What better way than with vegan chocolate chip cookies?
Thursday, December 31, 2015
Tuesday, December 29, 2015
Vegan food fun!
Curry with tofu, okra, onions, broccoli, and other good stuff. And for dessert, banana bread!
Monday, December 28, 2015
Saturday, December 26, 2015
Friday, December 25, 2015
Xmas morning breakfast vegan food porn!
Vegan sausage and bacon, and (actual) NYC bagels.
This is how most Americans start off Xmas day, right?
Notably, the vegan bacon is some of the best I've ever had. And the company, Sweet Earth, happens to be based in Pacific Grove, California, where my father grew up. (No, he would probably not be a fan.)
It's already in the high 50s here in Boston, with an expected high of 60. It's bright sunshine, so much sun streaming in that we have every window in the apartment wide open. Global climate chaos, anyone?
Saturday, December 12, 2015
Vegan Enchiladas: Round Two!
Here's the making table: a mix containing caramelized onion and poblano peppers and garlic, vegan soyrizo, fresh home made pico de gallo, and fried broccoli.
And here is the finished product!
Monday, December 07, 2015
Vegan enchiladas. And stuff.
Onions! And poblano peppers, anaheim peppers, zucchini squash, sauce, and oh thank goodness I'm home in Boston.
Thursday, December 03, 2015
More library love. And some of my politics leak out.
Some of you already know these stories, but here are a few highlights of my nearly lifelong love of libraries.
1) It starts with books. Of course, right? Pretty much every day (that it wasn't raining) on my walk to school, all through the first through eighth grade, I read a book while walking to school.
2) In middle school (seventh and eighth grades) I volunteered in the school library. I had a contest in the seventh grade with another library volunteer to see who could read more books (in a quarter, I think?), as proven by our library checkout cards. Which were paper, with handwritten titles and authors, and a date stamp. It was tight for a while, but I pulled ahead and ultimately won by reading the entire Louis L'Amour collection. Yes: our little library absurdly dedicated nearly an entire bookcase to spaghetti western, and we had nearly all ~100 L'Amour books that had been published.
2a) I didn't know it until just now, but L'Amour died that June as I was finishing the 7th grade. This apparently wasn't sufficiently newsworthy for the Sacramento Bee, or the Sacramento Union (a shitty little reactive right wing rag of a daily newspaper that I delivered as a kid, which one journalist described as “a mouthpiece for the fundamentalist Christian right, preoccupied with abortion, homosexuals and creationism.”)
3) I first started hanging out at the Belle Cooledge branch of the Sacramento Public Library during that time as well.
3a) Belle Cooledge was Sacramento's first female mayor, elected in 1947. That's pretty cool that my first public library was named after her. She was also an active member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, a historically racist organization that denied membership to otherwise eligible women because they were African American until 1977. That's not cool. Well, at least they sneaked in just ahead of the Mormons admitting African American men to full "Sainthood" in 1978.
3b) But let's not stray too far afield here. Even though I do, as my readers know, consider public libraries to be temples of freedom, this is about libraries, not the denial of basic liberties and freedoms. Hmmmm... Wait just one damn minute.
4) I was a Boy Scout, of course also a famously bigoted institution, denying membership to LGBTQ youth until 2013, and LGBTQ adult leaders until July 2015. I know, you're thinking hey, wait, they're solid now, right? Don't clap just yet.) There I go again, ranting about freedom. But, hey, my first Boy Scout troop was housed in a Mormon church, so...
4a) Anyway, as a Boy Scout, I helped with another scout's Eagle Scout Service Project, which was moving every single book from the existing branch of the Belle Cooledge library to the newly built branch a mile away. I loved it. I genuinely loved just about every minute of it.
4b) I later quit the Boy Scouts after a rather contentious summer camp experience where I exacted revenge on the scoutmaster's son and his best friend. They had been consistently bullying a developmentally delayed fellow scout, in really cruel ways. That's a story for another time. Here's the teaser epilogue: from what Creepy Uncle Google can tell me, the best friend doesn't exist anymore (or changed his very unique, very google-able name) and the scoutmaster's son made Eagle Scout, and is now a lighting technician.
5) Forward to high school, where I spent only typical kid amounts of time in the library. Well, that;'s probably not true: a lot of fellow students at my high school, which had a dropout rate of 40-50%, and football team stars and Student Government members openly smoking pot and dropping LSD in the gym bathrooms, probably spent less time in the library than I did.
6) In college, I spent many long hours in the library hanging out with our fantastic college archivist, an assistant director of the library, talking about the school's history. (I also spent many hours hanging out with the director of the facilities and buildings department. Hey, Iwas
am kind of a nerd, okay?) It's a bit of a strange story, but I also had access to the library after closing hours. Kinda. And made good use of it.
7) In law school, I had a work-study job in the law library. It was great. In my first semester I realized that I didn't have to buy the outrageously overpriced textbooks since the law library kept a single one on reference for every course, so I did most of my course reading in the library from there on.
