Photo by Nina Leen via Google's LIFE photo archive.
In an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, Hannah Seligson longs for days of yore. The piece is called “How the Marriage Proposal Became a Negotiation: The question, like the ring, used to be a surprise.” It seems to be a given that this is fairly tragic. Seligson writes: “We’ve gone from popping the question to a long conversation, hammering out the details of when and how the engagement will happen.” Seligson even hints that this new negotiation-style is emasculating men and eroding gender norms, which seem to be understood as an uncommon good: “So how is all this bargaining affecting gender dynamics?” Seligson asks. She also writes: “the gender dance is still being worked out” and notes that one man felt cheated that his proposal wasn’t an out-of-the-blue popping of the question.
Seligson concludes, as if to allay WSJ readers fears that all that is sacred and holy and separate-spherical about traditional gender roles has been dismantled:
“Even so, do not mistake this for a level playing field. While there is more negotiation and compromise about the marriage timetable, Ms. Miller says her research showed that the man still holds the power to shut down the marriage conversation. Men in their 20s and 30s don’t seem to view the backroom negotiation as emasculating or ceding their turf to a generation of empowered women either. On the contrary—all this talking may have simply eliminated the only scary aspect of a proposal for a man: that the woman will say no.”
Today is Earth Day. Being a big, tree-hugging dork, I am wearing a blue dress and a green sweater, the colors of Mother Earth. (I’m really not kidding about my level of dorkitude.) Today, the entire blogosphere is abuzz with tales of what finally made people open their eyes to the realities of climate change and the need to take better care of our environment. And truly, I could write a really handy post about how I discovered No Impact Man a few years ago and set out on a course to live more lightly on the planet, and be mostly telling the truth. But the real story is, I grew up doing this stuff, and I was basically just returning to a way of living I grew up on. I was basically raised an environmentalist. I’m not talking about growing up watching Captain Planet, either, although I admit, I did love that show and may have giggled about how much my high school class ring made me feel like a Planeteer. Continue reading “my environmentalist awakening, or lack thereof”
Both of my puppygirls. Olive is the black one. I've yet to see a "Baby Bessie" because apparently cow-spotted catahoula mixes with golden eyes are rare.
There are many benefits to adopting an older dog– by they come your way, they can sleep through the night without crying, they’re potty trained, and they have less of a propensity for chewing on your stuff (though lord knows both of my adopted-as-older-dogs have chewed PLENTY of my stuff). But one major drawback of adopting an older dog is you don’t get to know them as puppies, don’t get to see what they look like when they are small and fuzzy and cuddly wuddly, all chubby bellies and slightly out of control paws.
We adopted our second dog, Olive, what we believe to be a lab/border collie mix, the Christmas before last. She was less than a year old, and had been found in the woods near my parents’ home by a family friend, so starved they initially thought she was dead. I don’t know who left her, or if she ran off, or how she ended up in the woods. I see hints that someone must have been mean to her– the way she is terrified I’m going to hit her with a broom when I sweep the floors, the way she thinks every raised object might be used to strike her, the way she cowers and sometimes pees on herself if I use too forceful of a voice with her. Continue reading “I wish I’d known her then”
In this piece, Hamilton Nolan critiques a recent NYT article called “Does Working Out Really Help You Lose Weight?,” particularly its assumption that the goal of exercise, and indeed all of life, is being “thin,” a word that is used repeatedly in the NYT’s article. Hamilton writes:
Being thin is an awful goal towards which to strive. It is certainly not the goal of an exercise program. Writing an entire, ostensibly meaningful and important story on whether exercise can make you thin is analogous to wondering whether going to college can get you laid. Yes, but that’s not really the point.
The purpose of working out is get in shape. Not to get “thin.” To be in shape, for the average person, connotes being healthy, and improving on the basic elements of one’s own fitness: muscular strength, endurance, cardiovascular, flexibility, etc.
Amen! The goal of working out, and even of eating healthy foods, is to be HEALTHY, which may or may not mean being thin. In fact, for many people, it will not mean being thin. And being thin does not necessarily mean being healthy, either. I should know. I’m what the NYT might call “thin,” with a BMI* naturally in the “underweight” range of the scale, and yet I am still what you might call “out of shape.” I couldn’t run a mile if you asked me to. I have a rather high resting heart rate. But I recently started exercising regularly for the first time in my life, by taking yoga classes, and I am feeling stronger and healthier and happier the more I practice yoga.
