Tag Archives: food

PAD 2/2/13 – Think Global, Act Local

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“”Think global, act local.” Write a post connecting a global issue to a personal one.”

This platitude is something you hear bandied about by people trying to pose as activists in the first world. They use this phrase too much to try to sway people who are really not interested in changing what they are doing. Life is comfortable in the way we are living it, imposing our comforts on the entire world is actually what is working to damage it. We hop in our cars which is damaging the climate. We pay taxes to a government that is besotted with war, so in that way, we are washing our hands in a fountain of blood. We are against cruelty to animals but eat agricorp chicken, beef, and pork. The fact that we are cruel to the ugly animals and kind to the cute ones is a hilarious batch of double-think.

We think that by imposing our will on the world, a world that doesn’t share our cultural background or our religion or customs is somehow not going to end in a blaze of destruction and ill-will returned to us in spades? It would be far better to let the world develop all by itself without the mighty hand of the American Empire. We can handily defend our borders, Canada is affectionately inert and Mexico has been providing us with slave labor for so very long that we should actually be sending them little thank you cards. Illegal immigration is the pot calling the kettle black. All we need to do is defend our waters and leave the rest of the world to fend for itself.

This isolationist policy spits in the face of globalism and it doesn’t matter if you are for it or against it, it’s going to be the only option left to us very soon. How much money does it take to fund American interventionism across the planet? How much money do we spend on our bullshit wars? We defend places that no longer hold interest for us. We defend Japan, the Philippines, Germany, the DMZ in Korea. We perpetrate a hopeless war of irrelevant stupidity in Iraq and Afghanistan against foes that may or may not be there. It doesn’t matter what your politics are, what you think is right or wrong to do in a time of war. Eventually we will just RUN OUT OF MONEY and then what? What happens when there is nothing left, no more money to be had. When our debts overwhelm us? Will we die by the sword or by trillions of tiny little paper cuts? It’s folly to think that we can buck the trend that has been established for thousands upon thousands of years. Empires come and go and they last for about 250 years before they start to erode away. America is 237 years old. We’ve got 13 good years left to us, and we’ll be slated to die of natural causes in 2026. We can of course kick the can down the road, but to do so we will need to stop being foolish with money. For as long as America has existed, we’ve been at war almost constantly. What has it gotten us? A broken world that resents us. We will eventually run out of money which will mean we will have to abandon our designs on “The New American Century” and give up aspirations on an eternal American Empire. It’s just not going to happen. It would be better to admit this sooner rather than later. Dispose of war, leave these regions for good and let the people there sort out their own affairs. Leave Korea for the Chinese and Japanese to puzzle out. Germany and the Philippines no longer require our presence, they are doing just as well without us as with us. Call back all our overseas troops and concentrate our budgets on matters of home and hearth.

Either we can do this sooner, when it’s comfortable for us to do so, or we could wait and then run out of money. I’m sure our military will continue to serve as proud Americans after their paychecks stop coming. It’ll be really quite nasty when we can’t send food to them and they have to start fending for themselves. Alas, that’s the choice we have before us. Either we can retract or we can let what we’ve sent abroad starve. It’s just a matter of time.

Out of Place

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So when I walked into the local asian food market I definitely felt a sense of being a stranger in a strange land. I was clearly the tallest person in the market, as I walked around I realized that I couldn’t recognize a single thing on any of the packages. I was after ramen noodles and I didn’t think they would be too hard to find. After 15 minutes of wandering around the store I eventually did discover where the noodles were. What I found in the market that surprised me was that everything came in very strange sizes, initially it was all 11.3 ounces, so I originally thought that the issue was that they came in different metric values that made sense. After looking at the products I discovered that the metric values weren’t correct either, they were just very strange.

What added to my awkward feelings were that the market pleasantly requested that customers only purchase in cash. I did not have a problem with this, however I had to visit the bank first to get out $20, then make my purchase, then return to the bank and deposit cash. It wasn’t unpleasant as the bank was just around the corner from the market however it was a little funny.

As I drove off I realized that I could have just gone to Meijers markets instead and got what I was after all along. Now I don’t have any problem with patronizing the asian market however it would’ve been more convenient to visit Meijers and I could’ve saved the run around back and forth to the bank.

