Thursday, September 20, 2007

photoshoppers: a call to arms!

it seems my blog traffic has been sadly lacking as of late. i'm sure it has nothing to do with me abandoning this place for weeks at a time, or heaven forbid, the idea of this blog getting old. no, i'm positive it's because i'm missing the one thing essential to every great blogger - an eye catching banner.

here's where you photoshoppers come in. i challenge you to create a banner for my blog. only the cream of the crop may apply, as it clearly must be something worthy of representing my eloquent writing and exquisite recipes. if you need inspiration, i suggest checking out carrie's cooking adventures.

upload your submissions and post them in the comments for me to see. the winner of this challenge receives the greatest honor of all - having his/her banner seen at the top of my blog every single day. and of course, if someone wants to go above and beyond and work some html magic to help me get the overall design of this place out of standard blogger template mode i would be extremely grateful. normally i'd do it myself, but i think we all know my skills are best saved for the kitchen.

okay kids, get crackin and let me see what you've got!

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

inspiration

well, laura's guest blog managed to both cure me of my writer's block as well as tempt me to venture into the world of sushi. it really does feel great to be blogging again, plus, i'd hate for anyone to think that i'm not on top of the latest food trends.

like laura, i went straight to the experts and decided to order in from friend house. unfortunately, as a vegetarian who doesn't eat fish, i found my menu options quite limited. then i stumbled across a dish called asparagus rolls. i thought this would be a great way to sneak in a serving of veggies inside of some warm doughy carbtastic goodness. i got my tub of butter and spreading knife ready and waited for the delivery man to arrive.



well, you can imagine my surprise when a bunch of actual mini asparagus stalks showed up wrapped in rice and some sort of mystery black stuff. what kind of a roll was this?? where was the bread? luckily though, they had provided me with plenty of soy sauce to cover up the flavor of those pesky vegetables. also, based on laura's experience with the boat, i was worried that someone would come back to my apartment to collect the plastic container my "rolls" were served in, so i quickly hid it in a safe place as soon as i was finished.

the verdict: be sure to ask many questions when ordering from a sushi restaurant as their menus are obviously quite misleading. still i suppose, it's a trend that everyone should try at least once.

Thursday, September 6, 2007

message to farmers: NIMBY!

nowadays there's one more thing to add to the list of power plants, trash dumps, and prisons that elicit the cry of "not in my backyard!": farmers. it's bad enough that i've had to put up with a slew of dirty hippy farmers invading union square three times a week under the family friendly guise of the greenmarket. but since moving, i'm now expected to tolerate this neighborhood nuisance just one mere block from my apartment every single sunday.



ladies and gentleman, these farmers have no business in tompkins square park. this is historically a place for drug dealers, homeless people, and riots. not small business owners peddling organic and affordable produce. i decided to pay them a visit last sunday and one vendor even had the nerve to sell me eight ripe and delicious plums for only three dollars.



look, all i'm saying is, we didn't suffer through an industrial revolution just so we could abandon factory farming. do we really want our future generations knowing where their food actually comes from?? i admit, there's probably no stopping those those liberal pinko nutjobs from advocating fair and healthy options for our planet, our workers, and our bodies. but at least let them do it out on some commune or kibbutz somewhere - not in the middle of my urban metropolis.



if you, like me, want to boycott these farmers' markets altogether, i suggest using local harvest to plug in your zip code and find the locations nearest you. this tool for avoiding local family farmers is certainly invaluable.

still don't believe what a crisis this really is?? just check out what happens to the poor twinkie (at a farmers' market!) in this video and learn more about the left wing attempts to undermine the farm bill here.



you hear that farmers? it's on!!