resistance is fertile

living underground in the real world

Obligatory late-February soul-searching and stock-taking February 25, 2010

Filed under: self-titled — lagusta @ 1:14 am

What would my 15-year-old self, newly vegan and knowing exactly two other vegans (one of whom I was related to) living in a Southwestern hellscape and mail-ordering tiny pots of vegan lip gloss (on my $5.50/hour vet tech salary, so devoted to vegan purity was I and so unavailable was anything, ANYTHING, vegan in my city), have thought of my self today, 17 years later: wearing chic black hemp boots and organic cotton white jeans and a couture 100% eco-friendly vegan coat, sitting in a vegan cafe in the West Village of a city she wouldn’t visit for the first time for another four years, emailing farmers about produce for her vegan meal delivery service, reading reviews of her beautiful vegan chocolates on the internet (two things I knew nothing about at fifteen: the internet and chocolate), dreaming big dreams, waking up to new excitements every day in her adorable house, next to her adorable boyfriend, squished in tightly in the vintage bed with their three adorable cats?

She’d think:

You were supposed to be your generation’s Gandhi. Instead you make a chocolate named for Vandana Shiva, which you then ship all around the country in belching airplanes. You wake up every morning excited about—what, exactly? Truffle box designs? Cool new vegan cheeses? Springtime, and ramps? What the fuck is a ramp, anyway? (Or, for that matter, springtime?) What about animals in factory farms, animals in labs, people in Haiti? You’re living the high life, she would tell me, her face stormy with disappointment. You’re luxuriating in bed, petting cats while the world burns. What are you doing for your birthday this week? Telling your friends to donate money to animal rights groups in your name? Nope. Spending too much money on a restaurant meal, then a fancy NYC hotel room so you can drink as much sake as you want with your friends, then wake up the next morning and go to museums and see non-proletariat art (at fifteen I’m sure I believed that art at MoMA, by definition, was anti-revolutionary art—revolutionary art, I would have told you, doesn’t hang on white museum walls in New York City). Pathetic, she’d shake her head. And even though I’d protest that the restaurant is all vegan and the hotel room was deeply discounted….nothing would work.

I see her all the time: that weirdly dressed, gawky kid. She follows me around on my bad days, disapproving of my choices and what I’m wasting my precious energy on: washing dishes, chopping onions. This is not the revolution, she says. No matter how you spin it to yourself.

Ah, but: I’d reply. I’m not where I thought I’d be, that’s true, but that’s intentional: once I got out of the hellscape I realized that I no longer wanted to live in squalor, as all good foot soldiers of the revolution must. I discovered love, and creature comforts, and restaurants, and that the world is for enjoying, as well as improving.

At fifteen, I figured that at thirty-two I’d be above reproach: an ascetic devoted to The Cause. Instead, I’m an aesthete devoted to political perfection without sacrificing beauty. It’s a much less hardcore path, true, but myriad times more sustainable. And isn’t sustainability what it’s all about?

I see her face as I say this, and I want to hold her hand and tell her: you’ll see. It’ll get so, so much better. Your drug-dealing father will go to prison (truly, the first and best step toward the betterness), your mother will move to Chicago, you’ll go to the East Coast. You’re obsessed with animal rights right now, and though your passion will never diminish, you will find a way to live without that passion painfully engulfing you. At fifteen you need that passion, quite literally, to survive. The stakes are high. Guns and drugs and scary people are all around you. No one is able to protect you. Your a/r meetings and your books on transcendentalism will get you out of the house and out your head. Your Ayn Rand novels, however deeply flawed you already know them to be, will give you ferocity and strength. Your Gandhi biographies will nourish your softness and your heart.

And not long after a 5-hour plane ride that late August day in 1996, and ever-faster beginning around March, 2007 when a certain curly-headed boy entered your life, you’ll see that the world is not only for fighting against. There’s a hell of a lot of good there, too. You’ll become more complicated than you ever thought was possible.

Happier, too.

And many times more awesome.

You can’t see this now, I’d tell her, my heart just about bursting with care and concern and love for this sensitive, wild, passionate, terrified, terrified, terrified girl, but just:

give yourself some time.

 

chocolate for poetry February 20, 2010

Filed under: chocolate,culture and its discontents — lagusta @ 9:29 pm

I do a lot of barters. I’ve bartered for tomatoes (last year my favorite farmer gave me an almost endless supply of “seconds” tomatoes in exchange for a constant supply of Raspberries de Pizan—made with raspberries another farmer down the road had grown!), ad space, photography, art, Thai yoga massages, books, web design, graphic design, publicity, clothes clothes clothes, picture framing, and so much more.

I don’t know how to say this politely because I have a feeling some of my current barterees (?) read this here blog, but I think this is the best barter I’ve ever done: chocolates for poetry.

Remember my swooning over the cutie-pie poet Matthew Dickman? No? OK, here’s everything I’ve ever said about him. Via the magical internet, we’ve become email pals. (I love you, magical internet.) When Matthew went to Marfa, Texas (this bizarrely awesome teeny tiny town pretty much owned by artists you’ve probably heard of because it seems all the cool kids know about Marfa. All I know about it is that there is beautiful stationary in the hotel Jacob stays in when he’s there, which is weirdly often—I’m not sure how this miniscule Texas town can afford to keep having amazing indie bands come play there, but they do, so good for them) and needed a chocolate fix he asked if I wanted to trade chocolate for poetry.

Oh, my. Oh my! What an offer! So I did, and he did, and here’s the result.

(And vegans, I know what you’re going to say: pork bellies, wtf? My friends: please note how the poem begins on a sad, lonely street and ends up in a chocolatey, happy, pork belly-free place—a vegan utopia, if you will.

Anyway that’s how I’m reading it.)

