Chilling With The Fussys
In winter, we long for any kind of heat. In early spring, I love the feeling of sitting in the sun and warming the chill out from deep inside my bones.
But in summer I just want to cool off.
Yesterday I found myself, at multiple points in the day, idling the motor of the car with the air conditioner on full blast. I just didn’t want to get out of the car and face the heat outside. So when I arrived at my destination I called my grandmother, then I checked a few emails, but eventually I had to leave.
Luckily, everywhere I went had air conditioning, even if none of it was particularly effective. Well, the one the car works nicely. One gets spoiled growing up in Miami. That’s a town where they will even air condition the outside. No joke.
Mrs. Fussy had a better idea. Besides inflating a kiddie pool for the children, she embarked on a project with Little Miss Fussy to make granita.
Ask the Profussor – Summer is Here
Happy solstice day. It’s summer. And right on cue it’s hot like summer. We’ve got abundant fruit and vegetables like it’s summer. All those spring projects I wanted to get done in time for summer? Well, they are all behind schedule. Crap!
The deck still needs a power wash and some new stain. My charcoal grill is still in the box in the garage. I haven’t made it out to pick any organic strawberries. But I’m cooking up a storm from the bounty of my CSA, still eating things for Chef Noah, and continuing to find tasty treats for AOA.
I’m also answering questions. Every question that gets asked in the comments of the FLB gets answered, if not by a fellow commenter, then by me. And if I happen to forget, or put it off too long, that answer gets rolled into this semi-regular feature we call Ask the Profussor. The only caveat is that all questions must contain proper punctuation. Otherwise they risk falling through the cracks forever.
Hope you are ready, because this one gets extra preachy.
Boats, Groats, and Votes
This kind of shameless promotion is generally saved for the weekend. But there are three things that I want to make sure you know about.
– One is the intersection of the Chefs Consortium and my childhood.
– The other is about Chipotle and its latest ingredient announcement.
– The last one is a quixotic effort by a local restaurant that needs a click.
Tomorrow will be the next highly anticipated installment of Ask the Profussor. And after that, hopefully we’ll get back to some actual food content. But believe it or not, I may pop out of town again for a few days at the end of this week.
One of these days I’m going to have something interesting and original to say, dammit.
Dreams of World Travel
There are so many major food events all over the world it’s impossible to attend them all. However, there are surely some professionals involved in the food industry who do better than most.
And much like I used to gripe about business travel, I wonder if they feel the same way.
I mean, it must be exhausting. Plus you have to spend time away from your family. And when you are working, you are still working, even if your work involves eating and drinking some of the tastiest things on earth. Still, my kids keep getting older and older. And as they grow they require less and less of me. So perhaps I can dare to dream.
This, mind you, assumes that in the future I can find some professional reason to attend the World Barista Championship, which just ended on June 15 in Vienna (though its location changes every year). Two days after this event ended the summer Fancy Food Show commenced in Washington D.C., and it is still going on now.
I missed both of these events, but had I gone, all my CSA veggies would have rotted. You probably missed them too. And if you didn’t tune into the WBC live, the suspense is probably killing you.
Fathers Day Follies
Fathers are different from mothers. Although my mom and dad both have a penchant to go missing. Well, not really missing. It’s just that they move around a lot and it’s hard to keep track of them.
On Mother’s Day my mom was out and about. Last year on Father’s Day, dad was either on a plane or actually in Los Angeles for work. Just yesterday, I got a text from him as he was boarding a plane for a week-long business trip to Switzerland. So I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t order any highly perishable caviar to be delivered to his home in Miami today.
I’m starting to sense a trend. Perhaps all those years that my sister and I neglected to send presents is finally taking a toll. Oh dear.
But my dad knows that I love him. And I know that he loves me. Still, we are men, and we do things a bit differently. So instead of telling him things directly, I’ll write them down here for the whole world to see. And when he gets a break from client meetings, I’m sure he’ll pull this up on Facebook. I’ll just consider myself lucky he’s not in China.
Beer Back
First the good news. After only a couple days of moderate eating since my return from California, my accumulated weight gain is less than five pounds.
The bad news is that later today I am scheduled to meet with my doctor. Together, we will finally go over the blood test results I’ve been avoiding, and I will learn how my cholesterol levels are doing.
