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soup for the sick.
Photo by the also-sick partner-in-crime
The ironic thing about a lot of chicken soup recipes is that they ask you to make chicken broth from scratch before you get sick.
Y’know, because we all have foresight. Because chicken broth is just something you want to make when it’s Amazing degrees and clear outside and throwing up 3 times in a night is something you’d see more often on your street corner in the Mission than in your own bathroom.
If you’re within walking distance to a decent grocery store, just buy chicken broth in a box. And most importantly, as long as the main ingredients are water and chicken broth (unlike a certain variety that was mostly “chicken broth flavor”, followed by a long list of chemicals), you can spare yourself any guilt of lacking foresight.
Because, let’s face it, being sick is the last thing people hope for.
Soup for the sick, with ginger (i.e. your dose of Asian mom wisdom)
Serves 4 -
Australia Day done right (when you’re not in Australia).
And yes. I’m on Instagram.
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things i didn’t think i would like in 2011.
- Quinoa.
- Picklebacks.
- Reggaeton.
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because nothing bums me out more than limp cucumbers. (that's what she said.) →
Great tips on how to store vegetables without plastic bags. From Berkeley Farmer’s Market (of course), via Washington’s Green Grocer.
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America is eating less meat. →
Another great piece by Mark Bittman —
The flaw in the [Daily Livestock Report] is that it treats American consumers as passive actors who are victims of diminishing supplies, rising costs and government bias against the meat industry. Nowhere does it mention that we’re eating less meat because we want to eat less meat.
Well said. And high five, America.
(Source: markbittman.com)
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Why I love Portland, #3 — Coffeeland!
Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen sum it up pretty nicely, albeit Harajuku style, how we felt about coffee in Portland.
The proliferation of coffee is enough to want a second stomach: good, decent (but never bad) (or, at least, we never allowed ourselves that), hand poured, self-roasted, made-in-America stainless steel kone — everything that makes even the snobbiest of San Francisco coffee snobs sip and sigh.
Again, perhaps it’s thanks to the winter weather that encourages drinking, distilling, eating, and steaming your face and warming your hands with coffee.
The curse of buying whole beans is that you can’t buy a whole lot of it, unless you want to drink stale beans a month from now. Which makes Portlanders an instant envy.
But after numerous minutes waiting for pour-overs (and many trips to the bathroom later), I caved and came home with a single bag of Water Avenue oak aged Sumatra.
Which then brings me to the second curse of having to finish the whole bag within the week, instead of saving it for unhurried coffee appreciation. And that bums me out a lot.
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Industrial Organic
The Commercialization of Organic: organics do not have to be local, seasonal, sustainable, or produced by well paid workers.
Organic produce from Mexico often ends up in an energy-intensive global distribution chain that takes it as far as New York and Dubai, United Arab Emirates, producing significant emissions that contribute to global warming.
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why i love portland, #2: CARTOPIA →
Image credit: Gourmet Fury (who didn’t seem to like Portland as much as I did.)
I thought San Francisco was the food truck / cart city to rule ‘em all and that the rest o’ yall were just bitin.
I was so, so wrong.
Not only does Portland have no sales tax and allows drinking off-premises, it also (presumably) has extremely food-cart-positive laws. Because those things are everywhere. (Hence an entire website dedicated to it. Look at the map. LOOK AT IT.)
Total win for Portlanders. Utter relief for my San Francisco-based love handles.
The carts seem to be mostly stationary, which helps take the guess work out of where a particular one is (although that doesn’t stop them from having Twitter feeds, of course). We only managed to explore two of the numerous “cartopias” in Portland, but the highlight was poutine from Potato Champion on SE Hawthorne. Gooey gravy with melting cheddar cheese curds over excellently seasoned fries. We thought we would need other condiments on the side. As it turns out, we never needed them.
(And yes, there is a vegan version.)
I can count the number of times I’ve had poutine on one hand. It’s just not that common (if anywhere to be found) in San Francisco, let alone any other city I’ve lived in. And the aforementioned love handles are happy about that.
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why i love portland, #1 →
Photo from Clever Cycles
“Oregon is one of a few states that permits breweries to sell fresh beer for consumption off-premises in large resealable bottles with little or no labeling called growlers. Letting people take beer home this way is resource efficient, and promotes neighborhood patronage of neighborhood industry in a manner that doesn’t promote public inebriation, whether driving is involved or not.”
From Clever Cycles, a great non-pretentious bike shop on SE Hawthorne.
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By the time this post is up, I’ll be in the air en route to Portland, OR for the weekend.
Given that it’s the city that claims the highest number of breweries and strip clubs per capita, I am excited to test the idea of spending New Year’s Eve at a vegan strip club.
That’s right. I said vegan.
Happy New Year!
William Eggleston
Untitled (Glass in Airplane), from the Los Alamos Portfolio, 1965–74
Dye-transfer print - Theme by Corrupted Binary.