Not to mention, thinness is a crappy way to motivate people to pursue healthy activities. I eat healthy food because it tastes good. I practice yoga because it’s fun, it helps with my back pain, and it makes me feel beautiful just to be in my body. I even hear tell that some people like to run because they think it’s fun, though I think it sounds like torture! Do what makes you feel good and healthy. Do what’s fun. It may or may not make you thin, and who really cares anyway?
*As an aside on the BMI: a lot of those feministy body-positive Healthy at Every Size blogs I read like to talk smack on the BMI. While they have a point that having a certain BMI does not necessarily mean one is by definition unhealthy, ie, just because one falls in the “obese” or “underweight” category according to the BMI does not mean one will have all of the health complications associated with that category, the BMI is still useful as a measure of predicting risk and determining if further testing is necessary. For example, according to my BMI, I might be at risk for infertility, osteoporosis, and anemia. Because of this, my doctors might suggest testing or monitoring to see if I have developed those issues, but it doesn’t mean I have to HAVE those issues– in fact, I don’t. The same goes for people who are obese according to the BMI– they are at risk for diabetes and other complications, and may require testing or monitoring, but will not necessarily have those conditions.
Today is the anniversary of an extraordinary tragedy: the bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building by Timothy McVeigh. I was just reading a piece on TIME about the anniversary when the following struck me:
“Timothy McVeigh killed 168 innocent men, women and children in the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.”
Why do we always say “innocent”? What does innocent mean? In my strange and sometimes heretical spiritual worldview, I understand that not a one of us is “innocent.” In some way, to me, it takes away the humanity of those people who were killed to always call them “innocent”. I’m sure some of them fought with a loved one that morning. I’m sure others of them were slacking off at work. I’m sure some were thinking uncharitable thoughts of a coworker. You know, the kind of stuff each and every one of us is doing as we go about our workday. Each of those people killed was just a person trying to have a normal day, and thanks to the actions of a violent extremist, didn’t wake up to see the next day. They were human beings with good and bad, dark and light, sin and holy image, all mixed into one. And losing them is a tragedy, an unspeakable horror, even if they weren’t “innocent.”
Not to mention, in what sort of mass bombing would the victims not be “innocent”? Is there some way of deserving to be killed while you’re just going about your workday? Who gets to decide who is “innocent” and who is somehow deserving of a tragedy?
If you haven’t been reading this blog very long, you may be noticing by now that I basically only cook vegetarian and seafood dishes, with the occasional hint of bacon or chicken stock. This is because we radically changed our eating habits about a year ago, after seeing the film “Food Inc.” and reading Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma and Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. This involved a shift toward eating more locally grown, and, when not local, organic produce, and giving up most meat at home because we cannot afford to buy, nor can we find as readily, the type of pastured, sustainably grown meat we have committed to eating. So, we mostly eat vegetarian and seafood dishes when we cook at home, flavoring our foods with certified humane all natural bacon, which is readily available at our usual grocery store, and organic free range chicken stock, which we find at Costco. We also eat a lot of pastured eggs. Anyway, I just thought some folks might be starting to wonder why they almost never see chicken or beef dishes around here, and that’s why. For the record, while we try to mostly frequent restaurants that serve food that fits in with our values, we don’t hold hard and fast to our “rules” when dining outside our home. Onto what we ate this week:
eating in
We mostly ate at home this week, so I did a lot more cooking. This week we ate:
Image by Yunhee Kim via rachaelraymag.com
Rachael Ray’s Tuna Orzo Salad. This is a really colorful and tasty dish, full of veggies and sprinkled with feta cheese, one of my favorite things. It made good leftovers for me to take for lunch at work this week, because they don’t have to be reheated. I recommend using less red onion than called for unless you are just really a big red onion fan. Sometimes I don’t have the suggested red wine vinegar, so I use balsamic instead. I also don’t bother to buy tuna packed in oil, so I just make my own vinaigrette using regular olive oil, rather than the oil from the tuna.
Real Simple’s Skillet-Poached Huevos Rancheros. Though this recipe says it serves four, it served the two of us for exactly one meal. Maybe we’re just hungry hungry hippos. We love Mexican flavors, and we love eggs, so this recipe hit a real sweet spot for us. I’ll definitely be making it again. I’ll note that I forgot to buy scallions, so I sauteed some onion in the pan before putting the salsa and beans in. This would also be yummy with the addition of pepper jack or cotija cheese on top.