That could potentially mean not just a shift back to a more draconian diet, but also it may require some kind of regular, moderate exercise. I’m not sure which one of those I find to be more onerous. So naturally, on my last day of living in uninformed bliss, I decided to grab one last deep fried buffalo hamburger from Swifty’s.
When I eat that thing (ordered rare) all is good with the world, and I truly enter a state of bliss. Seriously. I can feel waves of happiness cascade over me. This isn’t a metaphor. I get a strong physical sensation of joy (somewhere behind my eyes).
But this isn’t about the bruger. I’ve already gushed about that. This is about the beer. And what must be the heartbreak of beer lovers everywhere. What I’m confused about is why I don’t hear about it more.
Strawberry Picking Poisons
Two important disclaimers right off the top.
1) I know next to nothing about farming or pesticides.
2) The government says all this stuff is perfectly safe.
I go away for a few days and the story I’ve been sitting on for most of the last year gets scooped up by a commenter on All Over Albany. That would be KM when she started asking about pesticide use in the local strawberry crops.
Coming back from the Northern California farmers markets where strawberries are in full swing right now was amazing. There are so many organic producers out there it’s amazing, and a giant flat of these super ripe, sweet, and deeply red berries was only $14. They were the best strawberries that I’ve had in some time.
But it’s strawberry picking time here too. And families will head into local farms for the annual June rite of picking their own berries. Now, I don’t know the pesticide practices of every farm in the region. What I do have is some aggregate information on conventionally raised strawberries and the pesticide residues they have been found to contain.
Fair warning: it’s a little alarming. But at least there is an upside.
Sea of Green
Yesterday was the first official pick up for the Roxbury Farm CSA. It was a great way to return from a long vacation where I ate well, but not particularly with a focus on healthful choices.
After a short nap to recover from the rigors of the red-eye out of San Francisco, I went with Young Master Fussy to get our vegetables. While we were loading gorgeous looking turnips and radishes into our bags, I struck up a conversation with some of the other members about kale chips. The kiddo’s endorsement (and perhaps my enthusiasm) seemed to seal the deal.
Now my refrigerator shelves are sagging under the weight of the vegetables, and greens are everywhere. You have no idea. Why don’t I tell you what we got, and how I hope to make it through our stash before next Tuesday rolls around.
I’m Back
For a vacation that wasn’t about food, there was a whole lot of eating. And given that this was a vacation about seeing people, there were a whole lot of people I didn’t see. There were even more people who I didn’t even call.
I’m left with one of two choices:
1) Vacations are hard
2) I’m a really bad person
Probably the reality of the situation is that it’s a little bit of each. You can never do all the things you would like, regardless of how long you have. For example, I lived in California for over 12 years, and the things that I never did could fill a book.
What I’m kind of amazed about is not only was I able to maintain my regular posting schedule, but I was also able to submit an Eat This for All Over Albany before I left, and a food review for the Chefs Consortium while on my travels. That’s crazy. Still I didn’t finish the Gin book, although I’ve made some progress, and I’m really enjoying it. I wish I could say the same about the USDA report I wanted to read. That thing is painful on many levels.
If you follow me on Twitter, you’ve probably got some idea of all the places that I ate while on the journey. If not, I’m not going to bore you with a travelogue of every blow by blow, but what follows are some of the highlights.
Name Calling and Other Useless Endeavors
When people get frustrated, they sometimes get angry. And when we get angry, we occasionally lash out. That’s normal.
But these are not very effective behaviors in changing people’s minds.
There have been some comments recently on the FLB and on Twitter that I really feel compelled to address. One, because I disagree with them. And two, because I think they are harmful to what we are trying to accomplish here.
One example was when Mr. Sunshine wrote, “What is not out there is a public educated and/or sophisticated enough to comlete an intelligent ‘Best of’ survey!” KB also agreed that, “There are quite a few ballot-entering people who wouldn’t know good food (or even be able to define certain words) if their life depended on it.”
Burnt My Fingers displays his contempt for those who filled out the TU survey in this scathing descriptive portrait:
The person who fills out the TU survey is the same guy who gets angry if he doesn’t have enough leftovers for a second meal, and thinks sushi is from Thailand. In fact, the best use of the survey might be knowing where not to go. Right now (5 pm on a Friday) that Cap District bon vivant is getting wasted at TGIF or gorging himself on endless fries at the Red Robin, so as long as I stay away from those place at least I don’t run into him.
I think we can all agree there is a problem here. But there are a few productive ways to fix it.
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