carrots are the 99 %

For those of you who, like me, find the entire Occupy Movement to be really well-intentioned, justified, and (indeed) not a moment too soon, but also somewhat dry (The General Assembly is the Filboid Studge of participatory democracy) we have some good news! Occupy Wall Street’s Liberty Plaza General Assembly has taken a lesson from the mainstream media and spiced up its hard news Committee Reports section (is that Spokes? Or Tranches? Who can keepWall Street terminology straight anyway?) with some food-and-spirituality-related entertainment.

Behold:

Christine: let’s start. The name of your WG. Winter w Safer Spaces & spirit vegetable is edamame. #nycsc #ows

December 2, 2011 6:56 pm via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

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Roll call continued! Next, Pablo from OWS en Español! Their spirit vegetable is plantains. #nycsc #ows

December 2, 2011 6:57 pm via Twitter for MacReplyRetweetFavorite

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Julian w Outreach, spirit vegetable is cauliflower. #nycsc #ows

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Evelyn, w/ Human Rights working group – hasn’t decided on her spirit vegetable yet! #nycsc #ows

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Sean w Fire Safety, he’s sad b/c he has no spirit vegetable, someone recommends chili pepper. #nycsc #ows

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Info WG: Spirit vegetable is okra. #nycsc #ows

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Devin is spoking for Tech Ops working group tonight, and their spirit veggie is the artichoke! #nycsc #ows

December 2, 2011 6:58 pm via Twitter for MacReplyRetweetFavorite

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Ravi, w/ Organization – her spirit vegetable is carrots. #nycsc #ows

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Ben from Direct Action, their spirit vegetable is squash b/c they are going to squash capitalism #nycsc #ows

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Ben, from Direct Action – their spirit veggie is squash b/c they’re gonna squash capitalism. (lolz!) #nycsc #ows

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Chris from SIS is broccoli rabe #nycsc #ows

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Galen from Finance and their spirit vegetable is pork. #nycsc #ows

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Jen from Legal. Then, Galen from Finance, whose spirit vegetable is PORK. #nycsc #ows

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Frank from Alternative Currencies’ spirit veggie is asparagus. #nycsc #ows

December 2, 2011 6:59 pm via Twitter for MacReplyRetweetFavorite

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Sebastian from OccupyDiginity and their spirit vegetable is green chili. #nycsc #ows

December 2, 2011 6:59 pm via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

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Next spoke is Dwayne from PR; their spirit vegetable is green beans! #nycsc #ows

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Brian from OccupyNewark and their spirit vegetable is eggplant. #nycsc #ows

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Next, Bryan, from @OccupyNewark, whose spirit vegetable is carrot. #nycsc #ows

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Nan’s from Strong Women’s group tonight, and her spirit vegetable is “kicking your ass”. #nycsc #ows

December 2, 2011 7:00 pm via Twitter for MacReplyRetweetFavorite

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Carrie from Minutes; their spirit vegetable is wild onion, b/c while the top is lovely, it’s acid on the bottom! #nycsc #ows

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Nicholas from Occupy the Youth (he’s awesome), their spirit vegetable is, fuck it, a carrot. #nycsc #ows

December 2, 2011 7:01 pm via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

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Next, Adam from Design. Their spirit vegetable is cigarettes! #nycsc #ows

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Justin from Medics their spirit vegetable is cayenne pepper. #nycsc #ows

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Next, Dylan from Sanitation – their spirit vegetable is…. water chestnuts? #nycsc #ows

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Jen from OccupyVacations??? spirit vegetable is potato

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Next, Bryan from the Occupiers – I couldn’t understand their spirit veggie. #nycsc #ows

December 2, 2011 7:02 pm via Twitter for MacReplyRetweetFavorite

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Jason from Housing, spirit vegetable is collard greens. #nycsc #ows

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Next, Desiree from Stop Stop and Frisk working group – their spirit vegetable is peanut M&Ms. #nycsc #ows

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Jeff from Town Planning, spirit vegetable is whatever Kitchen is making #nycsc #ows

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Daniel is spoke for Facilitation tonight; they’ve “reached full consensus that our spirit vegetable is ghost cale.” #nycsc #ows

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Zach from Security/De-Escalation, spirit vegetable is tomatoes. #nycsc #ows

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Corbin, from Sustainability – their spirit vegetable is I think mixed greens #nycsc #ows

December 2, 2011 7:03 pm via Twitter for MacReplyRetweetFavorite

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Library! Their spirit vegetable is “I think weed because it rhymes w/ read.” #nycsc #ows

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Jen from Anti-Racism Allies & spirit vegetable is… something I could’t hear b/c Nan is talking. #nycsc #ows

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Frank, from Occupy the Cypher – their spirit vegetable is the pomegranate b/c it symbolizes music. #nycsc #ows

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Lulu from Media, spirit vegetable is daikon radish #nycsc #ows

December 2, 2011 7:04 pm via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

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Trish is spoke for Organize Labor tonight and she says “all of the above vegetables.” #nycsc #ows

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Edwin from OWS En Espanol (I think), and his spirit vegetable is Let’s Take Back Our Government #nycsc #ows

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I love the tv show Chopped. It is on the Food Network. It is the perfect complement (antithesis?) to the Iron Chef (America, sadly, because I can’t seem to find the original around any more). The perfect ratio is about 5 Chopped’s and then 1 Iron Chef. The Iron Chef is just kind of a palate cleanser to show you what great chefs with staffs of helpers, virtually any ingredient they want, and advance notice, can do.