Prepare to have your breath taken away:

VULVA-SHAPED BONBONS

for Lagusta Yearwood

The kitchen of Le Pigeon is empty

but for the ghosts of Bordeaux and pork bellies, a dark

black cherry sauce. I’m walking home

through a district

of porches and tea-lights lighting up backyards and living

rooms. People must love each other

here. Have you ever stayed up drinking

all night and in the morning

wake up feeling like the Irish Republican Army

found out you voted for Home Rule, pushed you in a van

while you slept, and woke you up

by cracking your head open with a metal pipe? I keep thinking

that my life would be better

if I ended up in an abbey with a wooden bowl and a wooden desk

to eat and sleep on. I was feeling alone

and miserable when the chocolates Lagusta sent

arrived in a big white box. Peanut butter cups and triangles

full of coconut and cream, little spicy ones

made with peppers like a Lorca poem. After the first one melted

over my tongue

it was all blue stockings flashing through the grass and springtime

though it’s January, ridiculous

horn sections and string quartets. The chocolates are amazing!

One minute you’re listening to Leonard Cohen,

looking around the house for a razor

you can run along your arm without the worry of fainting,

and the next your mouth is full

of vulva-shaped bonbons, you’re speaking French, writing apologies

to all the women you’ve kissed, cutting

everything red into the shape of a heart, breaking

like a storm and then forming again into a kind of brave, beautiful, parade.

 

peanut butter taste test February 19, 2010

Filed under: cooking is vegan (of course) — lagusta @ 11:04 pm

Well, here goes. As you probably know:

I gathered up as much quality peanut butter I could find (and a few curveballs), had a few people over to the kitchen and we tasted and talked it all out.

First of all, I wish I’d ordered more pb on the internet to taste, because there are a ton more brands I didn’t get a chance to get. On the other hand, since this was a tasting to find pb that was suited specifically to my pb cups, having to order cases directly from a maker, though awesome in some ways (yay for small pb companies!) is sort of a pain in others (for instance, pb is ridiculously heavy and thus $$ to ship), so I can’t hide that I’m happy that the winner can be ordered through my natural foods distributor (United Natural Foods, who, just incidentally, I loathe for a million trillion reasons but I still order from because I can’t find anyone better because if there was someone better they have bought them and made them shittier.).

I’m still on the lookout though, and when the perfect pb knocks on my door, I’ll be there waiting to open that door up.

Thanks to your great suggestions, I’m still planning on trying: Marantha (my mom and Veronica both swear by this brand, but for some reason my health food store didn’t have it when I checked), Sweet Ella’s, Santa Cruz, Teddie’s  (I saw it in the store, but not the org), and Saratoga (the supposedly “made in Ithaca” brand I was trying to think of….my NYS geography is not that great, OK?).

Also, since the tasting, I came across a jar of the much-discussed-at-the-tasting Smucker’s organic. Jacob & I are going to taste it tomorrow, I’ll report back. No, I wouldn’t use Smucker’s in my pb cups, no, no, no, but now I’m basically just a pb whore who can’t not put her mouth around any organic peanut butter she comes across.

Until then, here’s the skinny on what’s been tasted so far:

As I write this, Jacob is literally dipping giant gobs of the winner into a not-little container of chocolate bits I brought home from work labeled “bits for snacking” and stuffing them into his mouth. His verdict (he was on tour while the tasting took place, and I was eager to hear his verdict—you might recall that I hold his Palate in such ultra high regard that I feel the need to capitalize it) is that the winner is too salty. I can buy the unsalted kind, but I like the saltiness. I might have to add a bit less salt to the filling formulation, but I’m a big fan of salted peanut butter—grinding peanuts with salt creates a well-rounded pb that can never be achieved by just adding salt. It’s just like you can’t only add salt to your finished dish and expect it to be properly salted—you need to add salt throughout the cooking process. Plus, a ton of sugar is added to the pb cups filling too, let’s not forget that.

A note: with a few curveballs, I only tried organic brands. I market my pb cups as organic, so I didn’t really see the purpose of trying out non-organic brands since I can’t buy them. But I came across a few I thought would be fun to throw into the mix just for kicks.

From L to R, top row then bottom row:

  1. Homemade, with non-organic raw “butter-stock” health food store peanuts, which I then roasted and ground in the Cuisinart with some salt. The peanuts didn’t look too roasted when they came out of the oven, but clearly they were, because, seriously, this pb looked like red miso (I think I might have ground them before they were completely cool, which sort of cooked them in the cuiz a bit). And tasted like it too. The peanuts were terrible, the pb was simultaneously bitter and raw and too roasted and just dreadful. Brittany, however, loved it, as you can tell from this photo:

  2. Old perfect Arrowhead Mills with salt: people generally liked it, though one person said it was “sticky.” Um, WTF! In defense of The Perfect Peanut Butter, all I could scrape up (sort of a pb pun, that one) was the bottom of a very old jar, so this wasn’t the finest sample.
  3. Homemade, with roasted and salted (not organic, there were none) peanuts from the health food store. Not sure of peanut provenance, but there were no skins. I lightly toasted them (since they were already roasted) and ground them as finely as I could in the cuiz.* UTTERLY DREADFUL, which I figured they would be–the peanuts were half rancid and super old and it never got smooth enough. If I were to go the route of making my own pb I would obviously find a better solution than the trusty cuiz, but the idea of seeking out, paying dearly for, carefully storing, and constantly worrying about rancidity of peanuts worries me. For now I’m going to stick with boughten pb.
  4. Terrible new Arrowhead Mills “Valencia blend” salted organic pb: no one really loathed it, as I recall, but no one had anything great to say. (Because I would have kicked them in the shins if they had.)
  5. Woodstock Organic Easy Spread Organic (just peanuts and salt): THE WINNER!!!! Roasty, clean mouthfeel, no skins, no bitterness, smooth smooth smooth, nice tan color. My pal Sam, who manages the produce dept. at our local health food store, said that Woodstock is the private label of my (and his) supplier United. Knowing how United always tries to do everything in the most how-can-we-screw-over-small-companies way possible, I’m sort of blown away that I like their pb the best, but I think I need to let go, for now, of the idea of finding perfection in the political peanut butter jar and just focus, for once, on availability (easy), cost (literally cents cheaper than AM!), and, of course taste (A+++). And though I can’t seem to get it in a big bucket like I’d like, at least it comes in big jars. (Oh, and the jars? Useless plastic dudes with stupid green tops–on top to the left in the top picture above. You can’t have it all.)   While we’re on the topic: how weird are the “easy spread” all natural pbs? They don’t have any added ingredients on the label to make them “easy spread,” so clearly they are just mixed up more. Sooooo….the technology exists to not make peanut butter all oily on top and some brands are choosing purposely not to use it? Fuckin’ hippies.
  6. Sunland Valencia: the highly anticipated brand! Yeah, Kris, the jar shape annoyed me right out of the gate–see bottom right of the photo above. How can they possibly have thought that was a good idea? Do they not understand the very nook-and-cranny-loving nature of their product? Everyone liked this one OK, but I could see the bits o’ skin, and, as you know, skin is a dealbreaker for me. It was also unsalted. Overall though, pretty nice.

