Vegan pizza

That... kinda looks like Australia.

Right?

You see it, right?

"Quick" pasta

Fake chikn, fried artichoke hearts, sundried tomatoes and garlic, fried onions and Serrano peppers.

ONIONS, DAMMIT.

What else to say, other than it's the beginning of a vegan hot dog bar extravaganza?

super deluxe vegan taco bar!

Okay, dear readers: enough of that political ranting crap. Let's get back to the core mission of this blog: FOOD PORN!

Take a look at this super deluxe vegan taco bar, with convenient labels. It look longer to edit the photo this way, but seemed easier than trying to describe them in text in some sort of a lopsided logarithmic spiral.

The grand total cost for this vegan taco bar feast, and a couple days of delicious leftovers? Somewhere around $12-13. How is this possible, you ask? Most of the produce is "Manager Special" from the Super 88 Asian supermarket across the street. The most expensive thing was the package of tempeh.

Longtime readers of this blog will know that I almost never shout out to brand name products. But Just Mayo by @hamptoncreek is that rare company who I think deserves it. Their product is hands down the best vegan mayo on the market: it just leaves the competition in the dust. They're basically the only product I'll consistently go to the Big Box Store Who Shall Not Be Named But Which Starts With W (because "W" sells Just Mayo for $0.12/oz, while at the Star Market across the street it's $0.43/oz.) And this kinda is random, but they have a very pretty website chockablock full of vegan food porn.

Hampton Creek really sealed the deal last year when I had a problem opening a couple jars due to the lid being essentially glued to the safety seal. (I'm strong, and have very strong hands. And these were very, very hard to get open.) I contacted them through their website with the product coding and dates on the containers, genuinely intending to only give them a heads up since I really love their product. They responded very quickly, very kindly, and asked for a physical mailing address to send thanks. Let's just say that their thanks was awesome.

Okay, enough corporate lovefesting. Back to delicious leftovers! 

Presidential election 2016

I dunno if any of you have heard, but there is an election for president of the United States in 2016.

Does it sound weird for me, a self-professed radical leftist, to say that I think I might prefer Michael Bloomberg over Hillary Clinton? (This is assuming Bernie won't be on the ticket. Or Nader. Or Feingold.)

There is a part of me that thinks that, at least when I'm listening to Bloomberg, I generally know what the smoke he is blowing up my ass is.

And maybe I'm still burned by actively volunteering for Bill Clinton in 1992, then watching the horror show that we got for eight years of the Clinton presidency (see, e.g., DOMA, PRWORA, IIRIRA, AEDPA, Don't Ask, Don't Tell, NAFTA, maintained the so-called "War On Drugs", pioneered "extraordinary rendition", authorized logging and clearcutting of old growth forest, and on, and on.) I'm not saying Clinton wasn't an extraordinarily gifted politician: he certainly was. He was one of the foremost orators and extemporaneous speakers of the last half of the century. He was also fundamentally conservative, and his positions and policies made Reagan and Nixon look like bleeding heart red diaper babies.

/rant

I almost made the below paragraph another post, but decided to keep the theme of the presidential election all in one post. Hopefully, this might be about the last you hear from me (anytime soon) on this year's presidential election...

I continue to wonder, as some of the pundits and talking heads did in the beginning, if Trump was paid by the Democratz to run. What a gift to Hillary Clinton that jackass is. Surely Sarah Palin was paid off to endorse him: the combination of tragicomic buffoonery with those two is just impossible to imagine without some palms being greased.

In all of these things, we reap what we sow, and honestly we don't have a great history. If we elect a hateful bigoted racist xenophobic classist elitist clown like Trump, it won't be that different than electing a B- grade movie actor who played short man to a chimp.

Move to Canada?

Overheard in a restaurant in Portland, Maine:

"Sarah Palin, yeah, sure, she went to law school. I'm pretty sure. I think. I'm 99% positive."

