I got to see one of my intellectual heroes, Marion Nestle, speak last night. She is the author of Food Politics, which was among the first books i read on food geekery, and certainly the first really good one.
Her presentation was great. She is totally as awesome as her book – maybe more so. She is really quite funny; i find it notable that she is often both more lighthearted and more academic than most of the other well-known (in that super-niche way) food politics authors i’ve read. My favorite quote from the evening was “practicing sociology without a license, as I am.” Of course, along with some really amusing pictures and product labels and such, she had some very interesting graphs and info – you know how i like charts and graphs! I’m hoping she puts the slides on her website at some point; i haven’t had a chance to really poke around it and see how much is there. But i have been reading her blog, which is a great way to keep up with the most recent in nutrition and food labelling, such as:
Italy’s new food label: “Mafia-free”
Thanks to Anulu Mass of the Global Post for telling me about the latest front-of-package foods labeling initiative, this one from Italy. I’m just back from lecturing in Rome, Milan, and Vicenza, but didn’t get to Sicily which must be why I missed seeing Libera Terra labels on wine, olive oil, pasta, and tomato sauce. Libera Terra labels guarantee that the foods were produced with no mob connections. I’m so relieved.
I learned her name is not pronounced Nestle, like, 
, but nestle, like, .jpg)
.
I also got suckered into the book-signing. So, now i have a copy of What to Eat, which i had successfully talked myself out of buying and somehow failed to read via library either, although i’ve wanted to do both since it came out. Not so bad. And it’s signed “Eat well and change the world!” Really, that’s as cool as my signed Miss Mallard Mystery (written by Quackenbush, whose signature was a duck. In a shrubbery. Teehee.)
It’s good advice, i think. So, “enjoy, eat well, and change the world (for the better, of course).” And, if i can recommend a book i’m on page 28 of, i do.
Lady Brett
What to Eat - Marion Nestle
I would like nothing more right now than for life to slow down.
The really sad thing about it is that, excepting breakdowns and shut-downs, most everything is going well. It’s only, while going well is better than going badly, i would rather most of it not be going at all.
I’m currently pinning my hopes on camping this weekend.
Lady Brett
"Bright Light Of Day" - Anne McCue
I realized last night that i’m terribly sheltered.
We went for drinks and snacks with a buddy for his birthday last night. It was a bit strange in that there was no one else there that we knew, but that isn’t generally unsurmountable. And everyone was nice enough, but it ended up being awkward and we left fairly early.
On the drive home, we were trying to figure out why it had been so surprisingly bizarre. The main thing that stuck out in my mind was that i’m so sheltered. My friends, work and whole community – online and at home – are all fairly progressive (the main exception to this is people i know through Jamie’s work, who are unabashedly anti-progressive). Three or four times last night i heard people say these sort of stereotyped, racist – but minor and subtle – things that just made my jaw drop (inside my head). But they were all in the vein of “acceptable” bias that no one else seemed to notice, and that i can’t remember any of the details of.
The people i know simply don’t say things like that, so i was totally oblivious to how perfectly acceptable it is. It’s kind of appalling to me. The other think about it, though, is that it’s almost impossible to call someone out on. If someone is going about talking about “ragheads” it is perfectly simple to be clear that that is fucking unacceptable (i’ve always been pretty comfortable interacting with assholes). But when they’re propagating untrue, culturally supported stereotypes, you can’t say “that’s inappropriate” and leave it at that. Because people will genuinely not understand why (and thus write you off as crazy oversensitive). The only way to counter that is to have the opportunity for an in-depth discussion, which is hard to get.
Jamie pointed out that the people last night were all white, seemingly middle-class and straight (though, of course, we don’t know for certain), which means that they probably haven’t been put in a position to have to think critically about our culture.
We bandied back and forth about why it was so strange, though. Especially considering that in a lot of respects, we grew up in the same culture they did. Final Jamie said, “they were all…normal.”
Also, this feels strange to write, because it feels very othering – i know there is kind of a lot of “us” and “them” here (it feels like writing about “those people”). And i really don’t think it’s any better to talk shit about the dominant culture than about minority groups. But there are really two parts to this.
One has to do with people who i am not particularly adept at interacting with (or, at the least, which i don’t tend to enjoy). This is the bubbly personalities and discussions of bad christian pop from middle school that made the night fairly boring and a little awkward for me. And this is about us not being very comfortable around “normal” people. But this part is also perfectly fine (i just don’t think we’ll be hanging out with his new posse much).
The other part has to do with privilege and entitlement, and with being completely unaware of those things. This part is a significant part of the dominant culture, and it is not fine. And i don’t feel like i’m talking shit in this regard, because this is the part that is real, serious critique.