The next time I need a very special ingredient, of course I will go to the Asian food market for this purchase. For regular stuff I’ll just go to Meijers.

Special Note: This blog entry was 99% dictated using Apple’s newest OSX, Mountain Lion. I think it did a pretty good job. The only thing it didn’t get was special terms like “Meijers”.

Chocolatea

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Chocolatea

Chocolatea was originally discovered by Scott a while back and he recently introduced me to this new shop down in Portage. It’s located at 7642 South Westnedge Ave between Schuring Road and Centre Road. They have great hours, open during the early mornings on the weekdays, close at 9p and open at 9a on the weekends. It has become our preferred spot to begin our mornings during the weekends.

I never thought I liked tea, my maternal grandmother loved tea and she would always make tea via teabags and boiling water and it would make this bland brew in her white porcelain teacups. I drank it once and didn’t like it, it tasted like hot tap water with a plant in it. My folks, including the entirety of my paternal side of my family all prefer coffee. They are all very avid coffee drinkers, my mother prefers hers without additives and my father prefers his additives with a little bit of coffee. I will drink coffee if it’s available but I won’t brew it myself and I won’t go out of my way to obtain it. I find black coffee to be too bitter for me. Other people enjoy it so I don’t begrudge them their preferences.

So I drank a lot of soda pop, then tried to get it out of my diet due to the high fructose corn syrup that they use to sweeten it. I switched to diet soda and that was really not much better. I swapped out one unwanted chemical (HFCS) for another (Nutrasweet). So I gave up on soda pop altogether and once I got my HydroFlask, I’ve been enjoying my native element quite a lot (Cancer is a water sign).

It wasn’t until I visited Chocolatea did I re-discover Tea. They have two walls completely devoted to various kinds of looseleaf tea. Almost all of it is high quality full-leaf teas, with only a few powdered teas to speak of. They have apparently a full spectrum of teas from what I’ve been researching. They have White, Green, Black, Oolong, and Pu-erh Teas, some pure, some with additives. They have Earl Grey, with it’s delicious citrusey Bergamot oils in Black and Green varieties, which I really appreciate as that was (and still is) one of my favorite flavors of tea. They also have some Tisanes, Rooibos and Yerba Mate teas to round out the selection. Everything is stored in these glass spring-sealed jars that line the walls. The type of tea has it’s name and an index number and the price per ounce listed plainly on the label. Most of their teas are between 2-4 per ounce and while it seems not very much, tea is exceptionally not-dense, so you get a LOT of tea for the money.

Chocolatea also has a fully stocked supply area to explore tea and I never knew that teabags were a conceit to sell crappy tea to ignorant consumers. It doesn’t help that Americans rejected tea as a drink after the Boston Tea Party (and no, we aren’t going to honor the modern “tea party” whackjobs here) and Americans never recovered a taste for tea. This particular American however has. Chocolatea sells everything you need to make an exceptionally excellent cup of tea. They sell Bodum cups, which are double-walled and insulated so you can pour boiling water into them without scalding your fingertips as you try to drink. They also sell tea infusing baskets, which are cup-sized stainless-steel microfilter baskets that you put the loooseleaf tea into and then pour water on top of. The basket allows water and the soluble parts of the tea to pass in and out while keeping the leaves sequestered in the basket. Making tea this way is so much better than using teabags that I’m amazed there still are teabags!

Chocolatea is 80% about their teas and they sell as well as brew tea to order. They also have a great selection of lattes, coffee, and specialty tea-derived drinks as well that are quite nice. The other 20% of their business is selling supplies, food items and desserts, and their chocolate selection. If you like tea you owe it to yourself to visit Chocolatea, if you like Chocolate, you owe it to yourself to go. Even if you don’t like tea or chocolate (and frankly I don’t know if I want to know you if you don’t like at least chocolate) the atmosphere is incredibly conducive to writing. There is ambient music provided by XM/Sirius celestial radio, but it’s very subdued. The people sounds are the predominant feature in Chocolatea as they do a brisk business. The ever-present mishmash of people talking quietly is very soothing, at least to me. You can’t really make out individual conversations but the droning chatter is pleasant.

