red soup

tomato base, a head of chopped red cabbage, two diced beets, cayenne, cider vinegar, agave syrup, salt, cracked pepper, a handful of barley, and 30 minutes on simmer makes some deelish red soup...

good book

i just finished this michael pollan text regarding the industrialization of "food" products, our culture's focus on nutrients vs. whole foods, and the drawn parallels from these market demands as they correlate to western disease-- namely obesity, diabetes, cancer, and hypertension.

in pollan's educated view, he believes that the aforementioned effects of our diet are linked within themselves with a causal relationship.

notable take aways from the book are that as americans, we have a dysfunctional relationship with what we ingest. he states the claim that we are focused on the nutrients that compose an item, rather than the entire food item itself--again, this is a generalization, but i believe it to be true as well. his argument dives further into the contradictory studies that reveal themselves daily from nutrition scientists, which leads to confusion amongst consumers. i would concur. pair these with the eternal shelf-life brought about by over-processing raw foods into either salt-heavy, fat-heavy, or sugar-heavy foods (e.g. white flour, high fructose corn syrup, etc) and add a little hydrogenated oil and you've got a manipulated and (until recent years) non-traditional food products.

all in all, it was a quick read which sums up a good deal of rising concerns about the long-term effects of these processed foods on our individual and cultural health snapshot. 8 of 10.

tempeh scallopini

one of the finest veg haunts in the mountain states is watercourse foods. earlier this evening, i met some good friends for a great dinner. we talked and smiled over our blackened tofu dish with coconut cream sauce, thai peanut stir fry, and tempeh scallopini--washing all this conversation and hearty grub down with fine local brews and pleasing wine.



watercourse is a comfort food joint. the thick sauces and mashed yam sides stick to your guts and leave you warm inside. their full vegan bakery is da bomb as well.


this place is vegan nyc homestyle with a mountain backdrop. oh, and the seitan buffalo wings kick it some sweet tune of goodness. i'll be back.

smartphone

how can i say that the moto q9 has improved my life. it enables me to get'r'done without hesitation. i would highly suggest this brilliant bit of technology.

shaun of the dead

i am not sure why i didn't see this film before now. it is absolutely fantastic! an underachiever who finds himself in an extraordinary situation--fending off zombies in a fastfood uniform. ha!

sunday morning

i would have to profess that without question, sunday morning is my favorite time of the week. the feel of sunday is calm and reflective, yet a bit anticipatory.

the expressive organic freedom of friday and saturday becomes awash on sunday morning, as you become bound to pay heed to the upcoming workweek. this calmness, is somewhat akin to sitting in a waiting room--it allows you the time to reflect, to wonder, to do what you want (again, within reason), yet you feel the time ticking to the appointment that is coming...monday.

the ideal sunday? snuggling in jammies for a few extra minutes, a dark pot of coffee, messy bed-head for most of the day, a light, productive project (a good hike, baking, watching a film, reading the sunday ny times, walking to the library).

by sunday early evening, however, the day starts to take that familiar tone of routine as the sun sets and dinner pangs echo from the stomach. alas, sunday is, and presumably always will be, my favorite day of the week.

heros

we have been watching a great deal of the show, heros, recently. it undulates from mildly entertaining to "let's watch another!" some of the characters grate at my skin and i await sylar excising their frontal lobes. and some of the characters are good to great. at the top of the list, hiro nakamura.

it could be our roots exposed from living in japan, or even traced further back to my youth growing up next to a japanese-american family--but hiro is a fantastic character and keeps my eyes fixed on the laptop screen.

we are nearing the end of season 1, and luckily season 2 is viewable streaming online, too.

headlines

how many times have we seen headlines like this?
"dozens killed in worst baghdad attack in months"