  7. Skippy non organic natural: Curveball #1, just for kicks. It had palm oil and sugar sugar sugar, and everyone tasted it right away.
  8. Stop & Shop brand Organic: just peanuts and salt, and I liked it a lot, so did everyone else. I can’t really use a supermarket store brand in my anarchist peanut butter cups, organic though it may be.
  9. Quote unquote fresh ground pb from the health food store: dry, crunchy, bland, OK at best. Sooooooo drrrrrrryyyyyyyy. My mouth still remembers it. When I was telling my mom about the tasting that night on the phone she started freaking out about how dry health food store “fresh-ground” peanut butters are: “WHY??? Why is it always so DRY???? I DON’T UNDERSTAND IT!!” and I started saying how I think manufacturers crush or press the peanuts so the oil is ground more into it or something, whereas those machines just grind it, or something, and I could hear her exasperation. People are passionate about their pb, that’s for sure.
  10. Peanut butter & co white chocolate wonderful: Curveball #2. A few people guessed the seret ingredient. I expected to love this, since I am pretty much the only vegan in the world who misses white chocolate more than cheese pizza, more than Reeses, more than Breyers’ ice cream, more than anything, but it didn’t taste white chocolatey at all. It was…a bit plasticky.

So, for now: Woodstock Farms. But the search continues…

*A.k.a. Cuisinart food processor.

 

on “ethnic” food February 18, 2010

Filed under: cooking is vegan (of course),new paltz,recipe! — lagusta @ 11:55 pm

Most essentialist apron ever, yo.

Johanna over at Vegans of Color has been talking a lot about “exotification in discussions around vegan food.”

Here’s my take on the issue. It’s great that Johanna is pulling us along to a better place and making the vegan food world aware of what so many of us unthinkingly do so often. At the same time, historical perspective is necessary—I believe that things really are getting better, which is heartening.

Johanna points out that at times vegan cookbooks (as well as cookbooks generally) use ridiculously general and, when you start thinking about it, pretty damn offensive recipe titles like “Asian-Style Tofu.” But I see a whole hell less of that than there used to be—look at the Time Life Foods of the World Cookbooks: though they attempted to be open-minded explorations of non-American cultures (as well as non-white American cultures), this 1960s cookbook set is at times a hilarious/tragic primer in How Far We’ve Come—we’re inching along, in the food world generally, in the vegan food world, and in our culture at large.

I have my own struggles with this—I make an African Yam Stew, the example she uses to point out many Western vegans’ ignorance about other cultures (mine is called West African Groundnut Stew with Yams and Millet, but still). I also make Ethiopian Wat and Sudanese Mashed Eggplant, since we’re specifically talking about African dishes, and I’ll tell you something: many of my (NYC Upper West Sidey) clients are freaked out by both of those dudes. They can handle African Yam Stew, just barely, (and sometimes I have to reassure people that “groundnuts are just peanuts!”) but Ethiopian Wat is pushing it. I’m not saying this is right—it’s stupid, for sure—I’m just stating how things look from the perspective of someone who cooks for a living and thus has to think about how “regular people” think about food. We’re moving—slowly. I do truly believe that mainstream America is beginning to realize that Africa is indeed a giant continent, not a country.

It’s pathetic, but it’s progress.

“Ethnic food” is a personal peeve of mine (I have many). I stopped saying “ethnic” (and “exotic”) a few years ago because I’m no longer comfortable with its implications, but it’s a problem when I can’t think of another good word to replace it to describe dishes I personally didn’t grow up eating, seeing, or hearing about. Of course, there shouldn’t necessarily be a word to describe food that a white girl growing up in the Southwest in the ’80s wouldn’t have heard of. Thus, the problem with “ethnic” and “exotic.” One person’s “ethnic” is another person’s “home.” And, in that sense, maybe there is no problem, except that, of course, the playing field is not level—girls growing up in Oaxaca probably wouldn’t call hamburgers “ethnic,” but I would have seen mole negro as pretty damn exotic, and ethnic.

Sometimes Jacob and I are talking about where to go to dinner and all I can say to describe the sort of place I want to go is “I want ours to be the only white faces in the place.”*

Usually, when forced to describe my cooking philosophy I tell people that I cook the food of poor people around the world. Poor people have always come up with the best vegetarian dishes, and I’m of course super oppositional to the hierarchal mainstream celebrity chef industry.

I want to keep my ears close to the ground, keep learning, keep cooking with my mind and heart open. Isn’t that what we all want?