Chocolatea has a frequent customer program and if you sign up they ask you for your email, address, and birthday. I can only imagine that they have something clever, marketing wise up their sleeves when they ask for birthdays and email. The owners work their store and I’ve run into them from time to time and they are incredibly helpful and amazingly pleasant people. Their employees are very nice and are always free with kind smalltalk and smiles. One thing I did discover to my chagrin is after buying tea, which they have a little area set aside for dosing out the teas you want into plastic baggies – it’s important to write the name of the tea down as well as it’s index number! I had three baggies with just numbers and not a clue what was in the baggies. After calling Chocolatea they were very happy to help me identify what each baggie contained and now when I buy tea there, I always include the name.

So far, for my explorations I love their black teas, mostly “Paris”, “Earl Grey”, “Cream Earl Grey”, and the Green “Bangkok”. Their Yerba Mate blends are excellent and I just purchased sight-unseen some Pu-erh Tea and that is AMAZING. I keep on marveling at how good tea is now that I’m making it with high-quality ingredients and brewing it the correct way. The owners of Chocolatea are always pushing tea education even when you call them to get names of teas from just having index numbers. They are free with advice on how to brew whites, greens, oolongs, and black teas. Both the temperature of the water, how much tea to use, and how long to let it steep. If you go to Chocolatea, you will get an expertly crafted cup of tea and after you are done, you can hand them back the cup and ask for re-steeps. I had no idea that tea leaves could steep over and over again! The refills are complimentary! One thing to note, if you get an Oolong tea, apparently that particular tea can re-steep a LOT and the flavors in each cup unfold with each steeping. There is so much to explore there, and the prices will not break the bank.

If you have never been, I heartily recommend it! If you love to drink coffee then you really should ask for them to make you a cup of Caramel Pu-erh Tea. I bet you’ll fall head over heels in love with it and want more!

If you would like to get set-up to make tea I can make some good suggestions, first off if you have a tea-pot already then use it. If you don’t, then Rival or GE make a very nice electric kettle for $12 or $30 respectively. I bought a Rival electric kettle for work so I could fill it with water and heat up my water by my desk. The Rival is nice (as I assume the GE one is as well) in so far that when the water boils the unit pops off. When you hear the click, the water is just about at 200 degrees which is perfect for black teas. If you wait just a little bit longer, the water cools so you can make whites or greens too. The infusion basket is $10 and is permanent, so with careful cleaning you’ll never need another one. The Bodum cups are $10 as well. So right there for about $40-$50 of an initial investment you can enjoy tea the way it was meant to be enjoyed! After your initial investment you just have to buy the tea itself and as far as I can tell loose-leaf tea is shelf-stable for a long while, so it’s not like there are any timers that are running if you don’t get around to a particular tea in time.

If you go to Chocolatea and you discover that you like tea as much as I do, please leave comments about what teas you like. I’m always looking to explore more and the selection at Chocolatea is enough to keep you occupied for a very long time.

Jersey Giant Subs

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We had lunch at Jersey Giant Subs today. The shop is on the end of a strip mall across from the Meijers on Westnedge. The restaurant was clean and orderly and set-up like I expected it to be. The staff, an amicable fellow behind the counter was exceptionally friendly and did a great job introducing us to the menu.

The menu is styled as one expects, a sub shop. It appears as some of the items have been revised, for example, yellow peppers are now free, I think they used to be more. The food is prepared freshly carved and prepared using top-quality bread. The food, the most important part of a restaurant was done very well. There were some surprises, mostly the Italian dressing isn’t combined directly but rather left to combine on the sandwich itself. It’s not bad, just different.

The only real negative mark is the price point. A lunch for two for $18. The competitive price should have been closer to $14-$15. Otherwise it was very well done and next time we’ll get one single large sandwich and split it. Then the prices will drop to be in line for what they ought to be for lunch. It’s not a fault with this shop, but rather with our inexperience with it.

