Category: Gnews

Crikey, this is frightening.  Our economy seems like such a gullible, brittle-boned old lady right now.  After reading my latest installment of The Omnivore's Dilemma and articles like these, I'm beginning to cast a leery eye on all corn.  I know it's not the bi-color sweet corn's fault that the catfish farms are going out of business, but still -- knowing that I'm only adding to the corn isotopes in my body doesn't make me feel better about the less processable members of the species.

If this were a horror film, the downfall of the American economy could be karmic retribution, some manifestation of maize vengeance brought down by patient Native American spirits.

Anyway, I'm thrilled to report two things:

Okay, so we had to change our band name.  There's some cover band in New Jersey and some emo high school kids in L.A. who've already laid claim to the name Peas & Carrots.  We really don't want to be mistaken for either one, so we had to come up with something different.

So we are now calling ourselves The Solitary Cyclist.  We even got the .com, which I've just squatted and haven't done anything to yet, so don't bother visiting for now.  I hope you like The Solitary Cyclist, because JL and I quite like it, so that's the end of the band name debate.

And, more exciting, we have our first (pretty rough) demo up at our new Myspace page: www.myspace.com/thesolitarycyclist.  Feel free to download it and own it.  It's pretty representative of what our music sounds like, though the drums, to be provided by the awesome Chris Deaner, will be a lot more human. Hopefully we'll be able to record a couple more demos by next week. Proper, non-Garage Band recordings forthcoming, probably after the gig.  We've got about 10 songs for the set now; two of them are covers, which we'll probably phase out as we write more songs.

I didn't slave over the computer today and the hours passed so slowly. I may have to start a one hour of computer per weekend day rule. 

So a few quick things:

• At a dinner party, Winnie's friend Brian mentioned that he likes to drop a bag of PG Tips into his water bottle and drink from it all day -- I tried it, I love it, I'll be doing it all summer.  Enlivens the hydration with light tea flavor and a slow burn caffeine kick all day long. (Winnie, I'm like totally stalking you or something.)
• Finally picking The Omnivore's Dilemma back up again, which I can only read in short spurts before I get depressed, have to put it down and listen to Mariah Carey to fluff my brain out.  Anyway, one rancher tells Pollan that in his grandfather's time, cows were grass-fed, and therefore took longer to get to slaughter weight.  "Cows were four or five years old at slaughter...Now we get there at fourteen to sixteen months."  Interesting in light of the South Korea beef fight happening, where Koreans will only accept beef that is "younger than 30 months", or 2 1/2 years old, because younger cows are less likely to have mad cow disease.  Fucked up on a few levels -- that we breed cows to bulk up in 1/4 the time (imagine a kid becoming adult-sized by age 5), that mad cow wouldn't be an issue with grass-fed beef, that the bulked-up young 'un is now the preferred choice.
• Went to Bar Q, loved the food, made me want to go to Annisa.  Fine, the steamed bun with pork is a bite off David Chang, but Anita Lo one ups him by including a few leaves of kimchee and a crunchy swath of crackling on her pork.  Also, bizarrely loved the warm (?) walnut (?) soup (?) with malted rice krispies and a powdery polvorone-like mound.  Polvorones remind me of La Puente.  Eating one is kind of like stuffing a sandcastle in your mouth, a magical sandcastle of nutty sugar. 
  

And now it's past my bedtime.  Dammit!  See?

I'm so glad that Dunkin' Donuts decided to pull the ads showing that jihad lover Rachael Ray.  But why stop the boycott there?  There are so many unpatriotic, treasonous coffees on the market right now.  Here's a list of java you should avoid unless you want the CIA to know you love terrorists too.










1. Timothy's -- You know those disposable brew-per-cup coffees you like to down before meetings at work?  Those little shots of ground coffee are made by a Canadian company, and you know what Canadians are -- NOT American. Just like terrorists are NOT American.  Therefore Canadians = Terrorists.  Remember, we need to protect our borders from people who put gravy and cheese curds on Freedom fries.