West African Groundnut stew with Yams and Millet

(Adapted from Bloodroot, not sure how much it makes, I scaled it waaaay down from the size I make, so hopefully nothing is weird…)

MARINADE:

1 ts. red pepper flakes

1 ts. dried ground ginger root

1/4 ts. ground cardamom

1 ts. ground coriander

pinch ground nutmeg

pinch ground cloves

1/4 ts. ground cinnamon

pinch ground allspice

1/4 c lemon juice

1/4 c lime juice

2 Tb. grape seed oil

STEW

1 lb or so tempeh, cut into thin strips

grape seed oil for frying

3 medium parsnips, peeled, cut into 1” pieces

2 large onions, diced

1 c peanuts

8 or so cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped

3 smallish sweet potatoes, peeled or not according to your taste, organic/local status and freshness, cut into 1” pieces

1 c creamy peanut butter (ah, but what kind??? Post coming up!), crunchy is fine too

1/3-1/2 c shoyu, to your taste

2 Tb. lemon juice

1 (28 oz.) can whole peeled tomatoes

2 c raw millet

  1. Combine marinade ingredients and pour over tempeh. Marinate for 1-3 days. Or just a few hours. Or, bake the tempeh in a 375°F oven for a bit (my trick when you forgot to marinate something).
  2. Drain tempeh, reserving marinating liquid. Fry tempeh in grape seed oil until nicely browned.
  3. In a large saucepot, heat oil to cover bottom of pan and sauté onion, then parsnips. Add yams, garlic and peanuts when onions and parsnips are browned. Add reserved marinating liquid.
  4. In blender, combine peanut butter, shoyu, and lemon juice, adding 1/2 cup water.
  5. Add contents of blender plus 1-3 c more water to pot, or enough to make a nice stewy consistency. Blend tomatoes for a few seconds, then add to pot. Add pan-fried tempeh. Bring to a boil, then turn to a simmer and cook 30 minutes, or until parsnips are soft but not mushy. Taste and adjust seasonings as necessary.
  6. Cook millet (like rice) and serve it alongside.

*I get so exhausted with white people’s interpretation of non-white people’s food in this town, I can’t even tell you. Everything should be in quotes. “Enchiladas.” “Tacos.” “Greek salad.” “Hummus.” “Italian Food.” Everything is  followed by an invisible “…as interpreted by white people who cook without quality authentic ingredients.”

Oh, but! Mew Paltzers! Did you know that Youko’s noodle shop recently started serving sushi? It’s really nice, with some great vegan options. I went there with my two bestest boyfriends tonight, and it was so lovely. The menu is helpfully highlighted according to veganosity now, too. What a pleasure, to go to an authentic Japanese noodle shop and drink real, quality tea and pretty good sake and soak up the beautiful atmosphere. I’m so proud of my pal Youko–she’s doing it!

 

roger ebert February 18, 2010

Filed under: culture and its discontents — lagusta @ 11:11 am

Can you guess what this is? Yeah, probably what you think, but specifically what kind of what you think? (Hint: it’s not good.)

Remember when I was waxing on about how much I hated The Lovely Bones and pointed to Roger Ebert’s awesome review of it as proof that the movie can’t be much better? Then Ruby and Marla pointed out that RoEb is the most awesome dude ever? I’ve sort of been thinking about him ever since, and feeling sad I’ve been missing out on his general awesomeness, a fact that, as it turns out, everyone in my life knows about but me (perhaps this is because important people in my life live in Chicago), because every time I say something about him, the person I’m talking to says something like “Oh, I love Roger Ebert.” Finally, I do too. This Esquire profile (which you’ve probably come across as well in your recent tours through the internet) confirmed my affection and, oh man, totally made me cry, just a little bit.

 

the revolution is here February 17, 2010

Filed under: cooking is vegan (of course) — lagusta @ 12:44 pm

HOLY SHIT LOOK AT THIS!

My lovely intern Ann pointed me to this: a Natural Gourmet (the cooking school I went to) grad has started her very own tempeh shop in Brooklyn! As you know, I make my own too, and I’m wild with excitement to try hers. Oh, this is the stuff of which my dreams are made.

IT’S HAPPENING, PEOPLE.

(and not just in hipster Bklyn, either.)

We are taking over.

Fermenting, percolating, tempering, bubbling, TAKING OVER. I feel it.

Look at that FUCKING MYCELIUM!!! What a beauty!

Oh, my heart is leaping.

A tempeh shop grows in Brooklyn!

 

Monday Miscellany (+ currants) February 16, 2010

Filed under: culture and its discontents,i heart feminists,Monday Miscellany,new paltz — lagusta @ 4:26 pm

So much, it took a whole other day to get it all down:

Jezzies talking about leg hair, specifically that of Mo’Nique—-it’s nice to see the cool girls agree that the great to-shave-or-not debate isn’t really all that important to smart people. Also interesting is this little bit about Amanda Palmer, who wore a completely absolutely totally sheer dress to the Golden Globes and all anyone could talk about was her teeny bit of armpit hair.

Sous chef Veronica sent this to me (she lives in a fascinating world, and is always finding weird gems like this): a dude making records out of chocolate that actually play. I just want to hear more about his house—it looks amazingly insane.

.

Paltzians! A draft of the New Paltz Town Comprehensive Plan is now available here. It’s not all that important—it’s just the document that (theoretically) guides and shapes every single step New Paltz takes. Might be worth a read, and if you see something you’d like to change, be sure to come to one of the public meetings about it to make your views known before it’s set in stone (ooh, masculine assonance slant rhyme, and so early in the morning!) The meetings are March 19th, 7PM, March 20th, 9:00 AM, and 1:30PM, Town Hall, or, you can email comments to compplan@townofnewpaltz.org.

Kill Rock Stars is asking you to share your Bikini Kill stories and memories.

.

My pals Randy & Lacey recently went to Kajitsu (pix of my latest visit coming soon!) and Sakaya, per my recommendation, and loved both—hey, have I not ever mentioned the ever-amazing Sakaya here? It’s New York’s best [and only] sake shop, and I’m just in love with it. It’s down the street from Kajitsu and I’m pretty much addicted to their yuzu sake…oh my that shit is amazing. The owner, Rick, is super sweet and knowledgeable, and they have tastings every Friday I’ve never been to that sound super fun. (Also, at some point I should tell the internet the cutest story ever about this beautiful bottle.) Randy thanked me with a recommendation of his own, and I’m putting it online to remind me to check it out: Woorijip! Have you been? It looks fun and cute.