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

A view to Portland Harbor

When I regularly made photography, a long time ago, I came to accept that there were certain things that our eyes could see, and our senses could be lit up by, that simply couldn't be meaningfully recorded on film.

Yes, it was film, but the same holds for megapixels on my spacephone.

The sun is dancing in a bright glare over the harbor, the wind pushing the water along in a billion tiny diamonds.

I can't be the only person in downtown Portland who has been delighted by this this morning. But it wouldn't surprise me if in the only one who has now spent ten minutes looking at it and appreciating it.

Portland vegan breakfast

It's almost like they knew I love bikes at Local Sprouts Collective here in Portland. I mean, I don't think the cashier saw my bicycle spoke bracelet, or bicycle keychain.

Unfortunately the vegan tofu scramble was kinda underwhelming. But the place is delightful.

Deluxe vegan grilled cheese!

With fresh basil, tofurky, and bread baked around the corner in Brookline at Clear Flour. Yum!

Storage unit moving vehicle!

Also showing off my fancy new reflective tape.

Vegan fetruccine alfredo pasta bar!

Not a heck of a lot more to say on this snowy wet slippery Boston night.

Leftovers fried rice

Yep, just about what it sounds like. Brown rice, curried carrots with ginger, tempeh, banana peppers, onions, and (not leftover) spinach.

Even with my choking like mad for a few minutes when I added the banana peppers, it is thoroughly delicious. 

Ummm... Zucchini?

Res ipsa loquitor.

Pending lasagna.v

Vegan lasagna!

Pretty much just what it sounds like, with lots of caramelized ONIONS!

2015: a year in books

As I have for a number of years, I'm posting some numbers of the books I read in 2015.

The basics: in 2015 I completed 29 books, for a total of 8,583 pages. This put me significantly ahead of 2014, when moving five or six times left me only with time to read 19 books, for 6,406 pages, and closer to 2013, when I completed 30 books for 8,903 pages.  None of these figures include books I didn't finish, since I'm happy to put a shitty book down if I have any better options.

As for 2015 highs and lows: some of the best books I read included a couple shorts ones by a favorite author, Cormac McCarthy: Child of God, and The Gardener's Son.

Cliche though it may sound, Room by Emma Donoghue was excellent, if dark as fuck. (I have no real interest in seeing the movie.)

I also really enjoyed Paper Towns by John Green, as cute, moving, incisive, if somewhat improbable coming of age fiction. I mean, it's hard to not enjoy a book that has teens doing fairly realistic urban exploration of abandoned buildings.

I also finished some really shitty books, notwithstanding my note above. Let's Explore Diabetes With Owls by David Sedaris was one of the worst books I've ever finished in my life. It's stupid, contrived, forced, and feels like little more than a throw-away to meet a contract with a publisher that people only bought because they like This American Life. I really should have put it down, but it was kind of like rubbernecking a really bad pileup on the interstate: you know you shouldn't look, but you kind of can't help it.

Going Home by "A. American" was just plain fucking bad. I genuinely really like dystopian and post-apocalyptic books (and movies), and I'm willing to put up with some prepper silliness to read the genre. The basic storyline was cliche and trite and predictable, but not in itself terrible. The tinfoil hat conspiracy theory nonsense was... just that. But the most irritating part was the constant, relentless name brand product placement that did zero to advance the story. I swear there are single sentences that contain three or four name brand product placements, like, "I crawled out of my Brand A sleeping bag, pulled my Brand B boots on, grateful for clean Brand C socks, and located my Brand D backpack while chambering a round in my Brand E .45 semi-automatic with Brand F hollowpoints..." And this nonsense went on on nearly every one of the 388 pages. It was awful.

If you wonder if I'm overstating it, you can read Chapter 1 on the book's Amazon page. Here's one example:

"Lying beside the driver’s seat by the door was my ESEE 5; I laid it on the pile. I put the Devildog on the pile as well. As my EDC, it had a number of things in it that I would need. There were two spare mags for the XD, an Otis tactical cleaning kit, a Sylva compass, a Wilderness Outfi tters SOS survival kit, Swedish FireSteel, and other assorted items that I thought essential."