2.  Peet's -- Peet's got its start in Berkeley, CA, aka the Hellmouth.  That's where stoners send their drug-retarded offspring to become Godless Sufjan Stevens-enthusiasts and  The Nation-reading fornicators.  I hope I get to stand by St. Peter when he informs them that there is no affirmative action in heaven.



3. Chock full o' Nuts -- Okay, maybe not terrorist, but obvs gay.










--

...And the one coffee that will let the terrorists know that they can't take away our freedom, democracy, or faith:

Wear your flag pin and only buy your iced coffee from Starbucks.  "Star" like fifty stars in the flag and "bucks" like free market means TERRORISTS KEEP OUT.

God bless America.

I like the Rain Man-style review in the middle of this Pinkberry lawsuit article:

In a class-action lawsuit filed last year, Pinkberry -- which operates roughly 50 stores in California and New York -- was accused of misrepresenting its product as "frozen yogurt" and making bogus health claims, including that the dessert (which comes in three flavors: plain, which is very sour; green tea, which is chalky; and coffee, uncommonly delicious) was "all-natural."

Sasha Davies of Cheese by Hand has a thought-provoking piece in the spring 2008 issue of Diner Journal. She asks a question you've probably never even considered before (I hadn't): What happens to baby male goats? And how do you market an unfamiliar meat to a pleasure-seeking public awakening to the hidden costs of their favorite foods? I have to admit that I'd never heard of Diner Journal before I got this copy and now I'd like to be a subscriber. Aside from good looking recipes and a few funny stories, it's got pretty graphics and no ads. Me likey.

Scratch this one off the taco crawl list. Not that I want to eat tacos at a place where waitresses sell $2 dances to drunk locals.

Hey music lovers, anybody going to Farm Aid at Randall's Island on Sunday? I'll be flipping wild rice cakes at the Slow Food booth. That is, unless I'm firing up a locally grown doob with the W-Nel, devouring organic backstage catering and watching Neil Young keep on rockin in the free world. If you're there, stop by and say hello.

According to Switched, yer lookin at one of the web's best blogs, as overlooked by PC World! This Tom Conlon is not even someone I know. I swear. More press like that and my Mae may even find out about my blog.

If you've got $1395 to spare (and who doesn't), spend an October weekend with the fifth annual Gourmet Institute. Experience cooking demos and seminars with such culinary luminaries as Ruth Reichl, Thomas Keller, Grant Achatz, Eric Ripert, Colman Andrews, Drew Nieporent, Masaharu Morimoto...and me.

What?

Shhhhh....I know. It's sort of batshit crazy. I've been asked to be on a blogger panel. Here's the description from the website:

Eat the Web: Blogging's Effect on the Food World

Tyler Colman (DrVino.com)/Ben Leventhal (Eater.com)/Ed Levine (SeriousEats.com)/Ganda Suthivarakom (EatDrinkOneWoman.com)

Blogging is a new and powerful phenomenon. In this discussion, four of the most respected bloggers share their thoughts and insights on topics such as: How does one start a blog? What makes a blog a blog? What does the food-blog world look like? How is the Internet changing the restaurant business and how bloggers are shaping food trends. Ruth Reichl moderates.

Shut up! Stop laughing! What the hell am I going to talk about? Who wants to hear from a blogger panel?

I feel a little bit like I did when I was a freshman in college. My buddy Julian and I desperately wanted to see our favorite Brit pop bands (shut up! stop laughing!) play down at Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco. The only problem was that I was 17 and she was 18, and Bottom of the Hill is 21+.

So -- very sneaky -- we would take the Bart to 16th and Mission and walk many, many blocks to the club. Once we got there, which was usually around 5pm, there was never anyone checking IDs at the door so we'd sneak in, go to the back garden and just pretend like we belonged there. The bartenders would be setting up, it would be fully light out, and if we were lucky, we'd catch a bit of the band's soundcheck. The only problem was that the bands didn't actually go on until about 11pm. So we would basically get there and hang out in this tiny club for SIX HOURS.

I mean, clearly we did not belong. But nobody kicked us out once we were in. I'm just hoping the gatekeepers at the Gourmet Institute turn a similarly benevolent blind eye and let a fangirl squat in the telephone booth. Maybe next to the Andrew Carmellini white truffle station.