savortooth

My Footprint

Did any of you see 30 Days on FX? By the Morgan Spurlock of "Supersize Me". He and his girlfriend lived on minimum wage for 30 days in the first episode and I am a big fan of Alex, the vegan-chef fiancee. Her site: http://www.healthychefalex.com/ On the episode I just saw, two "typical Americans" from the Bronx had their "ecological footprint" reviewed and if everyone lived like them, it would take 12.5 planets to sustain everyone!

They had to go live on an expeirmental, sustainable community in Missouri for 30 days. http://dancingrabbit.org/ They used old frying oil for fuel, installed solar panels ($3000), used "hu-manure", grew food, etc. It was a very inspiring episode.

The big thing is, I had to find out what MY footprint was. So, while not totally accurate, any of us can take a twelve-question quiz at http://www.myfootprint.org./ I don't own a car, hardly ever fly, and rarely eat meat. Result?  "IF EVERYONE LIVED LIKE YOU, WE WOULD NEED 3.7 PLANETS."
An eye-opener. A lot of it had to do with where you live, and you have to take a share of your area's infrastructure into your score. Please send me your results, everybody!  I'd love to compare notes.

Even though I don't eat meat, I should try cutting back on processed, packaged food. But you know B is going to get solar panels as soon as we buy a place. It even makes me think of moving to New England, where Meka lives. Are your jaws dropping out there?

BTW, I called Meka today. She has always been vegetarian and for animal rights, but ate a lot organic milk and cheese. In the past three weeks since I last spoke to her, she has gone raw food and non-dairy. We are going to try a raw food restaurant this week during her stay for the Gift Show.

In all my reading, I did find this amusing poster you can download at http://www.pcrm.org/ or http://www.milkmakesmesick.org/   Finally! I don't know much about the lawsuit, but will find out more...

Catch of the Week

Tuesday, B and I paid a visit to the new location of Hudson Street Papers, on Orchard Street. It looks great(hi, Scott). Then we had to go for the best fries and lobster sandwich at The Mermaid Inn, the fave stop on our lobster roll tour.B also had the chilled cucumber soup with honeydew and peeky toe crab. (FYI-they had changed the hand soap to floral, instead of what I thought was "sea" scent, but still totally tolerable.)

http://www.themermaidnyc.com/mermaid.html
While walking, I saw this beautiful baklava that I always admire, but never go in to buy...

On another note, those who were at my house in the spring may remember the Ice-O-Mat that PINCHED everyone's fingers! Well, I finally found a replacement. I was reluctant to buy it at 25% off, but luckily this German ice crusher from Alfi was 50% off when I got to the register at Williams-Sonoma. Still expensive, but no pinching! I do not think you can one in the US anymore, unless there are more lingering in the sale bins. Let's hope it's a keeper- I still haven't found one that works as well as Cory's grandma's. It's bolted to the house in West Pittson, PA!

Sorbet is all I can eat

Well, it's all over. They left Saturday morning. We had fun but it ended, unfortunately, with my brother and I getting sick. We'd caught the stomach flu from our nephew! During recovery, B helped me use the ice cream machine to whip us up a batch of Almond Sorbet. Yep, using the same Rieme syrup as in the sodas, I mixed syrup, water, and a dash of salt.

All in all, a fun time was had. B picked up a few words of Cantonese and got some more mah jong lessons from my mom!

Family Affair

Onward. Wednesday was mellow, with only four of us for sushi dinner preceded by Italian pastries, then after dinner my mother wanted to try the place we saw on tv, Pommes Frites, on 2nd Avenue. They have about twenty different types of mayo, and my brother picked eggplant. I could only eat one frie out of the large cone(it was a small order). But when we got home, I ate them cold. B, whose fave food is fries, doesn't like them cold and mushy. Of course, we also ate olives, Halva, and sweet cherries- this is all after we got home.

Thursday. Ate with Sam at Joe's Shanghai, all ten of us. My brother and mom think the Shanghai buns are better than in Shanghai or H.K., so they wanted to go again. Dumplings, pot stickers(for the kids and Sam, mostly), mock duck, the flaky turnip cakes of course, some cold beef slices(B said it was cat meat), scallion pancakes, and a dish everyone liked(I thought was ok) of shredded chicken noodles.

On our walk on Mott Street, we found momogrammed red envelopes, with our last name on them! also at the same shop: really fancy ones with sparkly paper and embossing, and tiny ones with good wishes on them, three for four dollars. Here is my mom picking out guava and dragonfruits.

We went to Coney Island- my brother wanted to go, but I generally cannot handle such hot places. After that, we had dinner in Long Island City, on Vernon Blvd, which is so cute! By this point, I was not feeling well(more on that later), but I have to say the restaurant was great.

Bella Via was a comfortable place to dine- the food was really good, and reasonably priced.
Of course, my brother hoped it wasn't new school when we saw the pizzas coming out, but called it "middle-school"- that is, not old-school toppings, but old-school crust. Maybe it's just more Italian than New York. There was no pepperoni or the usual pizza place choices.

We shared three pizzas:
Margherita- tomato, fresh mozzarella, basil
Quattro Formaggi- four cheese, we chose with sauce
Rughetta E Prosciutto Di Parma- fresh arugula on top, my brother added anchovies(I know, that's how he is. He loves salt and eats those salted dried plums by the bagful)

The four-cheese was the hit. I, of course, mainly had Stracciatella- egg drop soup with spinach and cheese, and a beet salad that was a huge mound(no greens) with a tower of goat cheese on top. B had Caesar, and everyone liked our stuff so much they ate most of it. As for the hand soap, it was clear sanitizing gel- kind of gross.

Thanks to Adam and Seltzerboy from http://www.sliceny.com/ for the recommendation of Bella Via.