no connection to "the real world." But it turns out to be one tool for communicating with other people, alongside email and flyers in your mailbox and the good old telephone, all of which have superseded smoke signals and the Pony Express.
It's messy and it's often mundane, but it's also an interesting laboratory for the dissemination and exchange of ideas. There are a lot of people out there on Facebook muttering to themselves, and a few standing on soap-boxes and hollering, and somehow in the cacophony, people manage to hear and be heard.
"Soldiers are not heroes."
"Remove the group 'Soldiers are not heroes.'"
"Petition to remove "Petition to remove 'Soldiers are not heroes' " group. "
And also, in ALL CAPS,"Anyone in the "Soldiers are not Heroes" group are ignorant [unprintables]."I could make a cheap point about grammar and spelling, but what really intrigues me here is the profusion.
"'Soldiers are not heroe's' is Dis-Respective"
How did Facebook end up with five different groups declaring that soldiers are not heroes, in the first place? Was it a single person who kept creating different groups in some kind of confusion about what had or had not already been accomplished? Friends? Strangers, all coincidentally up to the same thing?
And then, four different groups petitioning for the removal of the original groups... one very offended party? Four different ones? And the person asking for the removal of the groups asking for the removal of the other groups.... one of the original groups' creators? Someone else entirely?
If you're reading this, you may object that Facebook has no connection to "the real world." But it turns out to be one tool for communicating with other people, alongside email and flyers in your mailbox and the good old telephone, all of which have superseded smoke signals and the Pony Express.
It's messy and it's often mundane, but it's also an interesting laboratory for the dissemination and exchange of ideas. There are a lot of people out there on Facebook muttering to themselves, and a few standing on soap-boxes and hollering, and somehow in the cacophony, people manage to hear and be heard.
22 April 2011
Earth Day 41
Earth Day is nearly upon us again, and I'm feeling discouraged.
Starbucks will give you a free cup of coffee if you wander into any of their locations today with your reusable cup. At the time of this writing, 2,792 members of Facebook have joined "B Kind 2 Earth Day." At Earth Day Network, you can pledge an "Act of Green" to help save the planet -- by not buying bottled water, or turning off faucets, or switching to compact-fluorescent light bulbs.
Meanwhile, since the first Earth Day in 1970, US homes have expanded from 1400 square feet to a peak of more than 2500 square feet in 2007, with a slight drop since then. Meanwhile, we've bought more and more cars: in 1970, Americans collectively owned 89 million cars; in 2008, the figure was 137 million. Climate change is picking up speed.
I'm also discouraged about my own ability to reduce reliance on my car. I've done okay on the little things, like packing my own lunch rather than eating take-out to cut down on plastic; I've made the switch to bar shampoo, instead of the stuff in the plastic bottle. But after a semester of regular train travel, I've gone back to driving more.
In other words, the little corrections we've been inspired to make every year for Earth Day do almost nothing to counteract the forces that push ever-increasing consumption. We need to get serious, all of us, about reducing consumption in big ways.
That doesn't mean (just) buying "greener" alternatives of all the stuff we're already buying. It means eating lower on the food chain and wasting less food. It means buying a whole lot less of everything, making what we already have work until it wears out and can no longer be repaired, owning less stuff overall so that we can fit ourselves and our stuff back into smaller homes.
It also means drastically decreasing the amount that we drive -- and that, in turn, requires major structural changes in the way we live. So it also means political action at the local level to make neighborhoods amenable to walking and biking, and at state and federal levels to encourage the construction of more and better mass transit.
The Department of Transportation is asking for $128 billion in the 2012 budget. The vast majority of this will go toward highways; a mere $8 billion is allocated to rails, yet state governments are rejecting even this expenditure, seeking to divert funds instead to additional highway projects.
As the feminists said back in the 70s, the personal is the political. We need to be committed, personally and politically, to change at multiple and major levels. The little stuff isn't enough.
Starbucks will give you a free cup of coffee if you wander into any of their locations today with your reusable cup. At the time of this writing, 2,792 members of Facebook have joined "B Kind 2 Earth Day." At Earth Day Network, you can pledge an "Act of Green" to help save the planet -- by not buying bottled water, or turning off faucets, or switching to compact-fluorescent light bulbs.
Meanwhile, since the first Earth Day in 1970, US homes have expanded from 1400 square feet to a peak of more than 2500 square feet in 2007, with a slight drop since then. Meanwhile, we've bought more and more cars: in 1970, Americans collectively owned 89 million cars; in 2008, the figure was 137 million. Climate change is picking up speed.
I'm also discouraged about my own ability to reduce reliance on my car. I've done okay on the little things, like packing my own lunch rather than eating take-out to cut down on plastic; I've made the switch to bar shampoo, instead of the stuff in the plastic bottle. But after a semester of regular train travel, I've gone back to driving more.
In other words, the little corrections we've been inspired to make every year for Earth Day do almost nothing to counteract the forces that push ever-increasing consumption. We need to get serious, all of us, about reducing consumption in big ways.
That doesn't mean (just) buying "greener" alternatives of all the stuff we're already buying. It means eating lower on the food chain and wasting less food. It means buying a whole lot less of everything, making what we already have work until it wears out and can no longer be repaired, owning less stuff overall so that we can fit ourselves and our stuff back into smaller homes.
It also means drastically decreasing the amount that we drive -- and that, in turn, requires major structural changes in the way we live. So it also means political action at the local level to make neighborhoods amenable to walking and biking, and at state and federal levels to encourage the construction of more and better mass transit.
The Department of Transportation is asking for $128 billion in the 2012 budget. The vast majority of this will go toward highways; a mere $8 billion is allocated to rails, yet state governments are rejecting even this expenditure, seeking to divert funds instead to additional highway projects.
As the feminists said back in the 70s, the personal is the political. We need to be committed, personally and politically, to change at multiple and major levels. The little stuff isn't enough.
19 April 2011
Dayenu!
Vegetarian, gluten-free seder. Somehow we managed it:
The orange on the seder plate comes in for a lot of interpretations: women in the rabbinate, gays in Judaism. In our case, it filled in for a beet, which we didn't have in the house, and which vegetarians have been known to put on the seder plate in place of a shankbone.
Last year, I made some mock-matzah out of almond flour and coconut oil. This year, papadums from the Indian store on 28th Street.
The orange on the seder plate comes in for a lot of interpretations: women in the rabbinate, gays in Judaism. In our case, it filled in for a beet, which we didn't have in the house, and which vegetarians have been known to put on the seder plate in place of a shankbone.Last year, I made some mock-matzah out of almond flour and coconut oil. This year, papadums from the Indian store on 28th Street.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
