(Nothing But) Flowers

I’m sure at least some of you heard about the NYT article that came out last week discussing how the Bush adminsitration refused to open an email report from the EPA and placed it in limbo status. This was not just any document but was, according to the article, “the E.P.A.’s answer to a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that required it to determine whether greenhouse gases represent a danger to health or the environment.”
Last Wednesday Jon Stewart put together a piece called “Be Patient, This Gets Amazing!” on this (watch the show intro & through the first 5 minutes). This is absolutely nuts to me that they could get away with this, but Stewart’s right: it does get amazing(ly mundane) how many stories we’ve heard like this.

OK, I was wary of Gavin Newsome when he came into office but have to give him & San Francisco some kudos for some of the programs & changes that have happened there since he took office.
Just found out that SF is sponsoring a 2-year pilot program to establish victory gardens throughout the city. For those who don’t know, victory gardens were the food gardens that Americans were encouraged to grow during WWII to save fuel from going into food production. With it looking like we are either at or fast-approaching peak oil, the time is near for more of these sorts of projects.

Boston, by chance, has the last remaining original victory gardens in the park along the Fenway. Worth a walk-through if you are ever in the city!

Check out this post on the Rooftop Gardening website about the very cool rooftop garden that the Food Project maintains at the Boston Medical Center. Most of the food grown here gets sold at lower than market rates in the Roxbury-Dorchester area and also donated to food shelters around Boston. Yours truly helped with laying down watering pipes and planting some of the plants in the rows in the first pic (although I ended up planting ‘em too close together).
I have to admit to some weird obsessing on the idea of rooftop gardening– the other day when some friends described how they were going to build a deck over the garage behind their apartment, all I could think was: but, you could create a great rooftop garden up here! Luckily, I wasn’t geeky enough to say this to them. Kept it in my geeky little brain until writing it down now.

I bet many of you may have already seen these videos since I tend to be waaay behind on my pop culture references.

But, for those of you who haven’t seen them yet, you gotta watch this skit by Sarah Silverman telling Jimmy Kimmel that she’s (bleep)ing Matt Damon. Even better, is Jimmy Kimmel’s response. Believe me, these are well worth 5 minutes of your time, I almost died laughing.

OK, so this is probably only of interest to me (as much of this blog is!), but here’s a pic of our community garden plot. We just set it up this weekend, located in the Brookside Community Garden (behind Ula Cafe). We’ve got strawberries, lettuce, oregano, mint, 3 types of tomatoes, eggplant and cucumbers going right now. Cranberry beans, basil and chard are on the way! I’ll try to document as the summer moves along. . .

We’re back from our trip to Sicily and here is a list of highlights from our food experiences (more soon on other aspects of the trip).

1. Fresh ricotta: this needs to come first because several of the others are based on it. Ricotta in Sicily is nothing like that pasty stuff we call ricotta here in the US (granted I love our pasty stuff too). It is fresh, made from sheep’s milk, creamy and soft with a delicate flavor. Mix it in with your pasta, throw it on top of a pizza, spread it on top of your pane siciliano (bread made of durum wheat)—yum!

2. Cassata: a dessert made of fresh ricotta with sponge cake around it and candied dried fruits either on top or mixed in with ricotta. The one I ate (see picture above) had chocolate chips in the ricotta and marzipan along the side. This was delicious! I was slightly obsessed with tasting this and finally was served it on our last day there by my partner’s cousin.

3. Gelato: Sicilian gelato is even better than the mainland gelato- I swear its creamier! Some favorite gelato experiences:

- Mulberry gelato—these are in season for only about 2-3 weeks and the tart gelato they make is delicious.

- Ricotta gelato—We only found this in the southeastern corner of Sicily (in Siracusa and Ragusa Ibla) and it is deliciously creamy.

4. Gelato in a brioche: OK, this could go above but it deserves its own category since you gotta love a people who eat gelato in a sweet bun of bread! This is typically Palermitano but is found in some other areas of Sicily. Especially good with chocolate or nutella flavors. Palermitanos even have this for breakfast in summer!

5. Watermelon pudding and other fruit puddings: Typically Sicilian this pudding is called “gelo di melone”. The watermelon juice is infused with jasmine flowers overnight and it gives the pudding a delicious aroma and taste. Heavenly! My partner’s cousin made this on a visit to the U.S. 9 years ago and I have dreamed of it ever since. Another version is one made of lemon—deliciously tart with miniature strawberries on top. My partner’s uncle who runs his own restaurant in Palermo has made his own version of this: mandarin pudding! I got the recipes from the uncle and am going to make my own.

6. Fragoline: Miniature strawberries!!! These are heavenly and tart and are the size of the tip of your pinky finger. I was a bit obsessed with them.

7. Arancine: Saffron-infused rice balls filled with cheese and then deep fried. So good and a meal in themselves.

8. Fruta da Mattorana: You often see this weird marzipan fruit at Italian bakeries in the U.S. They really come from Sicily, specifically Palermo where they were first made by the Catholic nuns at the Mattorana cathedral in Palermo in the 1600s. These are not delicious—I cannot tell a lie, but they made it onto this list for their cute-kitsch factor. Above are some pictures of some of the best fruta da Mattorana that I saw.

