From Carlo Petrini’s Slow Food Nation, p 105:
The enjoyment of food, which is constantly sought with the utmost ingenuity even where food is in short suply, is a physiological, instinctive matter, but one that is somehow rejected by our society. Gastronomy has not obtained the status of a science, nor even really been taken seriously, because it is a subject that concerns pleasure.
The pleasure principal is fundamental. The pleasure principle is natural: everyone has a right t o pleasure … to reaffirm this principle unambiguously and without any psychoanalytical implications is in the first place an act of civility. Since pleasure is a human right, it must be guaranteed for everyone, so we must teach people to recognize it, to create the conditions whereby “naturally” good products are producible everywhere.
Please sir, may I have some more?
This aim immediately eliminates the erroneous idea that gastronomy is the prerogative of a wealthy elite and that it must in some way be separated from food per se. That is like saying that only those who can afford it have a right to pleasure, and that everyone else, the poor, must simply eat to keep themselves alive and cannot experience pleasure.
If you think about it, this world view ties together much of what goes on in this blog: It’s all about the body and the fit uses for the flesh. We, our bodies, are not human “resources.” We, our bodies, are not to be infested with corporate desiring machines that fill us with empty calories and make us ill. We, our bodies, are not be tortured. We, our bodies, are not strange fruit. We, our bodies, are not to be invaded by surveillance devices. We, our bodies, are not to be left covered in shit in “nursing” homes so that inhuman persons without empathy can collect invisible counters. We, our bodies, are not to be forced to bear children who won’t come into the world with no chance to experience pleasure.
And so forth.
For a long time I’ve felt that the slogan or idea that a woman has a right to her own body was too small for the issue at hand: Really, the rights of all of us to our own bodies, to ourselves — the right not to be a “human” “resource” — is fundamental. This “slow food” idea helps me, perhaps, think that through.
My last generation of tomatoes before the winter is coming on. Today, for lunch, I had a sun-warmed and ripened tomato, again, with creamy fresh mozerella, and crunchy fleur de sel.
What did you have?
Front page
Check out the author of "Happier" on "The Daily Show"
Tal Ben Shahar
His book largely defines happiness as pleasure plus meaning. And it’s self-help with cred, because he teaches Positive Psychology at Harvard.
No lunch today,
But I have some shrimp I’ll be sauteing for supper, along with some steamed garden veggies.
Dinner is ribs, red beans and rice, and cornbread
…from the new soul-food restaurant in town. Damned good pleasure.
Slow-cooked, but not by me….
Carne Asada, con chiles verdes, y frijoles y calabasitas
con mucho gusto…
A Quick Study, But A Slow Learner
Homemade, freshly-baked spelt sourdough bread.
Would’ve gone well with lambert’s tomatoes & mozzarella, no doubt.
Recipes, recipes, recipes!!
Especially for you people who post widdout da spikka da Inglish (yeah I’m lookin’ a chew Woody). Some of us are in primitive, inland, isolated areas where Trader Joes, Whole Foods, seafood, exotic peppers and farmers markets are unknown.
(okay, I know one place that might almost qualify as “farmers market” but they’re just more an open-air imported vegetable stand, with huge stacks of potatoes, watermelons and pumpkins for instance. The strawberries and such that they sell earlier in the year I know they bring in from Georgia. Not the local-growers-venue that I hear of other places at all.)
Woody, I not only don’t know what you just said or how to make any of it, I don’t know what any of the ingredients are.
Recipes are always on topic. We even have a special section so you can access them again any time without having to dig back through archives or try to get our miserable worthless search function to function. (sorry lambert, have always had trouble with that thing.)
Oh, Xan, what Woody's talking about can be made
from about any grocery, if I’m guessing right.
Since Woody lives somewhere the Sangre de Cristos, from what I can tell, they’re probably hot green chiles (Hatch chiles this year are wonderfully sweet on top of the heat). I think he’s cooking his beans and squash separately but eating them in his carne asada; if I’m wrong, he’ll let me know.
There are two ways: the easy way and the hard way.
The easy way involves frozen squash: sliced yellow, and zucchini; sliced onions, crushed tomatoes, sliced chili peppers and garlic and bacon, canned beans; and fajita meat.
The hard way involves fresh veggies, from-scratch cooked beans, and either skirt steak or bottom round, finely sliced and grilled. You make your own marinade for the carne with a little rum or tequila, a little lime juice, some garlic, a little onion, a little cilantro, a couple of seeded diced green chiles, and you cook the beans with a little chile, a touch of comino, a little garlic, some tomatoes and peppers and onions and bacon, you pull the grilled meat out of the big cast iron skillet and deglaze the pan with a couple tablespoons of tequila and throw the veggies in there to saute (one green squash, one yellow squash, and one egg-sized onion per serving).
I had some of this last autumn in Ruidoso. It was tasty.
I have gas
or rather my stove does. And cast iron in abundance. Have or can lay hands on everything else you list except: serrano pepper (describe plz? I have jalapeno, habanero, banana and cayenne. Jalapeno are the only ones that grew this year so all the others are frozen) and the dark brown sugar you describe. Although I do have molasses if the addition would be helpful. The rest of it, no problem. Into the Recipe Section this shall go, you can put it there yourself for that matter.
I’d love to get a seed exchange going, particularly for those peppers that you can’t find around here. If I could figure out a safe way people can exchange postal addresses…Lambert, any thoughts? I can give you lemon trees in exchange. :)
What an interesting idea
The addresses would need to be confidential, though.
Would lemon trees grow in my zone?
Also, Xan, mail to you has now bounced twice. I’m about to send another one with the subject line “Test”….
We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!—Xan
Lemon tree survival
Hell, I am assured by various sources that lemon trees have no chance of long-term survival in Tennessee. So central Maine is probably, alas, right out.
But that’s for planted-in-the-ground-outside applications. Like anything lemon trees can be kept potted and moved indoors as circumstances require.
Apparently (per both web sources and people I’ve talked to at Atrios and the Kos Saturday Morning Garden Blogging posts) lemons can stand brief dips down to the mid 20 degree range without harm. Any combination of lower temps or longer exposure will cause them to at least lose their leaves for that season; if they survive they will probably not blossom or produce fruit that year.
Really hard freezes are pretty well guaranteed to send them to Join the Choir Celestial.
However my project is to find one that will survive outside, at least here. As long as they stay small I figure the tenting-with-small-heat-source (Xmas lights are said to work perfectly) will get them through the worst freezes I’ve seen here. Bad ice storm would do them it, but that’s probably true anywhere.
They are interesting houseplants though. You want to clip the thorns when they’re little; those suckers can be vicious if you go to pick up a pot for some reason and brush against a branch without thinking about it. They grow out a couple-three inches long and get very hard over time. Damn things would make nice crucifiction spikes for very small saviours…
Seed exhange
Interesting:
http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/exchi…
It wouldn’t be that hard to integrate one such here.
Hmm…
We. Are. Going. To. Die. We must restore hope in the world. We must bring forth a new way of living that can sustain the world. Or else it is not just us who will die but everyone. What have we got to lose? Go forth and Fight!—Xan