Lady Brett
"This Place Is A Prison" - The Postal Service
I regret to inform you that there will be no costume this Halloween. It just didn’t work out. Mostly, i don’t have any plans for Halloween, and, well, you know about “all dressed up with nowhere to go.” There were discussions of hosting a Halloween party, but this is just not the year for it. The house is not really prepared for guests. Which brings me to my Happy Halloween post!
Spooky, huh?
The plastic is the result of walking in two days ago to find that “leaks under the window rather a bit” had been joined by “Oh, fuck! Who turned the faucet on in the blinds?!” Oh, and the rotten wood in the corner is the siding. Well, there is aluminum siding over it, but you can see that from the inside. hmm. On the bright side, wherever that water was coming from is sealed up – that, at least, is just old damage.
This is, in an immediate sense, spookier than the first picture. That last one? That is all mold – everything that’s not wood (or crowbar). However, this is the kitchen floor, which you may remember my mentioning previously is done. All that terrifying stuff? Gone.
As such, the first picture is much, much scarier. Because it’s kind of way beyond me. Oh, and for added Halloweeny goodness, the roof leaks too. I don’t think i’ve mentioned my newfound antipathy for rain.
Anyhow, while i don’t have much in the way of plans for tonight, i will be donning my glow-in-the-dark skeleton shirt (when i get out of my pj’s) and giving out candy to tricker-treaters for the first time. I’m kind of keen on that idea. I’ll show y’all our pumpkin once it’s dark and lit up, too. It’s really cute. You didn’t think i’d scorned Halloween completely, did you?
Lady Brett
"Sad But True" - Metallica
Okay, i’m sorry in advance for cheat-blogging with YouTube videos.
Also, i am embarrassed to admit…i’m kind of really into Glee. Yeah, that new tv show that’s all popular and stuff. Or, at least, i get the impression, via the internet, that it’s popular.
The fact that i don’t have friends who tell me about this sort of thing – or that my friends have given up discussing television around me – might totally invalidate my use of the word popular. Or cool. Which, actually, is the perfect segue.
But i’m embarrassed to say so because…well, two things. First is that it’s just as shitty as most tv shows. I don’t mention it much (so as not to be that girl), but i don’t just “not watch television.” I fucking hate most television. I hate drama in my real life. Drama inclines me to stop talking to friends i love. It kind of makes me long to live in a cave (a common euphemism for those of us who didn’t watch tv as kids, as it happens). So drama in fake life, for entertainment? Oh, hell no! Right, but, second: Glee is as full of stupid, crappy, generic stereotypes as it is of stupid, crappy, generic drama.
My favorite so far.
To make up for these things it has hit pretty much all of my soft spots. I love music, and i don’t think they’ve played a bad song yet. I love stereotypes (when used for good and fun). Everyone is cute. The football-lead-guy wouldn’t really be my idea of cute, but he has the best smile on earth (when i was a kid, i used to practice having a half-smile – i really do think they are all that). Plus, i identify. Not with the preachy, kumbaya crap. But i did go to high school with those kids, because most of us really were walking stereotypes at 15 (except my high school didn’t have sports or cheerleaders).
And, more recently, i find the dance-practice aspect kind of inspirational. I did Odyssey of the Mind in 4th and 5th grade. Then i didn’t step foot on another stage until i started drag. Now we (sometimes) do choreographed group numbers. Which are awesome. I really, really dig it, and watching this silliness reminds me of our silly practices and makes me want to try new shit and see how much we suck at it until, suddenly, we don’t anymore.
So, okay, i kind of wish it just skipped from number to number, but to get them you have to watch that plot thing, and now i’m invested and have to watch the rest to make sure all the inevitable shit actually happens, and keep myself properly irritated between music.
One of my favorite songs on earth. Singing along to this in the car with the windows down is a guaranteed cure for anything. And they’re cute here.
Oh, and i’m in love with Jane Lynch.
Lady Brett
"Bust Your Windows" - Jazmine Sullivan
I’ve opened up a “new post” window every day this week. Sometimes multiple times, but i can’t seem to focus, so here is what i’ve wanted to be writing about.
Body image, food, health, all that. Thanks for your comments on the last post, and they’ve gotten me rolling on one of my favorite topics again. Perhaps i will write abot me for once, as i’ve nearly exhausted my opinions on this crap. Though you should be excited to hear that the FDA is looking into regulating health claims on food (Smart Choices, anyone?).
Why i think marriage is stupid (and why i want to get married).
Also, this is awesome – 
How i failed to patch the leaks in our roof. But the living room is turning out lovely! And i can’t believe i spent four hours cleaning last night and only got the house back to a state of “livable.” Clearly i need to teach my roommates about this “trash bag” thing. And, you know, do dishes a bit more often.
Femme Guide to Butch Drinks, parts 5,6, and 7. Fall! and Real Butch Drinks (or, what my butch drinks) part one: girly drinks, part two: virgin cocktails.