Hummus! I started making hummus a while ago, because we eat so much of it, and it’s much cheaper to just make it myself. I follow this recipe from The Kitchn, for the most part, though I always add more lemon juice than called for, as well as lemon zest, because I like my hummus to have a real lemony kick. This week I followed that recipe but made two different types. With one batch, I threw in a can of artichoke hearts, which makes for very creamy hummus with a subtle artichoke flavor. With another batch, I threw in some sundried tomatoes and a little bit of smoked paprika– this batch was AMAZING. I’m going to be making more sundried tomato hummus in the future for sure. It was an especially yummy treat when scooped up with red bell pepper slices.
Fried Rice. At the end of the week, when I have some leftover veggies in my fridge, I often make a big thing of fried rice (a lot like the frittata method I used the other week). This week’s batch featured brown rice, bacon, egg, squash, celery, carrot, red onion, and green peas.
eating out
Only ate out once this week. Friday night, I met up with some friends and ate at WOK (World Oriental Kitchen) on King St. for the first time. I described WOK to Jon as “the Chipotle of stir fry.” You basically get to choose noodles or rice, a protein (tofu, shrimp, beef, or chicken), a few veggies, and a sauce, and they fry it up in a wok and bring it to your table. The service was a little slower than I expected, but the food was tasty. The entire place is very eco-friendly, with reclaimed wood tables and other “green” touches, and all local, organic ingredients, all of which I LOVE. My only suggestion would be to ditch the paper straws. They turn soggy and useless halfway through a drink. Why have straws at all if they’re useless?
food for thought
So, the other day, when pondering my stove-top popcorn obsession, I mused to Jon that maybe popping popcorn in a pan I’d just fried bacon in would make for lovely, bacon-flavored popcorn. He thought that sounded insane. But then, what to my wondering eye should appear on The Kitchn but “How to Make Bacon Fat Popcorn.” I’ve yet to try it, but I think I might have to, since I invented it.
First, some back story: After 1.5 years at my job, I’m leaving next month because I’m moving. My boss, who is awesome, tells me every single day (even before we found out I was moving) what a great job I do and how sad he is that I’m leaving (proof that I’m not a total slacker, you guys!). Also: this week, I got a brand spankin’ new 27-inch iMac in my office (replacing a 5 year old 17 inch iMac). When it was installed, my boss and I had the following exchange:
Boss: “Isn’t that thing a little too big?”
Me: “Um, no! I’m going to have tons of windows, open all at once, and I won’t have to constantly minimize things! It’s gonna be great!”
Boss: “So really, what you’re telling me is, you’re going to be watching movies on that thing for your last month here.”
Me: “Yeah, basically.”
Back to the real story: So today, I’m sitting in my office watching this little YouTube video, which I found thanks to I Fry Mine in Butter:
Yep. Streisand and Celine Dion, circa 1997. Which, I find hilarious because it’s so cheesy and so 90s. Anyway, my boss walks in. Cue me trying to pause the video. It. will. not. pause. I finally hit mute, but the damage has been done.
Boss: “Whatcha doin’?”
Me: “Um, watching an awesomely cheesy video of Celine Dion and Barbara Streisand.”
Boss: *laughs loudly*
Me: *blushes furiously*
Boss: Well, come in here when you’re done, I need your help with something.
Usually, he enjoys teasing me mercilessly about almost everything, from whether or not I’m wholesome to the extent to which my shoes match my outfit (today he is rather amused that I’m wearing a blue dress, a green cardigan, and green suede sneakers with blue laces). Thankfully he exercised some restraint in the teasing over my embarrassing YouTube habits.
our adorable house. don't you want to buy it so i can stop cleaning?
Because this blog has a whole section called “Tales from the Bus,” I feel like I have to confess something: I’m not riding the bus much right now. Because our house is on the market, it has to look ready for a showing all the time. Because we still live there, this means someone has to remove all traces of our presence every morning before leaving the house. Because my poor husband has to leave to be at work at 6:30 am these days, this means I’m the one to do it, because it’s hard to sweep the floors in the dark. Because if I drive instead of riding the bus, I have an extra hour at home, I’m not riding the bus these days.
Someone please please please buy my house so I can stop cleaning it! We’re no slobs, but making the bed, sweeping the floors (with two dogs, this is a daily necessity), rounding up the clutter, wiping down the kitchen counters, scrubbing the kitchen sink, and doing a quick dusting of the living room every single morning is seriously getting annoying.
My man on his bicycle. If you see him on the street, please share the road.
When you’re driving down the street and end up behind a bicyclist, how do you respond?
Do you get frustrated that the cyclist isn’t going 10 mph over the speed limit as you’d like to, and try to whiz around them? Failing that, do you tailgate them or honk at them? Do you yell that they should ride on the sidewalk? Do you think angry thoughts that they’d dare to ride on the road?