Chopped is better. This is the show where you get four professional chefs, but usually your average Joe chef who works in some smaller restaurant in New York and wants to win 10,000 dollars. They get a mystery basket for each course (Ted Allen “For the entree course you get – beef tenderloin, sour worms, feta cheese and GALANGAL!”) Which leads me to my somewhat of a complaint.

Do they make these things up? What the hell is Galangal? Where do you get it? Why does it exist? I have never in my life even heard of galangal, and I am reasonably well read and conversant in food. Not a professional or anything, but seriously – Galangal?

Now, before you yell at me, I googled it up, so I now know what it means, and that it is not a made up term – although, Ted Allen might be messing with Wikipedia, hmmm- and here is a picture, although I could also post a picture of the “moon landing” as if that proves anything.

There, rant done – for now.

Does this actually exist? GALANGAL!

The Magic Potion

Here’s the quote of the day, from an Englishman and thus, naturally, a tea fanatic:

It is very strange, this domination of our intellect by our digestive organs. We cannot work, we cannot think, unless our stomach wills so. It dictates to us our emotions, our passions. After eggs and bacon it says, “Work!” After beefsteak and porter, it says, “Sleep!” After a cup of tea (two spoonfuls for each cup, and don’t let it stand for more than three minutes), it says to the brain, “Now rise, and show your strength. Be eloquent, and deep, and tender; see, with a clear eye, into Nature, and into life: spread your white wings of quivering thought, and soar, a god-like spirit, over the whirling world beneath you, up through long lanes of flaming stars to the gates of eternity! ”
—
Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat

via ItWasNow

I love Thanksgiving turkey. It’s the only time in Los Angeles that you see natural breasts.

Arnold Schwarzenegger

These days it seems like everybody, no matter how unqualified, has a diet plan nowadays, but frankly, this Andy Warhol New York City diet sounds like a winner to me. You could always count on Andy to get to the heart of the American experience while simultaneously hovering outside of the mainstream.

…he explained in his 1975 book The Philosophy of Andy Warhol that he stayed thin by ordering things he disliked in restaurants — even fashionable and expensive ones such as La Grenouille. While his companions ate, he picked at his plate and then had the food wrapped up so he could leave it somewhere for a homeless person to find.

Nowadays, of course, he could just hand it to the two or three people sitting on the sidewalk directly outside the restaurant, or call FoodRunners or the NYC equivalent. Then Andy would go off to Chock Full O’ Nuts and order a cream cheese and nut sandwich on date-nut bread just like he always did, and which is, if you think about it, quite respectable and delicious as long as you steer clear of cheap Chinese walnuts. I’ll take mine with hazelnuts, please, to go.

“Progress is very important and exciting in everything except food.”
Andy Warhol

This is weirdly brilliant, in the way turducken is weirdly brilliant. It’s nice to see some respectful innovation around traditional holiday meals, while still putting a kooky, 21st-Century, I-wouldn’t-do-it-but-Reddit-will-go-apeshit-for-it slant on things.

This is nothing less than a Thanksgiving cake made out of ground turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and yams, and frosted with mashed potatoes. Here’s your recipe, don’t all click at once!

Before you laugh, remember the hottest item in the gourmet’s arsenal over the past few years has been flavoured foam. We are obviously cooking in the time of Surrealism, and this is a perfect, and not difficult, iteration of the meme. And think about it; this would be darn tasty. It’s basically just a vertical, poultry-based Shepherd’s Pie, and who doesn’t love Shepherd’s Pie?

via MercuryPDX, KindaFabulous, and Carlovely

VERY different.

Composing a menu she employs a palate fully as pleasing to the eye as to the tongue. This is not a casual belief.  She maintains firmly as an article of nutritional science that color and taste are linked. Good color matches make for good flavor matches and even for good digestion.

During the last snowstorm, when forced to prepare dinner from whatever happened to be in the fridge, Mr. Henry served his family chicken, mashed potatoes, and cauliflower, an all-white menu for which he still suffers recriminations.

When the Duchess and her family came to dinner last week, the meal became a feast not only because peers of the realm were seated at high table, but also because duck breast, potatoes au gratin, and green beans were enlivened by the vivid scarlet of red cabbage. (The astringent sweetness of the cabbage prepared with red wine vinegar and a touch of sugar cleansed the mouth, as well.)

For taste and for color Mr. Henry likes the marriage of duck and orange, but he didn’t think a classic duck à l’orange would pair well with red cabbage. Instead, for dessert he elected to serve sliced navel oranges (Moroccan style – topped with a touch of ground cinnamon) along with two ice creams from Grom – dark chocolate and stracciatella with candied orange, grapefruit, and pistachios.

This we need?

Taken as a whole, the book’s 64 prescriptions confirm something more: Michael Pollan is your grandmother. In pithy Talmudic aphorisms he’s trying to nudge the world into keeping a new kosher.

Rule #8 – Avoid food products that make health claims.

Rule #11 – Avoid foods you see advertised on television.

Rule #13 – Eat only foods that will eventually rot.

Rule #21 – It’s not food if it’s called by the same name in every language. (Think Big Mac, Cheetos, or   Pringles.)

Oy, gevalt! Listen up. Americans are potchkeying around with their natural bounty, making a mishmash of their lives and everyone else’s, too. What’s happening to them shouldn’t happen to a dog. Enough already. Keep eating this meshuggener Western diet and you’re going to plotz!

Better you should eat what grandma ate, says Michael. It can’t hurt.