That fucking Dodge Charger ad came on Hulu.com while I was watching 30 Rock or something, and I just about fucking burst out of my kitchen in a giant huge wild rage. So did lots of other people, and one of them made a response to it. On the one hand, I adore it: it makes great points about the bullshit women put up with on a daily basis. On the other, it reinscribes some of the same stereotypes (about men) that made me so wildly ragey about the original ad: the original ad said that men were emasculated and thus need some specific sort of car to assert their power, and this ad says that one of the trials women must endure is their men being softies (“I will pretend not to notice when you cry at the end of Rudy.”).  ARGH. Have I written the long blog post all about how feminism has been successful, to a large extent, in making women understand that it’s OK for them to embody all types of emotions/characteristics/interests, etc and still be “women” and what we desperately need now is a “meninism” that will teach men the same thing?

Oh, mainstream culture, your ickiness truly knows no bounds.

If you haven’t seen the original commercial (I shan’t link to it) and feel like you’re surrounded with awesome dudes and society is really evolving at a fast clip and you want a reality check, do a Google search for “Super Bowl Dodge Charger” ad (I think maybe “Superbowl” is one word? I am not going to figure it out, and am very proud I’m not sure) and prepare to slit your wrists.

*

What the hell is this?

a) The cutest animal video EVER,

b) almost definitely breaking some animal protection laws,

c) utterly terrifying: seals are not to be fucked with, lady! I was simultaneously enthralled by the cuteness and hoping it wouldn’t end with your bones being crunched like candy canes!

d) the penguins strolling by bring it right back into the realm of cutest video ever.


Jenny Sanford on The Daily Show: a sad, broken, pathetic, weak woman for whom I feel no pity. Does that make me a horrible feminist, a good leftist, or just SANE?

*

Brittany finally explains (sorta) her VERY SUPER DRAMATIC LIFE (Cross-country moves–two of them! Tattoos! Broken engagements!) with promises of more blogging to come! I’m so thankful to have her around again, I can’t even tell you—no one else can explain local politics as well, or is as fun to plan Mew Paltz* domination with.

*

OK, I’ve been reading a lot of Jezebel lately: check out these Dean & Deluca prices for V-day treats, and here’s a bit on the death of one of my favorite poets, Lucille Clifton.

*

Also–peanut butter taste test results coming soon! I’m ordering a case of the winner today!

*Someone emailed me and mistakenly typed “Mew Paltz” instead of New Paltz, and thus, as any sane person would, I have now moved to the much-cuter town of Mew Paltz. Please note—this new campaign is replacing the one I’ve been running for the past five years to rename NP “The Paltz.” Please re-print the screenprinted t-shirts I’m sure you’ve all made up that say “I <3 The Paltz” with “I <3 Mew Paltz.”

PS: If you want some fun, Google “Wayne Coyne house.” Oh, I love that dude.

 

noodles are my favorite food and noodle is my cat’s name and noodles are noodle’s favorite food too February 14, 2010

Filed under: self-titled,small (business) is all — lagusta @ 3:33 am

It seems a break from the past is in order. It’s been a weird few weeks, and an even weirder few before that. Here is everything that’s been annoying me in one sentence, so I can get it out and get it done and move on. I feel it washing over me and wanting to be exorcised and the aforementioned (from the previous post) tea is really giving me some amazing blogging energy (closet: still unfixed). Away we go:

I guess it began with the truffle scammer, then with this client who keeps calling me up to be all pallsy and wants so much to be catered to (literally) more than I can do and who is just a generally weak, small sad person and talking to her is so depressing and she is stuck alone in a house with a baby I can tell she shouldn’t have had and it’s not my fault but is still heartbreaking then there’s the local client on my secret activist discount plan who doesn’t understand how the service works and just sent me seven emails ranking all the meals I’d made in two years for her with helpful comments from her and her husband that illustrate nothing useful whatsoever but merely that they don’t understand my food and shouldn’t be eating it and also that what they want is a private chef who will cook everything to their (weird, bland, mainstreamy) tastes and you know what? it’s upstate people—I have to just be a classist pig and admit that I cook fancy meals for fancy people and upstate people have different incomes, different lives, different expectations of what an organic meal delivery service will provide and Manhattan is where my best clients always will be–right now 1/4 of my clients are upstaters and all but two are major pains, like the woman who called me and started crying this week because she hadn’t read the website and thought that $140 would provide her with all her meals for the week for her and her husband—all her meals for the week? 100% organic, from scratch, beautiful tasty meals for two people for $140???—so clearly she was the bonkers one and even though this has never ever happened before I refunded her money and she was completely insane about it and we had literally 10 phone calls to work it all out—right smack dab in the middle of Valentine’s—because she didn’t understand that I couldn’t refund her money that minute because the check was with the delivery person in NYC doing deliveries and wouldn’t return until 10 PM that night and no, crazy lady, I’m not going to bring your check over at 11 PM when I get out of work and lady you are crazy and I’m sorry you misread what I do it hurts my heart in a mega way and I wish you’d at least try the meals for free, on me, but nope, you wanted them out of your house this minute, before your husband saw what you spent $140 on and man what a fucked up relationship you dudes must have because I felt the fear in your voice if he saw what that $140 got you and I understood it, and it broke my heart, but you know, I’m just trying to make it too,

then, let’s see then was the snow storm and valentine’s kicking in for real and it was fine—intensity, intensity, intensity, but I rolled with it and it rolled along (that was a truffle pun—hey-o!) and as it did I was thinking about things like:

so we were raised to work in offices or be college professors but instead we decided we wanted to work with our hands, to reshape this world of ours with our labor and not just our minds and the truth is we had no idea, none whatsoever, just what that would mean—it’s fine to say you want to be an organic farmer, it’s another to be out until midnight harvesting the heirloom beets then up again with the sun like my farmer friends always are, and it’s fine to say you’re making artisanal chocolates and artisanal food and want to stay small, small, small and you have weird nightmares about truffle boxes you made with your hands being a Martha Stewart “Good Thing” and suddenly all these whiteass Martha-ass upper middle class women [full disclosure: I've been a loyal subscriber for 10 years] wanting truffles now now now and where are your pretty vegan customers who’ve been ordering since you made truffles once every two months and saved up all the orders until you had enough and cooked out of your house but no one cared because they understood you and you them and you practically know their address by heart at this point and small, small, small is all! but what they don’t tell you is:

small doesn’t buy a new car when you blow yours up, small doesn’t let you build a little dream house on that land (happy two year anniversary, little land (and yeah, February 13 is my day to be exhausted, quel suprise [quelle surprise? quelle suprise? Oh Frenchie minor, see how little good you do me at midnight, mon dieu.), a small house, geothermal and all that, with maybe a commercial kitchen too, is that so much to ask for? small is your thing, but machines could do all your work in 1/4 of the time, you could buy one of those machines and you wouldn't have to teach people the precise hardness with which to slam the Vulvas tray on the wooden counter so it doesn't get the air bubbles that makes it look like they have a weird STD or how to garnish the Vandanas with Mexican cinnamon just so, just so, and how for some reason I make the pomegranate truffles just the tiniest, tiniest bit bigger than the other ones who knows why it just feels right, I don't know why, but do it, it feels right, and that's what it's all about---how to make something that feels right, but maybe in America isn't just not possible anymore because at this bake sale for Haiti I went to tonight, in the gentrifying town I secretly want to come to more now that there are cute shops to poke around in, we were talking about people making things with their hands, using words like "glass-molding" and "foundries," and stuff like that, and also words like "tendonitis" and "economic crash" and I get scared---businesses close, people physically can't do it anymore, and back up plans are needed but I don't want back up plans I want more and more and deeper and wider and I have so many plans and ideas and if I have to email scammy people and annoying people and people who don't give me the space to accept what I do and I have to be accommodating of those people even though it sort of kills my soul and this is why I can't have a shop because I just can't talk to people I don't like, it physically pains me, like, I get chest pains and need to lie down, and maybe I should just get over it because oh man, my two businesses are just so weird and maybe I should just have simple, simple chocolate shop in a small town, buy a machine or two, sit down and have coffee with my customers or something, gossip and eat crap, instead of always running so hard, running and running and rushing and rushing just to make things special and small and beautiful and PERFECT, always I'm getting scolded at by everything and everyone because of the P word, but I can't let go of it, we've been over this--and also tonight, what's happening with veganism?

(I know you know, but because of the post below I can't not tell you that I of course took off my cookin' scarf for photos)

Because three friends in three days have complained to me about how annoying nonvegans are, and while I'm happy that I don't interact with many nonvegans of the type who aren't slightly ashamed not to be vegan I've had my own issues with food lately, namely that there is nothing good to eat sometimes anywhere ever and I'm annoyed with all food and want sometimes not to be not vegan, but for the world to be vegan just so there will be a wider pool of shit food from which to choose from and it depresses me and I'm thinking a lot lately about the world and if things generally are becoming more or less vegan with this whole happy meat/slow food/local food thing and yes I have written 50 posts on this topic already but it just keeps snowballing and tonight at aforementioned Haiti bake sale someone was talking about Temple Grandin and yeah I did like parts of that one book but man it took all my self-control not to start yelling and again when this dude was all "are these truffles vegan? chocolate can't be vegan, is this carob." and I was all "IT'S NOT A TRUFFLE IT'S A VANDANA SHIVA A TRUFFLE IS A ROUND THINGIE FILLED WITH STUFF YO AND I almost started in on French housewives and mushrooms right then and there ALSO ALL REAL CHOCOLATE IS VEGAN cause I like to be annoying and say that milk chocolate isn't really chocolate which isn't really true just like how I like to say that eggs are abortions just to annoy people AND ARGH NO IT'S NOT CAROB DUDE I'VE BEEN VEGAN 16 YEARS AND I MAKE CHOCOLATES FOR A LIVING AND" what is wrong with me? calm down lady! make some friends with fuckin' agave syrup for once! and before that I drove the car I'm borrowing straight through the EZ Pass lane even though it doesn't have an EZ Pass sticker and so am I going to get a ticket or what and where is my mind and I have to buy a new car now & it's making me think about all these class issues, and it's not that I care what kind of car I drive, I'd prefer a hot pink Prius but it isn't happening so I think we're going to get one of those cars everyone in my town drives, one of those nice reliable Outbacky things and ugh, it's just such a car that fuckin' Democrats drive, so...something. So what kind of car does an anarchist vegan hot pink miniskirt-wearing chocolatier drive, anyway, and why does your car have to say something about you, but you have to admit: it does.

But veganism: shouldn't we be happy that people are at least eating non-factory farmed meat? No, we shouldn't be, because that is a less than perfect solution, in fact in the long view it pretty much stanks, and we strive for perfection and what it comes down to is:

We are wild people.

We want wild things. We want everything all the time, we want it to be amazing, right now, we want it to blow our minds. We're all working so hard to make this beautiful wildness happen. We try to surround ourselves with people who nourish us in that deep way that good people just fill up our banks of awesomeness so that we can disperse that awesomeness---but it's inevitable that the ridiculous, ludicrous, heartbreaking world will diminish us every second of every day---even for someone like me who literally never lives in the real world except maybe when I have to duck into the supermarket like I did today to buy peanut butter, or at least look at peanut butter (and how very American--peanut butter is next to bread in the supermarket. I had no idea. I kept looking in the baking aisle, because I was thinking that it was primarily an ingredient in things, things like frosting and peanut butter cups and cakes and things I use peanut butter for, and didn't think that it would be in the bread aisle--but not the bakery aisle where the decent bread is, in the weird trashy trashy pre-sliced bread aisle that no one ever goes down, but there it was, as a reminder that in America we eat our peanut butter in sandwiches first and foremost. pb & j on presliced bread no crusts all that. cut diagonally, wrap in leaching leaking plastic wrap, stuff it in your backpack, eat at lunch: refined carbs stuffed with "freshness agents" mixed with sugar and fat and high fructose corn syrup and sugarjelly and wash it down with a diet coke. But I do the same thing, just the snobby version: homemade bread, toasted, and good pb [ah, but there's the rub...] with homemade jam and fancy pants soda. Perfect lunch. We’re all the same deep down, all us ugly Americans, it’s just that you and I, and where did that second parenthesis go, how should this side thought properly close? Oh well, the point is that, dear blogreader, you, and me, me & you, we’re just

so

fucking

much

smarter

than everyone else.