My husband commutes 3 miles to work by bicycle each and every day. He’s learned the hard way that drivers are not concerned for his safety, will run red lights or will turn into him as he crosses an intersection, and in fact believe he should not be on the road at all. You need only to read the comments on this local news story about bicyclists to understand why he was ACTUALLY AFRAID FOR HIS SAFETY after reading the piece. Several of the commenters expressed, angrily and in all caps, that bikes don’t belong on roads, and suggested that they feel the urge to run over cyclists with their cars. One commenter even suggested that he’d like to run over cyclists, back up, and then run over them again. I honestly worry about my husband’s safety on his bike every single day.
A "Ghost Bike" we saw in NYC. Ghost Bikes memorialize cyclists killed by cars.
Many of the commenters seemed to think that if cyclists get injured, it’s their own fault. Actually, CARS cause most bicycle accidents. My work-study student was struck by a car while cycling home from campus just this week!
Many car drivers want cyclists to get off the roads and onto the sidewalks. Actually, it’s ILLEGAL for cyclists to ride their bikes on sidewalks. Sidewalks are for pedestrian traffic only, and as a pedestrian, I appreciate not having to worry about being hit by bicycles. Bicycles are required to use the roads, and drivers are required to SHARE THE ROAD. Speed limits, which some drivers seem to think are posted as requirements for minimum speed in order to be allowed use of the road, are actually UPPER limits. More drivers need to be made aware of the law concerning bicycles. For example, bicyclists do not have to come to a complete stop at stop signs or red lights if the coast is clear, unlike cars.
So the next time you’re driving down the street with a cyclist in front of you, please remember that that might be someone’s husband. Or daughter. Or mother. Or uncle. Or friend. Please share the road. And maybe even thank the cyclist for helping make your city and your planet a better place.
So, I’ve been slacking on the blog a little this past week. I expect posting to be lighter than usual for the next few weeks, as I work at a college and the end of the term gets a little crazy, and on top of that, I’m trying to get things ready for a new person to take my job, trying to sell a house, and working on coordinating our move to Little Rock, AR. That said, we’re still eating and cooking and working extra hard to try as many restaurants in Charleston as we can before we leave, so Kitchen Catch-Alls will definitely continue!
eating in
Didn’t do a ton of cooking this week, but one thing I did make was a spring fish and veggies dish loosely based on Rachael Ray’s Spring Fish in Parchment. Loosely because I used salmon, asparagus instead of green beans, and didn’t have enough parchment, so I cooked them in foil packets instead of paper. Still, a yummy dish! I had to make a quick run to the liquor store to get white wine for this recipe, which brings me to my next point…
We tried Firefly Sweet Tea Bourbon this week. Firefly is a local vodka company, best known for their Sweet Tea Vodka, flavored with tea grown here in Charleston. We’ve been to their distillery and tried every single one of their products! I’m not a huge vodka drinker, but I am a whiskey girl, so I’m PUMPED that they’re now making a sweet tea flavored bourbon. I find the warmth of the bourbon is a nice compliment to the flavor of the sweet tea, and my favorite way to drink it is watered down with a big of homemade iced tea. I haven’t tried it mixed with lemonade yet, but I’m sure that would also be tasty.
Also this week, I got obsessed with popping popcorn on my stovetop. Apparently there are ingredients in microwave popcorn which can cause lung disease. This, on top of my concern at producing so much waste (a plastic wrapper and a paper bag) every time I pop a bag of microwave popcorn, was enough to make me give up microwave popcorn. My first two attempts at stovetop popcorn turned out a bit burned and once, very much oversalted. By the third attempt, I’d figured out that lower heat works better, and sesame oil is a better oil to use than olive oil. It’s a little more time consuming, but I figure shaking the pan burns off some of the calories from the OMGREALBUTTER I like to put on top, right?
Sunday we were hungry and the fridge was slim pickin’s as we had reached the end of the week and I’d yet to shop for this week’s groceries. Glancing in the fridge, I saw a few random veggies (half a red onion, half a green bell pepper, half a pint of cherry tomatoes), some eggs, and some bacon, which I threw together into a brunch of veggie-bacon frittata served with a dollop of Greek yogurt. If you have eggs and a veggie or two, you always have the makings of a meal.