Here is another:

"I walked around and grabbed a couple of bags of Jack Link’s Beef Jerky; all I could think about was the Sasquatch commercials. Chuckling to myself, I went to the aisle with the little packs of meds and grabbed a few Excedrin packs, some Rolaids, and two packs of Imodium pills."

I actually made a point to finish two more books in the last few days of 2015 so that this piece of crap wouldn't be the last thing I finished in the year.

So, that's the report. Dear readers: what did you read in 2015 that you loved? 

Who knew?

It turns out that it's an absolutely real possibility to set a cookie on fire in a microwave.

Ringing in the new year

What better way than with vegan chocolate chip cookies?

Vegan food fun!

Curry with tofu, okra, onions, broccoli, and other good stuff. And for dessert, banana bread!

Obscure

'Cause sometimes you just gotta blog things that only certain people will understand.

Xmas tofurky!

Yep, just what it sounds like!

Leftovers today for lunch!

Gobble gobble!

Errrrr...

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?

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!

Vegan enchiladas. And stuff.

Onions! And poblano peppers, anaheim peppers, zucchini squash, sauce, and oh thank goodness I'm home in Boston.

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, I was 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.

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. 

white male body entitlement and privilege

Yes, in case you're wondering, there are many people standing on this MBTA red line train. Including with strollers, young children, and baggage.

Hotel room vegan food porn

Pretty tasty!

@ SLC airport

Vegan food porn, NY Thruway Edition

It's a burrito kinda day: chipotle first, now Moe's.

Many miles to go before I sleep.

Veganpalooza

This is just right in yer face food porn. Rice, tofu with long hot peppers, kale salad, and caramelized onions. Yum!

Building from trash

These are discarded dresser drawers from the back alley, turned into closet shelving. I love making stuff out of garbage!

This is how we roll

Another in a series of bike as multipurpose cargo vehicle.

Samsonite

I'm sure they make some good products. Or maybe they used to.

I do sometimes wonder what the folks in the airport think when I roll up with my gold medallion tags on my brokeass suitcases.

Playa Dust:

The gift that keeps on giving!

This is the seatpost clamp on my Burning Man bike, which I need to swap the seat out on since a BRC Ranger van ran over the seat at Ranger Outpost Berlin.

Cleveland

One of the times it's really lovely to walk on the busted up sidewalks and streets of Cleveland is at 6:45am: folks actually acknowledge and greet one another, usually with "good morning" or "buenos dias". I had four such interactions in my ten minute walk to the Cleveland RTA rapid station, on my way to fly back to Sacramento.

Granted, these are largely parents, or other caretakers, getting youth off to school, and the youth themselves.

But even with those who might be wandering from their difficult overnight, or those about to get off of a graveyard shift, or just starting an early day shift, there is a sense of... camaraderie? mutual struggle at being up so early? or so late?

Wouldn't it be beautiful if we all acted this way throughout the day?

One trick ponies

If you absolutely must ride a one trick pony in the kitchen, clearly all reasonable minds would agree that said pony should be ONIONS.

But when you have approximately a metric shitton of ripe miniature tomatoes just outside your back door near the end of their season, why not color it up a bit?

Just added these right at flame-out.

Onions for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and tomorrow!

Okay, not _just_ onions. Also tofu, and loads of fresh ginger, and fresh basil from the garden. Perfect for making wraps for long airplane rides tomorrow!

Agenda

dangr-us thoughts HQ Agenda for Thursday October 8, 2015

1) Sleep until 11:30am.
2) Drink iced coffee.
3) Hydrate. 
4) Heat up and eat leftover hippieslop* from last night.
5) Get ready for back to back conference calls for volunteer work.
6) Listen to public radio.
7) Blog.

Some days FunEmployment is pretty great.