So, we hurt. It happens. We hurt, and it’s hard and complicated and we’ll survive, because we have to. It’s not even sad, it’s joyful and bittersweet and we can’t let things get us down, and you know what?

I feel better already.

I poured it out, there it is, drained all the caffeine out of me, and now it’s time to sleep.

Peanut butter tasting tomorrow!

.

You know what else? Spring. Sooner than you think.

 

scam rant February 14, 2010

Filed under: truffles — lagusta @ 1:45 am

Oh my GOD PEOPLE!!!!!!

IT

HAS

BEEN

A

WEEK.

Well, two weeks. SO much to chit about, so much to chat about, so much to whine about, so much outrage, excitement, miscellany, stories, pictures, chocolates, outfits & fun times with fellow internetty pals. I am emerging from the tornado of Valentine’s chocolate makings, and, though I complained unmercifully, it was really great. Unlike the mysterious Great Depression of a few weeks ago, it consumed but did not destroy me. My pretty little business—how fun to see it running at top speed.  Ribbons and Priority Mail boxes whirling, chocolate molds continually refilling and de-molding themselves, boxes folding folding folding, dishes washing washing washing.

And, now, how fun to sit in bed and eat roasted cauliflower and pet my foot-fetish cat with my foot and get back in touch with that downtime pal, Ms. Internet.

Where to start? I still want to write about Howard Zinn, and I have lots of peanut butter news and for some reason lots of horribly amazing juicy gossipy whiny stories about crazy crazy CRAZY clients of mine I probably shouldn’t blab about too much on the internet, except in general terms. I have a post about that—basically, how to stay sane when you’re running a business and the world continually throws crazy people at you you must be polite to—coming up, a long long thick block of run on sentences all about feelings and how we have to remember that crazy people only seem so intensely crazy because you’ve done such a good job surrounding yourself with wonderful, sane, brilliant, nourishing people so your tolerance is lowered and—much more touchy-feeliness. Look for it.

(I’m beginning to worry that I’m becoming a person who hypes up posts that never actually get written, and this is really worrying me—in the way that, say, being late for events to which no definite time is attached mega-stresses me out in a bizarro fashion that makes me think I need to go to therapy or something. I can tell myself that being “late” can’t happen when you really haven’t set a time to sit in a coffeehouse and answer emails, but if I figured I’d mosey down at noon and it’s 1 PM, I am stressed and don’t know how not to be, just like I can tell myself “it’s a blog! No one cares!” over and over but….I care!! Argh.)

But for tonight, because my closet just broke for the third time (I keep fixing it with a thumbtack [do not try this] and secretly moving clothes to the boy closet next door —perhaps it’s time to find a more permanent solution) and I’m six New Yorkers behind and am sort of obsessed with a vintage porno movie (more on that to come, you know it, and no, not the one I’m named for [perhaps needless to say, that link is majorly NSFW, unless, you know, you make chocolate vulvas for a living and are already named Lagusta], and do I really want to spend my first night off in two weeks on the internet? Probably not, so I am going to keep this short for now.

But something is stuck so deep in my craw right now that I must share it, so here we go, all quick-like.

(Can you tell, just the tiniest bit, that tonight was the Vegan Bake Sale for Haiti and I ate maybe 5 or 10 more cookies than I should have? I have way way too much energy for midnight. And—MY GOD—THAT TEA WASN’T HERBAL AND I JUST REALIZED THAT’S WHY MY HANDS ARE SHAKING. Oh fuck dudes—it’s going to be that cupcakes post all over again.)

So. What have I been doing when I haven’t been truffleizing, you wonder?

Wasting insane giant huge amounts of time responding to a truffle scammer, that’s what.

Details follow, excruciating details whereupon you will be saying “WHY???? WHY DID YOU KEEP RESPONDING EVEN THOUGH IT WAS SO CLEAR SHE WAS SCAMMING YOU?”

I have no answer to this question except that I am amazed by the scammer mind. The balls! The deadness of the soul of the person who does shit like this! It’s weirdly fascinating. I kept responding because I wanted to see what she would say. Oh, why are people so fucked up?

I kept responding, that is, until I did a thorough search through past emails and realized that my nagging hunch that someone had already tried to pull this scam on me was correct: this same freaker pulled this same scam on me in June and yes, got two free chocolate boxes from me, because I’m a loser. And I nearly fell for it all over again, with a long long long series of emails that wasted a shitload of time I could have been using to make the revolution my boyfriend or something. I didn’t go so far as to actually send off any “replacement” truffles the second time (why did I the first time??? I think I was just so offended at her accusations I couldn’t stand it.), but I’m still annoyed I kept and kept and KEPT responding to emails.

Here’s a weird thing—I have this person’s home address. They live pretty near me. If I was a more petty person I could go knock on their door and talk to them—a big part of me wants to do this, to just honestly have a heart-to-heart with them, because….I dunno, because what sort of fucker tries to get free vegan chocolate truffles? What a weird scam! I sort of want to meet them. Of course I will never do this, but argh, the whole thing irks me way more than it should.

Read from the bottom up to get the ridiculousness in chronological order:

(more…)

 

peanut butter CALAMITY (and PB tasting notes) February 2, 2010

Filed under: cooking is vegan (of course) — lagusta @ 10:58 pm

A few weeks ago in Hawaii, when Jacob and I were on our bi-daily (is there a word for every other day?) hike, we spent the entire 20 minutes climbing up Sleeping Giant mountain talking about how weird it is that Europeans can’t understand the American love of peanut butter, particularly pb& j. So weird! It’s one of the few things that makes me proud to be an Amurrikan—at least I know there is quality pb all around me.