If you look in the “eating out” section, you’ll see that we tried Baked this weekend, and I was so impressed I plunked down $30 (which, don’t be dumb like me, buy it for $18 off Buy.com) for their cook book. Sunday afternoon, I made their Root Beer Bundt Cake, and, given that the blurb before the recipe says to expect an “avalanche of root beer flavor,” I was expecting some serious root beer taste. But this was not the case. While the cake was rich and chocolatey, and the “fudgy” frosting was so thick it was literally like smashing fudge on top of a cake, there wasn’t even a hint of root beer flavor under all the chocolateyness. All in all a great chocolate cake, and worth trying, but certainly not the “avalanche” of flavor it’s billed to have. Perhaps if I try again, I’ll use root beer schnapps as suggested for more intense flavor.
eating out
On Tuesday we checked out Aluette’s, which bills itself as “holistic soul food.” Though I’m sure some would argue with a pork-free restaurant that calls itself “soul food,” I found the place plenty soulful. Aluette herself, along with Chef Absalom, prepared our meals, and chatted with us while things were cooking. We enjoyed fried shrimp in a light, almost tempura batter, along with fries and coleslaw, and a delicious lamb dish served with rice and collards. Everything was plenty tasty, but a bit pricier than I’d be willing to pay for what we got without a restaurant.com certificate.
Crossing another restaurant off my list, we tried Bambu in Mount Pleasant this week. I had a Thai Basil dish with tofu, Jon tried General Chang’s Chicken, and our friend had Green Coconut Curry. We also sampled the potstickers, which were pan fried for a really satisfying crunch on one side. All of the food was excellent, the patio we sat on was lovely, and if I weren’t trying to try so many restaurants before leaving town, I’d say we’d definitely go back.
Friday night, after a dinner of leftovers at home, we met friends at McCrady’s for another 25 cent cocktail night. After giving our waitress the password, “beep beep,” we received our 25 cent sidecars. A sidecar is a drink made with brandy, and I’m not a huge brandy drinker. The sidecar was probably a little sweeter than I’d order regularly, and would definitely not top my list of favorites on McCrady’s cocktail menu (I think my favorite is still the Blood and Sand, or maybe the Ward 8), but it was still a tasty drink. We also enjoyed fried green tomatoes with green goddess dressing, and Jon and I shared an apple tart with bourbon ice cream (I wasn’t kidding about my love of bourbon).
After McCrady’s, we decided to head across the street to Baked for still more sweet treats. Baked originated in Brooklyn, and when they expanded, chose to add a location in good old Charleston, SC (apparently one of the owners has family here). Baked is not a frilly, frothy, pink and white sort of place. The entire shop is themed in orange, brown, and white, with some seriously trendy elements like antlers and lots of knotty pine. Their desserts are not typical. Each person in our group got a different dessert, and they were all passed around the table for everyone to try. Among the things we sampled: salted brownie (OMG, I will have to fight the urge to put salt on all my brownies from now on), strawberry whoopie pie (I confess I’d never had a whoopie pie before, and it was darn tasty), key lime bar (I’m always a fan of key lime), cherry cream cheese bar (this was my choice– a bar with a crushed pretzel crust, a thick layer of caramel, and a fluffy layer of cream cheese and cherry goodness on top), and a cashew bar (I’m not a cashew fan, so I didn’t try this one.) I loved everything so much that I bought their cookbook, so you can expect to see some Baked goods on this blog, probably sometime soon! (You can score their Red Hot Red Velvet Cake recipe right here.)
image via Baked
image via Baked
Saturday morning we met friends for brunch at Virginia’s on King. Virginia’s is one of the best brunch spots in a town that is seriously all about brunch (other great options include Hominy Grill, the Glass Onion, Fleet Landing, Lost Dog Cafe). One perk of Virginia’s? $9 bottomless mimosas. And our waitress’s stated mission was “to get you sloshed.” Man, I love this town. We downed so many mimosas we lost count, shared fried green tomatoes, and some of the braver among us tried fried chicken livers (our waitress brought us a complimentary plate of them)– I admit I did not try them after witnessing 3 people recoil and describe the aftertaste as “like dog food.” I had a plate of biscuits and gravy with a side of hash browns. I have to tell you, I didn’t like biscuits and gravy until I moved here, and I’ve realized it’s because they make actual sausage gravy, not that gloopy white stuff of unknown origin. Jon tried the fried chicken with collards and mashed potatoes, and though he got some funny looks for tearing into it like a caveman (but seriously, who eats fried chicken with a fork? Only stuffy people, that’s who!), but it was darn good. After all those mimosas, we wandered around on King Street until the buzz wore off. A great way to spend a Saturday.
erniebufflo's south & west kitchen 