I think veggie soup with grilled swiss cheese sandwich is my new favorite comfort food. Sorry, that’s all the foodie friday you get.
There have been wonderful femme-theory posts going about, and i want to join in! Mostly i want to explore the idea that femininity is inherently impractical. I was cought up in that for a long time.
And wonderful music posts! I love music (and, specifically, thanks to G for reminding me that it’s about damn time to hear Brandi Carlile’s new album. I’m newly obsessed with this song.)
Speaking of which, my favorite thing, at the moment, about being home alone is being able to blast to a song on repeat. Because it’s just something you simply oughtn’t subject other people to. Even if it is the damn best song ever at the moment.
Lady Brett
"Dying Day" - Brandi Carlile
An announcement, out of apparent necessity:
- I find my girlfriend hot.
- I love my girlfriend.
So. I would appreciate you not tearing her down, but you are allowed your opinion. What you are not allowed is to tear her down on account of me.
There are not many things that make me angry. Sometimes i get worked up (politics) or frustrated (utilities, puppies).
And i suppose this would make more sense if i started from not the end of the story. Let’s call it one story for the sake of simplicity. Where the friend says to Jamie that she ought to join this diet. And Jamie says, “um, no” – or, “that’s fucking nuts,” or what have you. What follows is a friendly coercion/argument. You know how these things go. (While i have political opinions on the conversation so far, i’m not particularly invested.) And then, somehow, it always seems to turn to “Brett would like you better if you lost weight.”
That makes me angry. So many ways. Weight, while the most common and most culturally heavy, is not the only subject of such events. But somehow this has only come up on subject about which i am diametrically opposed to the speaker. So, okay, there are “don’t speak for me when you don’t know” issues here. But that’s only the start of it. The real issue at hand here is that you are actively trying to make my girlfriend feel shitty about herself. Which, while i don’t appreciate, is, of course, your place as a friend. So perhaps the real issue is that you are invoking me to make my girlfriend feel shitty about herself. Which i understand works better, but if i thought it was a good idea i could do it myself.
The really-real issue here is that you are invoking me, without asking, in a case where i think you are wrong, to make my girlfriend feel shitty about herself.
All of this would be easily avoided if you would please remember two things:
- I find my girlfriend hot.
- I love my girlfriend.
Which is why i’m fucking dating her.
Lady Brett
"Fuck Off" - Wayne County and the Electric Chairs "In other words: if you ain't got time to take a walk with me on my meat rack, then you can just get the hell out of my bread line" (sorry, i can't resist that line)
But it’s Thursday! Well, yes, but i’m going to San Francisco tomorrow, so. Also, i’m going to San Francisco tomorrow – for work, but i should have some fun time too. Any suggestions?
So, yeah, it turns out you can make crackers yourself. Of course, in theory you can make anything yourself. But it turns out that making crackers is, well, a hell of a lot easier than pie. One of the easiest things i’ve cooked. And it had totally never occurred to me as a possibility.
Thanks goes to the NY Times dining section. Really, you ought to check out their videos. The Minimalist kind of irritated me at first, but really i think he’s the awesome. The Tiny Kitchen bit is really cute (and handy) too. I am not usually inclined to bother with the effort of pulling recipes directly from either show, but watching a ton of them back-to-back was generally enlightening. It served to give me concepts for food, but, more excitingly, gave me a feel for kitchen techniques and style that i may not have thought of before (or that seemed much more complex in writing).
On to last night’s snack-turned-dinner: Homemade Hummus and Crackers
That’s right, the ultimate vegebletarian treat is also super-simple to make yourself. Note that in the case of hummus and crackers simple also means way cheaper than you can buy them for.
Olive-oil crackers
1 cup flour (i used bread flour because it was open)
1 tsp. salt
2 tbsp. olive oil
1/4 cup water
Preheat oven to 400. Mix. Roll. Bake.
Mix: i had to add just a splash more oil than that, but the point is to get all the dough to stick together, but only just. It should stick to itself, but not to your hands. Add more flour, water or oil as needed to get there. Roll it out very thin on parchment paper on a baking sheet. You don’t need any flour, unless you don’t have parchment paper, in which case a lot of flour would probably do the job (the job is not sticking to the sheet). Now you can score the crackers to make them easier to break apart at the end – just run a knife lightly over them in squares (or whatever). Ideally, you just want to cut like halfway through, but it’s not really a big deal if you cut them apart instead. Or if you skip that step. Bake at 400 till they are nice and browning on top (no idea, maybe 20 minutes).
Also, you could make these with pretty much anything. Add herbs, add spices, sprinkle salt or seeds on top. Any flour will do – whatever flavor you like. Any liquid would do – all water, no water, partly butter, cream or yogurt. It really is that simple. In theory. The above is all i’ve tried so far. Experiment! It takes 5 minutes (plus baking), and costs like 50 cents.