8) That I can think off of the top of my head, I have had public library cards in at least eight different states, and at least twelve different cities.
9) I LOVE LIBRARIES.
10) I LOVE FREEDOM.
11) LIBRARIES = FREEDOM.
1) It starts with books. Of course, right? Pretty much every day (that it wasn't raining) on my walk to school, all through the first through eighth grade, I read a book while walking to school.
2) In middle school (seventh and eighth grades) I volunteered in the school library. I had a contest in the seventh grade with another library volunteer to see who could read more books (in a quarter, I think?), as proven by our library checkout cards. Which were paper, with handwritten titles and authors, and a date stamp. It was tight for a while, but I pulled ahead and ultimately won by reading the entire Louis L'Amour collection. Yes: our little library absurdly dedicated nearly an entire bookcase to spaghetti western, and we had nearly all ~100 L'Amour books that had been published.
2a) I didn't know it until just now, but L'Amour died that June as I was finishing the 7th grade. This apparently wasn't sufficiently newsworthy for the Sacramento Bee, or the Sacramento Union (a shitty little reactive right wing rag of a daily newspaper that I delivered as a kid, which one journalist described as “a mouthpiece for the fundamentalist Christian right, preoccupied with abortion, homosexuals and creationism.”)
3) I first started hanging out at the Belle Cooledge branch of the Sacramento Public Library during that time as well.
3a) Belle Cooledge was Sacramento's first female mayor, elected in 1947. That's pretty cool that my first public library was named after her. She was also an active member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, a historically racist organization that denied membership to otherwise eligible women because they were African American until 1977. That's not cool. Well, at least they sneaked in just ahead of the Mormons admitting African American men to full "Sainthood" in 1978.
3b) But let's not stray too far afield here. Even though I do, as my readers know, consider public libraries to be temples of freedom, this is about libraries, not the denial of basic liberties and freedoms. Hmmmm... Wait just one damn minute.
4) I was a Boy Scout, of course also a famously bigoted institution, denying membership to LGBTQ youth until 2013, and LGBTQ adult leaders until July 2015. I know, you're thinking hey, wait, they're solid now, right? Don't clap just yet.) There I go again, ranting about freedom. But, hey, my first Boy Scout troop was housed in a Mormon church, so...
4a) Anyway, as a Boy Scout, I helped with another scout's Eagle Scout Service Project, which was moving every single book from the existing branch of the Belle Cooledge library to the newly built branch a mile away. I loved it. I genuinely loved just about every minute of it.
4b) I later quit the Boy Scouts after a rather contentious summer camp experience where I exacted revenge on the scoutmaster's son and his best friend. They had been consistently bullying a developmentally delayed fellow scout, in really cruel ways. That's a story for another time. Here's the teaser epilogue: from what Creepy Uncle Google can tell me, the best friend doesn't exist anymore (or changed his very unique, very google-able name) and the scoutmaster's son made Eagle Scout, and is now a lighting technician.
5) Forward to high school, where I spent only typical kid amounts of time in the library. Well, that;'s probably not true: a lot of fellow students at my high school, which had a dropout rate of 40-50%, and football team stars and Student Government members openly smoking pot and dropping LSD in the gym bathrooms, probably spent less time in the library than I did.
6) In college, I spent many long hours in the library hanging out with our fantastic college archivist, an assistant director of the library, talking about the school's history. (I also spent many hours hanging out with the director of the facilities and buildings department. Hey, I
7) In law school, I had a work-study job in the law library. It was great. In my first semester I realized that I didn't have to buy the outrageously overpriced textbooks since the law library kept a single one on reference for every course, so I did most of my course reading in the library from there on.
8) That I can think off of the top of my head, I have had public library cards in at least eight different states, and at least twelve different cities.
9) I LOVE LIBRARIES.
10) I LOVE FREEDOM.
11) LIBRARIES = FREEDOM.
Freedom
And actually, before I went on that longwinded discussion of libraries, that last post about two of my favorite things was going to be about libraries, and a favorite new word I just learned:
eleutheromania (n): an intense and irresistable desire for freedom
A shout out to the Cycling Dutch Girl blog for teaching me that fantastic word! (You should really go check out the blog: she has been traveling more or less constantly for fourteen years and counting, and has great posts and gorgeous photography.)
Two of my favorite things
What are two of my favorite things? This isn't a pop quiz, but it also won't come as much of a surprise to anyone who actually knows me, or who even just follows this blog. (BTW, who are you who don't know me, but follow this blog? I'd love it if you would say hello. You can do it in the comments section which I moderate, and I won't post it. Promise.)
Anyway, I digress. Two of my favorite things:
1) libraries
2) books
No, they aren't, anymore, coextensive. So many people in the library these days are there for things other than books. Sometimes, I think this is wonderful: newspapers, events, films, warmth, high speed internet for folks who often can't afford it, classes and education, available bathrooms, mostly non-judgmental staff who don't expect you to buy anything, and many other things.