9. Seafood: Generally caught that day and served fresh—Sicily is a pescatarian’s delight! Some favorites were the clams, mussels, octopus, and the smoked swordfish.

10. Wine by the carafe: I am not a wine snob, but I love good wine and trying new wines. I am particularly enamored with the idea of going down to the local wine merchant and buying locally made wine in bulk. My favorite part of our meals was sampling the local wines by doing this—they were all good! Above is a picture of a shop in Siracusa (Syracuse) where you can get your own bottles filled with the local wines of Southeast—generally a Nero d’Avola variety.

One of the best things about Sicily and food is how much Sicilians love it and how assertive they are about where to go to get the best whatever (whether it is a type of pastry, a flavor of gelato, etc.). Meals were long and social and drawn out over several courses. I have to say I truly felt loved and welcomed by the feasts that my partner’s family put on during the time we were there! This list is totally random and doesn’t include many wonderful Sicilian specialties such as panelle, fritella, chocolate made in Módica, various types of cheeses, etc.

We owe many of our fabulous meal experiences to my partner’s uncle and aunt who are both wonderful cooks at home and who have a great restaurant in Palermo. His cousin is also a top-notch cook and host.

is very effective.  Jon Stewart on abstinence only education.

OK, this is the most outrageous thing I have heard of since, well. . . there’s been lots of outrageous things these past 8 years. But, this is pretty bad.

N.C. hospitals are requiring rape survivors to pay for their own rape kit examinations when they go to NC hospitals to collect evidence– at a cost of approximately $1,600! Here’s the News & Observer article that documents this. Infuriating.

I’ve seen this piece on Suburban farming on a few different local foodie websites. Love this idea.

check it out

Ok, so this blog is hilarious: Stuff White People Like

It makes me laugh and makes me cringe with the embarrassment at identifying with many of the “what white people like” traits!

Speaks for itself. I love it.

Found via Boing Boing and downloaded here.

You may have already seen this but if not:

Tina Fey, gotta love her, just blasted a hole in those who have been calling Hillary a b*tch and other nice phrases. Check out this skit from last Saturday’s Saturday Night Live. The piece on Hilary starts about halfway through the skit.

I love it up until the point where she ends with “Bitch is the new Black” (uh duh, let’s not forget our race-politics for the sake of feminism), but up ’til that point, it rocks! While I am an Obama supporter, the blatant sexism that Hillary’s run has incited has got me riled up.

My partner & I often talk about how much we miss our local market in Berkeley– the Monterey Market– that would randomly include rare fruits and vegetables grown in people’s small gardens or backyards for sale. You never knew what you would find for sale that week! It was a very special & unique place to buy food.
Well, Slow Food Boston is hosting a showing this week of a documentary on that same market called Eat at Bill’s: Life at the Monterey Market. I was so surprised and happy to see a documentary made on it! Ahhh. . . nostalgia for the Bay Area. . .

We just had a snowfall of at least 6 inches here in JP and across the Northeast. As usual, it is beautiful out! And it was very peaceful watching the snow fall all day yesterday. But! I am looking forward to spring & a shift in weather, which I know realistically won’t start until April here in Massachusetts.
In hopes of warmer days, I finally signed us up for our first ever try at a CSA (community supported agriculture) with Stillman’s Farm here in the greater Boston area. We’ll be picking up our boxes weekly come June. I want to learn how to blanch veggies & vacuum pack ‘em, so that we can store them for the upcoming winter. Our trips to our local coop have revealed very little (if any) local veggies which is expected in the Northeast– but, geez, they could try to stock local root veggies & squash at least.

Here’s a great article by Stephen Zunes that lists the differences between Obama’s and Clinton’s policy advisors. I appreciated reading this because it definitely clarified some crucial differences in what their foreign policy might be.

Now that Edwards is out of the race, I’m supporting Obama! Not that his positions are perfectly in line with what I’d want, but they are the best of the two.

I’ve been happy to see so many of the NYT editorials addressing the problems with our food system. Today there was a great article, Rethinking the Meat Guzzler, comparing the petroleum used in travel to the amount that gets used in beef production.

The U.S. FDA approved the use of cloned animals for food production & consumption. Both of meat & milk. Its a brave new world. . .

Just found out about some folks doing a documentary on JP– check it out.

She named a corporate ag head honcho (former head of the National Pork Producers Council) as co-chair of Rural Americans for Hillary. This group supports the use of CAFOS (contained animal feeding operations– the type that are so horrendous in rural NC and in others rural places of the US).

Edwards has supported a moratorium on the hog farms in NC. Not sure where Obama stands according to the link above and the comments that follow.

Last night some friends hosted a Gingerbread village making party– our theme started off as “An Urban Winter Wonderland” but quickly degenerated into Ginja’hood: complete with a bar, KFC, liquidation center, Snow Peeps, etc. See this link for my partner’s Flickr posting for more shots of the ginja’hood.

The pictures don’t do justice to the level of detail that went into this thing: the liquidation center has a bargain bin, towels (folded fruit roll-ups) on graham cracker and gumdrop shelves; the KFC has a graham cracker counter with a snow-peep employee and with two snow-peeps enjoying a meal of “chicken” and mashed potatoes and gravy on Necco wafer plates.

Note the Nike shoes (Good and Plenty’s) hanging from the telephone line below.