Pushing Om Nom Nom to 11

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Quite possibly the best recipe I have that is insanely delicious and not very bad for you is Alton Brown’s Dan Dan Noodles. Here’s the recipe:

Dan Dan Noodles – Recipe courtesy Alton Brown, 2011

Prep Time: 30 min Inactive Prep Time: 0 Cook Time:1 min
Level: Easy
Serves: 4 servings
Ingredients
1/3 cup creamy peanut butter
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons grated fresh ginger
2 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce
1 tablespoon dark brown sugar
1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
1 tablespoon Chinese black vinegar
1 tablespoon chili oil
1/4 cup low-sodium chicken broth
8 ounces ramen noodles
1/2 cup roasted peanuts, chopped
3 scallions, finely chopped
Directions
Place the peanut butter, garlic, ginger, soy sauce,
brown sugar, sesame oil, black vinegar, and chili oil into the bowl of a mini-food processor. Process until
the mixture is well combined and forms a paste, 1 to 2 minutes. With the processor running, gradually add the
chicken broth and process until the sauce is creamy and well combined, 1 to 2 minutes. Transfer to a large
mixing bowl, cover, and set aside while you prepare the rest of the dish.
Place 4 quarts water into a large pot and bring to a boil over high heat. Add the noodles and cook until al
dente, 1 to 1 1/2 minutes. Drain thoroughly in a colander. Add the noodles to the bowl with the sauce and toss
to combine. Serve topped with the peanuts and scallions.
Copyright 2011 Television Food Network G.P., All Rights Reserved
Printed from FoodNetwork.com on Sun May 08 2011© 2011 Television Food Network, G.P. All Rights Reserved

It’s no fun being sick

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The past two days have been a literal blur for me. I started feeling the chills and off-feeling early on and as time went on, it just grew worse. Eventually I started having severe GI issues, pretty regular headaches, a fever, hot-flashes and chills, profuse sweating – all in all very not fun. I skipped out on pretty much all food the first day, I just couldn’t risk anything. I then realized that I needed some calories to keep going so I opened a can of Coca Cola, which usually either clears my system or ultimately resolves my problems one way or another. After holding down several bouts of severe nausea I found a place to lay down that felt good. For some reason the big blue couch in my living room, some throw pillows, and a big blue comforter was EXACTLY what I needed. I pounded down at least 4 hours of solid dead-to-the-world sleep and felt far better when I awoke. After I got over whatever hit me, I figure the likely suspects are either e. coli or cryptosporidium, I felt better. I started with a glass of milk, then moved up to toast. This morning I hazarded cooked oatmeal and that wasn’t a problem.

Tomorrow I will return to work after two days of being sick. I bust on Western for a lot, mostly petty internal bickering and annoyances, but when it comes to being really sick and needing time to recover, its worth it’s weight in gold, to have over 480 accumulated hours of Sick Leave available to use, it’s just one possible stressor that is nowhere to be found.

Everything is better now. My stomach feels fine, my system feels fine, and everything is working as nature intended. I don’t know where I caught the bacteria but I know it was a bacteria. Something that survived stomach acid and set off an attempted coup in my system. With lots of rest and a really quite on-top-of-things immune system I bounced back handily.

I missed my post-a-day yesterday, but there was just no way, I wasn’t able to type let alone flop off the couch. I don’t like being sick, it makes me incredibly emotional, unbelievably needy, and a giant mush in pretty much every regard – assuming I have enough energy available for any of it. Scott was wonderful, as well as all our friends who came to visit and enjoy Glee Night with us, but my two boys, Owien and Griffin were very cute. The minute I would flop down they’d leap on wherever I was and curl up and sleep with me, as if to protect me. So unbearably cute.

With luck I can avoid the matrix of things I did two days ago that got me sick, I have some suspicions and I can do things to avoid having to run into those things again. I hate having to feel that way. I don’t ever want to do it again.

State Burger Review

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Earlier today we did lunch at State Burger in Portage Michigan. We were already progressing down Westnedge Avenue doing other errands and while trying to figure out where to go to lunch we remembered seeing this place from our earlier stop at Kumo’s Hibachi Restaurant which is just around the corner of the same strip-mall building.

State Burger, which has a facebook page serves burgers, chicken, fish, and competently good Hot Dogs. The arrangement is a pretty standard burger joint and today they had three people manning the store. The order person, the cook, and someone we both pegged as the owner. Everyone was doing their job very well and our food took not-longer-than-we-expected time wise. This place has a really great thing going and we both agreed that their formula makes it damn near impossible to screw up, that food made with fresh real ingredients by people who are doing their best is a sure-fire way to succeed. Even if you botch everything and burn the food, it’s still quite good.