Sometimes I think it's just a little sad: e.g., a couple nights ago I visited the main branch of the Boston Public Library to check out a copy of the Raymond Chandler classic The Big Sleep. P met me there, and on the way out I pointed out the longest line in the main lobby. She explained it is for DVD holds.
On the one hand that I'm very glad that libraries continue to be viable and important third places, and much of this is through making digital media and services available. On the other hand, when I sit in reading rooms and see more than half of the people on their devices, it's a little sad to me.
Wherein comes the comparison between the main reading rooms in the Boston Public Library, and the New York Public Library. This kind of isn't totally fair: when I lived in NYC last year and early this year, the gorgeous Rose Main Reading Room at the Schwarzman Building (main branch) was closed (and remains closed) for renovations. As a result, I spent most of my time in the Periodicals Room, a gorgeous but much smaller room than Rose. I liked it because electrical outlets were, as far as I could tell, non-existent, putting an inherent limitation on the number of people on laptops. The library rentacops would wander through on the regular, but mostly leave people alone. (This compared to another reading room in the Schwarzman Building, third floor IIRC, where the rentacops stand around imperiously and meanmug people, and where I watched a rentacop almost make a young lady studying a TOEFL guide almost cry for drinking out of a closed coffee travel mug.)
In the BPL, I migrated toward the great big and beautiful Bates Hall reading room. I appreciated the very clear norm of people being silent. Almost eerily silent: with probably 75-100 people in the room, you could hear the rustle of newspaper pages being turned. Unlike most libraries these days, almost nobody was on an electronic device.
So, it's kind of a comparison-not-comparison. On balance, I'll take Bates Hall at the BPL any day over pretty much any room in the NYPL Schwarzman Building. But I need to go back after the reopen the Rose Room and update the comparison.
And local branch comparisons? There is none: BPL wins hands down. I'll take any part of either of my two local BPL branches, Honan-Allston, or Brighton, over any part of what used to be my local branch in NYC, Seward Park, and don't even get me started on the Hamilton Fish Park, surely in the top ranks for Loudest Public Library in America.
But comparing libraries is a little like deciding which of your children you like best, and that age-old (and often untrue) claim that most parents fall back on: that they love all of their children equally.
Ahhh, libraries. I love all of you. I just like some of you better than others.
Anyway, I digress. Two of my favorite things:
1) libraries
2) books
No, they aren't, anymore, coextensive. So many people in the library these days are there for things other than books. Sometimes, I think this is wonderful: newspapers, events, films, warmth, high speed internet for folks who often can't afford it, classes and education, available bathrooms, mostly non-judgmental staff who don't expect you to buy anything, and many other things.
Sometimes I think it's just a little sad: e.g., a couple nights ago I visited the main branch of the Boston Public Library to check out a copy of the Raymond Chandler classic The Big Sleep. P met me there, and on the way out I pointed out the longest line in the main lobby. She explained it is for DVD holds.
On the one hand that I'm very glad that libraries continue to be viable and important third places, and much of this is through making digital media and services available. On the other hand, when I sit in reading rooms and see more than half of the people on their devices, it's a little sad to me.
Wherein comes the comparison between the main reading rooms in the Boston Public Library, and the New York Public Library. This kind of isn't totally fair: when I lived in NYC last year and early this year, the gorgeous Rose Main Reading Room at the Schwarzman Building (main branch) was closed (and remains closed) for renovations. As a result, I spent most of my time in the Periodicals Room, a gorgeous but much smaller room than Rose. I liked it because electrical outlets were, as far as I could tell, non-existent, putting an inherent limitation on the number of people on laptops. The library rentacops would wander through on the regular, but mostly leave people alone. (This compared to another reading room in the Schwarzman Building, third floor IIRC, where the rentacops stand around imperiously and meanmug people, and where I watched a rentacop almost make a young lady studying a TOEFL guide almost cry for drinking out of a closed coffee travel mug.)
In the BPL, I migrated toward the great big and beautiful Bates Hall reading room. I appreciated the very clear norm of people being silent. Almost eerily silent: with probably 75-100 people in the room, you could hear the rustle of newspaper pages being turned. Unlike most libraries these days, almost nobody was on an electronic device.
So, it's kind of a comparison-not-comparison. On balance, I'll take Bates Hall at the BPL any day over pretty much any room in the NYPL Schwarzman Building. But I need to go back after the reopen the Rose Room and update the comparison.
And local branch comparisons? There is none: BPL wins hands down. I'll take any part of either of my two local BPL branches, Honan-Allston, or Brighton, over any part of what used to be my local branch in NYC, Seward Park, and don't even get me started on the Hamilton Fish Park, surely in the top ranks for Loudest Public Library in America.
But comparing libraries is a little like deciding which of your children you like best, and that age-old (and often untrue) claim that most parents fall back on: that they love all of their children equally.
Ahhh, libraries. I love all of you. I just like some of you better than others.
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