Hummus
So, this one is a little more complicated and specialized than most of my recipes. You’ll need things that plug into the wall. I just got a mini food processor, which i love (oh, right, except for how it failed to work at all the second time i used it. But we traded it out, and i still have high hopes). A blender would work, i’m sure, but i’ve grown to hate blenders. You could probably do it by hand, but that would negate the part about this being so easy you can’t really justify not doing it.
1 can chickpeas (garbanzo beans, same thing)
1 clove garlic
1/4 tsp cumin seeds (or not)
Lemon juice
Olive oil
Salt
Dump in food processor. Add the lemon and olive oil to taste and to texture as you process. Eat.
This was, i’ll admit, not great hummus – but i think it has the potential to be. Plus, it was still hummus, and therefore good. Next time i am certainly going use roasted garlic. That way it won’t have that “spicy” garlic bite, and i will be able to add a lot more to give it a more garlicy flavor. Also, i have some roasted red peppers i was totally intending to use. Also, technically, you really ought to include tahini in hummus (it may not even be hummus without it, i’m not certain of the rules). I don’t have any, so i didn’t.
Lady Brett
Points of interest regarding the house – because the majority of my brain these days is used to regard the house:
The half of the living room that is finished is amazing. The color is this perfect chameleon green. I do not mean bright, baby-leaf green like drawings of chameleons; it is a green with the remarkable ability of looking white or minty or almost avocado depending on the light. That failed to make it sound attractive. But i promise it is! Anyhow, the other two walls need to be mudded, sanded and painted, but i’ve been putting it off, because the house is a disaster and the living room is clean and organized, and i can’t bear to shove all the furniture around and make it a disaster too.
I also need to trim out the living room. Due to crappy sheetrocking by the previous owners and a general case of old-house, we’re having to put very chunky trim up. Trim, you may know, is god-awfully expensive, because it is sold by the foot. In fact, trim is so expensive that, for the cost of trim for the living room, we got the appropriate number of 1×4’s and a router/router table. More work, yes, but also, more tools! Thrilling. The plan is to make Jamie paint the trim (warm white, to accent the cool of the green). I hate painting.
I also hate wood panelling. For one thing, i think it looks really tacky about 90 percent of the time. Or, in our house, 80 percent – the office actually looked good paneled, sort of, well, officey and old-fashioned. The other four (!) paneled rooms are not so hot; gloomy at best, nicotine-stained sickly-yellow at worst (that is gone, see: new living room sheetrock and paint, above).
But the main reason i hate wood panelling is that is is indestructible. Say, for example, you have a leaky window – or two – and, perhaps, a sealed-but-not-repaired ceiling leak. And all of these leaks run inside the wall. An ordinary sheetrocked wall would begin to warp or stain, it would get wet during heavy rains, it would communicate it’s distress to you long before any permanent damage could be done to any other part of the house. Paneling’s sole job is to keep up appearances. It is sturdy and boring and will continue to look sturdy and boring as water seeps out from under it, which only happens during the worst of storms. It will keep up appearances to the detriment – even death! – of its fellow construction materials.
Purely hypothetical, of course – and nothing to do with the past-tense of the office panelling looking appropriate, i’m sure. Did i mention that the office was complete – the only finished room in the house? Not that i’m bitter.
While we’re at it – i might mention that i hate parquet. I’m becoming accustomed to it visually (and i think we could do some nice things with a stain or whitewash). But it expands and buckles in humidity. And then you stub your toe on in and curse. Or the back door wont open due to bloated floor.
But, really.
I love our house. Given some of the things we have found behind the walls and under the floors, i do wish we had paid less, and i do feel we got a bit ripped off. I still love our house.
I love the plaid wallpaper in the kitchen. It will have to be replaced. I didn’t want to, but, due to “i am blind as a bat”, i was also entirely unaware that you can see the previous owner’s plate collection faded into it.
I love the tacky accents. The bedroom has one absolutely one-of-a-kind painted wall panel with quail on it. A small part of my brain is constantly engaged in trying to figure out how to keep it when we get to redoing the bedroom. The bedroom ceiling-fan light-globe has mallards on it. It’s not very nice, but the guest room one has roses, and i think it’s really nice. The original tacky lamps and light fixtures are indescribable. Also, gone. Good lord!
I love the built-in hidden paper towel and foil dispensers. I love the fireplace. I love the wood floors. I love the layout.
I really, really love planning projects. I am currently “mentally remodeling” the bathroom and kitchen, as well as the addition of a full porch, and removal of a portion of the claustrophobic stair-wall. I am currently physically remodeling whatever’s breaks next.
Mostly, though, i love that it’s our house. Yum.
So, as i said, reading about this sort of thing is probably terribly boring, but i’m still not competent for this “photography” thing. Sorry. I’ll work on it.
Lady Brett
“Tell Me What You See” – The Beatles