* Fancypants hippieslop, that just won't photograph worthy of a real food porn post its current state: whole wheat pasta, black beans, peanut sauce, multicolored curried carrots, spinach, shallots, scallions. Not to pat myself on the back too hard, but it's pretty damn delicious.

the best $10 you can spend today!

It's been a while since I implored all of you to donate money, so I thought I'd give it a shot.

Dear friends run a really beautiful non-profit called Alderson Hospitality House. They provide hospitality to the women incarcerated at the Alderson federal prison camp in Alderson, West Virginia, and their families and friends, entirely through donations.

In a nutshell, from their website, which I encourage you to check out:

The Alderson Hospitality House supports the women of the Federal Prison Camp Alderson and their friends and families. We believe in the importance of visitors during incarceration. Our volunteers and staff, through donations, demonstrate this belief by providing temporary lodging, meals, transportation assistance, information and support.

What that nutshell statement doesn't include are the really critical intangibles they also provide: love, care, warmth, kindness, non-judgment, safety, generosity, and much more.

They have a fundraiser each year called 10-In-10: they encourage you to donate $10, and share it among your networks to try to get ten additional people donating $10 within 10 days.

Or you can do as I just did, and drop the whole $100, and hopefully share it anyway! Here is the link to donate:

https://www.razoo.com/story/10-In-10-4?referral_code=share

Please consider it. I'm pretty confident it'll be about the best $10 you could possibly spend today!

And because I like to hack other people's fundraisers, tell you what: if ten people I know donate any amount, and tell me about it, I'll donate another $100!

Thanks, Duracell!

A long time ago, this blog had regular posts about poor customer service and consumer protection law. I'm not sure I have ever posted about excellent customer service. Well, Duracall just made me a customer for life with their battery guarantee.

They're going to send me a visa gift card for $18.49 to replace a maglite that had a D cell battery corrode and destroy the inside (essentially making the outer case of one of the batteries chemically welded to the inside of the flashlight barrel.)

Welcome to sunset on Lake Erie

Nothing to add.

Uhhhh.. challah?

We're doing our best!

Yom Kippur!

My first attempt to make vegan (or any type) of challah. We'll see after it rests, and we come back from the Decemberists (!!!)

Cooking for a "roving band of anarchists"

Vegan nachos!

Yes: those are fresh tomatoes and fresh basil from the garden on top.

More chickpea tofu red curry food porn

Yes: a little over a hour later, I'm still working on prep. (And cooking, too!)

The start

Of a really big curry. With chickpeas, tofu, and lots and lots of vegetables. Oh, and: rice from Oberlin Xmas.

You're invited!

#postburningmanlaundry

Res ipsa loquitor, no?

Dear reader:

An apology food porn post, since it's been a really long time since I posted.

I went to Burning Man (which is amazing, and intense. I'll probably tell many of you more stories offline if you're interested.) Worked a few 11 hour days doing high price catering. Started to figure out a move to Boston.

This is a fancy assorted plate dinner with my housemates. Eat up!

Spied behind the Cleveland Greyhound station

Ummmm... anyone want some discounted grape jelly?

Mushrooms!

Soon to be turned into roasted stuffed mushrooms, so I gotta get to work!

From one to four!

Just repotted a single big healthy aloe plant into four separate plants.

Who knows - maybe I'm now responsible enough to take care of more than a single indoor houseplant.

Broccoli Pesto

Made a few tweaks, because I'm that kind of cook, but was pretty true to the recipe. It's delicious!

Something I made.

All the while aware that it was temporary, until the tide came in.

bhodi svaha.

Huge thanks and appreciation go out to the artist, Andreas Amador, who made this possible, and F, who invited me. 

Boston, you're pretty wonderful sometimes.

Boston vegan food porn

Making a big (TBD) vegan dinner after a long, lovely day in Boston. More soon, maybe, on the interactive art installation I participated in. Or maybe that'll be private on G+. We'll see. Feel free to email me directly if you're interested!

Baba ganoush!

Well, an attempt anyway, making it in the style J is so good at, but I've only been a prep assistant for. We'll see!