We were both pleased by the food, the service and you certainly can’t beat the price. Scott was so impressed that he thinks he could make it a regular lunch place when he’s free from Barnes & Nobles since it’s well within walking distance, about two hundred yards from his usual stop, the Pizza Hut. We both commented that skipping out on PIzza Hut for this place was probably the best idea when it comes to healthier food. Between the Pizza Hut and State Burger is Taco Bell. We were laughing at the recent misfortune that Taco Bell had been on the business end of, that people were questioning the notion that Taco Bells meat actually has any meat in it. For all that kerfuffle, it’s pretty much clear to us that you can skip both frankenfood destinations and find better food just a few yards away.

Spreading Sickness

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It all started with a guy named Ray. He was sick, and gave it to his boyfriend, Steven. Steven gave it to our friend Justin and Justin gave it to all of us. This illness is more of a minor annoyance to me, but quite troublesome for Scott because of his already extant breathing difficulties. I’ve been ‘chugging’ down tea as fast as I can brew it, for as much as you can chug just-off-the-boil water.

This is a plain-jane rhinovirus. You feel achy and have chills for a little while, then your head fills up with gunk and over some sleepless nights it spreads into your lungs. It makes breathing difficult and spreads along your vocal cords, which for me makes me more Barry White-Betty White than I care for. The key I’ve found is hot tea, hot soup, good food, rest and apparently TheraFlu, which I just took. The TheraFlu stuff is quite good. It’s got a cough-supressant, a decongestant, and an antihistamine. You prepare it just like you do tea. I threw in a packet of Splenda to make the medicine go down but it wasn’t unpleasant at all to take. I like the idea of a powder added to hot water as it’s almost as perfect-for-your-system as it can get. No having to dissolve dextrose or cellulose pill containers, the chemicals are already a little higher than body temperature so absorption is marvellously quick. I’m sure a good portion of how I feel is placebo, but my nose is draining and my froggy/tickle has just about gone away at the back of my throat.

The question I have to face is, do I head into work tomorrow or do I attempt some sort of telecommuting angle? WMU is renowned for being very skitterish about presenteeism and handling of leaves of absences. I of course have nothing to worry about because I have over 480 hours of accrued sick leave, but I do need to get some work accomplished. I will see how I feel tomorrow of course, as is the usual way.

I think there is a trifecta for dealing with this virus, Zicam, TheraFlu, and Mucinex-D. That should make your system hut right to it, and you won’t have to put up with the obnoxious irritation that this virus represents. I knock on wood that this virus has no stomach-upsetting angle to it.

Scott has gone to urgent care as his health insurance is poor and adding him to my insurance would bankrupt me. They’ll give him a breathing treatment and then chide him for using urgent care most likely. I do not envy his position, already being under-the-gun as it were and to add this insult-to-injury. I don’t think a doctors visit for me would do any good other than probably waste money and pre-occupy a doctor with a triage-worthy sack of symptoms. I’m doing what common sense dictates, rest, fluids, and symptom management. My immune system will do the rest.

Erbelli’s Pizza

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Today for Comixlunch, Scott and I decided to go visit a new-for-us restaurant in Kalamazoo called Erbelli’s. We ran into Max at Fanfare Entertainment (our local comic book shop) and after we bought our comics we took a trip all the way across town to where Erbelli’s is. I already knew they had excellent Pizza due to a surprise lunch thrown for the staff by our local management at work so I expected this to be top-notch.

My expectations were generally met. The pizza that Erbelli’s makes is incredibly good and currently occupies my #1 choice for Pizza anywhere. Their restaurant is unusually organized and I believe it was due to an expansion they made after they “made a better mousetrap”. The “original” shop is very small, quite literally a foyer jammed against a large pizza kitchen. The expansion is a cutaway doorway between the original strip-mall space and its adjacent space. The dominating feature of the adjacent space is the bar, it’s immense! Nothing about Erbelli’s is confusing or difficult to manage. The restaurant has some wear-and-tear issues that come with any place that’s been open as long as they have been and really those didn’t detract from the experience, they were just a part of the ‘atmosphere’ of the place. We went for their lunch buffet, from 11am to 2pm, about $8 per person. Everything about the buffet experience is customer-driven, you get your own food, you tend your own plates, and you tend your own drinks. For what I spent and what I got, it was an absolute steal. Truly exceptional pizza with every part of the experience in my hands, the way I like it.