Jacob spends most of his nights dipping chunks of chocolate (it’s useful for him to have a girlfriend who buys it by the case) into a private jar of peanut butter so unsanitary I wouldn’t use it for PB cups if it were the last jar on the planet. He prefers this deconstructed peanut butter cup to those that I so laboriously craft, I do believe this, even though he weakly protests that he just doesn’t want to use up mine. A huge spoon of PB, a giant bite of chocolate: it makes me laugh every time.

So. The peanut butter debacle is as follows: My ***beautiful*** organic peanut butter is made by Arrowhead Mills. I taste tested every PB on the market and it (used to) blow every other brand out of the water. Unfortunately now they have changed their formula to use a blend of peanuts, instead of the 100% Valencia peanuts they used to use, and to also mix in the papery skins (which means unpretty brown bits in the jar). All of this adds up to a flavor I do not enjoy. Arguably even worse is that their newly shitty flavor comes in a jar with a metal BLUE CAP. A blue cap? What are you doing to me, Arrowhead Mills? I’ve talked about my yellow-cap PB jar collection again and again, have you not been following my blog??

(And are you ever going to update your website to reflect the change, or are you too ashamed?)

So obviously, it’s a nightmare. I called them up today to talk it over, and they told me all casual and shit that yeah, it’s now a peanut blend and sorry about the caps but no, there’s no way to get any of the old blend with the old caps. When asked why they made such an obviously terrible decision, the rep merely said it was a change the company decided on. And you know, Arrowhead Mills is owned by Hain, which is a part of the whole Celestial group, and I doubt that they are able to autonomously operate with principles other than cheapness at their core, sigh.

So the search begins for a new awesome peanut butter.

Get your water glasses ready, people in my life, because whenever I see you I’ll be offering you peanut butter.

What I know: I have to use a 100% Valencia pb (though my quickie research today seems to suggest that Spanish peanuts are also pretty good—it seems to me that the peanut to avoid is the Virginia peanut.), it has to be organic, and it can’t have the stupid bitterass skins mixed in. Preferably the peanuts should be grown in New Paltz, New York (veganically, of course) and processed in a worker-owned, union-organized, geothermal, LEED-gold standard-certified building, delivered via biodiesel truck by sweet vegans happy with their lives and jobs.

Apart from that, I’m not picky.

Know any great peanut butters? Let me know!

I’ll post the results of my tastings here, so for right now here are some initial thoughts.

Veronica and I pitted the old vs. new AM PB on Saturday, and the results were instant and unanimous:

Old Arrowhead Mills: BEAUTIFUL: creamy to the nth power, roasty-toasty, smooth mouthfeel, clean lovely tan color…oh world, why must you kill everything wonderful?

New Arrowhead Mills: FUCKING SUX: darker, somehow less creamy, bitter undertones, blech. A whole case useless for precious pb cups.

Sigh.

Here is the initial list of brands I’m eying/ruling out:

(Obviously, shitty processed supermarket brands are not listed here)

I got a flier from a PB made in Ithaca at last year’s Fancy Food Show, but now I can’t find it. If you know of it, let me know!

Peanut Butter and Co: not organic, but I’ve had it before and like it.

Once I accidentally bought a 9 lb bucket of Once Again pb and words can’t quite express how vile Veronica and I found it. It was dark and filled with peanut skins and non-Valencia flavors. We used it to make peanut noodles (lots. of. peanut. noodles.) and celebrated the day it was used up.

Marantha: I guess I’ll give it a whirl.

This kind looks good, but what kind of peanuts do you use, and do you use the skins? And why don’t you make an organic one?

Laura Scudder’s? Is this, like, some sort of supermarket brand? Can’t figure out if they use Valencias or not, I will investigate more…

Adams: I know nothing about it. Not Valencia peanuts, I’m sure.

Trader Joe’s??? Random internetting seems to say it’s good, but I can’t quite see how to buy it without going to a TJ, and I need to buy mine in great vats.

Sunland: 100% Valencia, organic! I just ordered 2 jars! Cross your fingers! Have you had it?

This brand, Sweet Ella’s, uses Spanish peanuts and de-skins (God! Why do people make skin-ful pb? Arrrrggghhhh) like any self-respecting pb…hmm, I might order a jar or two.

What’s up with this peanut butter made with palm fruit oil? Hmm. This company, Justin’s, makes those annoying little pb packets you see in health food stores. Ugh.

Not organic, and they admit they use the dreaded Virginia peanuts, but I’ve always been curious about Cream-Nut. Maybe I’ll buy a jar just for kicks. (This is how I get my kicks, yes.)

Santa Cruz organic—they say they use Spanish peanuts too. Hmm.

I don’t like these jars, or the labels, or that they don’t say how great their peanuts are, or anything. But I guess I should try all the pbs I can.

OMG DUDES!!!!!!! I just had an idea.

What if I made my own PB?

[thinking

thinking

thinking]

Oh god, that is going to be yet another pain in my ass.

Yet another thing in my life that seems so easy (akin to making tempeh, miso, shoyu, seitan, etc etc) yet ends up adding hours to my already cram-jammed days. But still! Homemade pb! Maybe I should be looking for peanuts…and a cute mill thingie! Vintage!!

OK.

I’m going to leave this where it is for tonight and go get ready to survive the Valentine’s onslaught and will return post-V-day with more thoughts and a dry mouth.

From eating peanut butter, you know.

(Why do I make jokes about being high? Want to know something? I’ve only smoked pot once, and it didn’t even work. But because I have no qualms about pot and rather wish I could figure it out because it seems so fun, I make a lot of weed jokes to myself.)

(I also say “that’s what she said” about 1,000 times a day to myself. I’ve found that if you are a “she,” and your mind is prone to wandering, TWSS easily becomes a weird post-thought to everything I say: “Veronica, could you open the oven door for me?” [that's what she said.] If anyone has a remedy for this disease [pot?], please let me know.)

Final thought: here’s what Chowhounders have to say about PB. I disagree with most of it, but might be worth a read if you’re super into the topic. And what self-respecting vegan isn’t?

 

 
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