There was only one problem with Erbelli’s and it’s not really a showstopper, more of a hip-bump adjustment and that is, there isn’t any labeling present on the buffet layout. You don’t know what Pizza is laid out on the buffet and you pretty much have to look-and-see to figure out what is what. It’s something that is exceptionally easy to fix, just need some cardstock, an inkjet printer, and about half-an-hour and anyone could make little disposable tent-cards which would really polish off the entire experience.

When I say Erbelli’s has good pizza, it’s a massive understatement. It’s the best pizza I’ve had in my life and I prefer it more than any other Pizza anywhere (with a normal exception to NYC Pizza, but that’s nearly in a different category altogether!). I can’t recommend them enough, and to that end, here is their contact information and address. If you like pizza, you owe it to yourself to go and enjoy what they have to offer:

6214 Stadium Drive
Kalamazoo, MI
375-0408

-or-

8342 Portage Road
Portage, MI
327-0200

Kalamazoo Beer Exchange

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Last night, December 21st, 2010 we got together with our friends and headed to a new restaurant on Water Street in downtown Kalamazoo. This old building was District 211 first, a restaurant that served really odd food at really high prices, then it became Charlie Fosters, which was a smoky Chicago faux-mobster dive and that too failed. In its current incarnation it’s Kalamazoo Beer Exchange.

This new restaurant has a very nice interior and thanks to the statewide smoking ban actually is pleasant to enter. The wait staff really aren’t that interested in welcoming new diners to the restaurant, one may think that they are simply overworked, but we noticed them chatting and ignoring a build-up of new diners at the front door, so take that for what it’s worth. Once we were seated we got our menus, which were fine. This establishment serves bar-food and bistropub food, an odd high-brow/low-brow mix which is cute and innocuous. When you sit down the focus of the bar area is the market-ticker display, a giant flat panel television with the prices of every carried draft beer, and they have about 30 of them available. We asked for a menu of their beer provisions and they didn’t have a menu for their drafts. So you pretty much just had the brand and the name to go by. The gimmick is not readily apparent at first glance and it took a verification question to our waitress to figure out what it all meant. Draft beer prices are adjusted every 15 minutes by the popularity of the beer. So if Bud Light sells a LOT, the price goes up. If beers don’t sell well at all, the price drops. So each 15 minute cycle you could pay $4.25 for a 22-ounce glass of beer, or $3.25 a bit later. The gimmick is cute and does set them apart, but it eventually does lead to irritation as the popularity-feedback-loop means that value is pretty much out the window – a beer isn’t expensive because it’s good beer, a beer is expensive because townies make it one way or another. Case in point, Bud Light was 4.25 and Labatts was 3.25. Ohhh-kay.

As for the food, that was the biggest heartbreak for this place. The burger was top-notch, really well done. The soup was okay, I could have taken or left it either way, but the one thing that blew my mind and ruined the entire experience was the value-added french fries. That’s right, you have to pay an extra dollar to get fries instead of potato chips. So I was forewarned that the fries were overseasoned before and that perhaps they had corrected the problem. Well, obviously not. The dollar-more fries were HORRIBLE. Overseasoned was the weakest description possible for what was slung on a plate. The salt level was beyond anything that I had previously experienced. If I was responsible for perpetrating those french fries and charging money for it, I would be living in a constant fear of being lynched.

That being said, our first experience was a massively bad one. The gimmick is worth a chuckle at first but eventually gets very old very quickly. The food suffers from those unforgivable abominations they call French Fries, and the cost, $32 for 2 people is too high for what you get. We won’t ever return to this restaurant and it’s one of many downtown that we regard as never-agains. It ranks up there with Food Dance in over-expensive pretension trying to masquerade as anything but bottom-of-the-barrel dining. If the initial experience doesn’t drive you off, then either gastroenteritis or kidney failure will.