Posts in: Personal
- Blueberry shrub
- While reading And a Bottle of Rum: A History of the New World in Ten Cocktails, I came across something known as a shrub — a brew of vinegar, sugar, and berries or ginger used to flavor soda water, or during colonial times, rum and gin. Though the book described how shrub was made, it [...] [11 Aug 2010]
- On “protest art”
- Protest art always ends up being trendy precisely because the art necessarily struggles to be accepted by the very people the art should oppose. Ultimately, protest artists are, by definition, more interested in relating to the enemy than relating to the potential insurgents. This is why we have protest artists whose cutting edge work is [...] [6 Jul 2010]
- On Making Change
- It’s really easy to complain and point the finger and eyeroll at what’s not fair, what others are doing, and how you’re being affected by it. I made an honest effort to not just want to change things about myself, but be an active and willing participant in making that change happen. Derrick on what [...] [6 Apr 2010]
- On being engaged
- A funny thing happens when people find out you are engaged: that’s the first thing anyone wants to talk about. The old Monday morning small talk question “How was your weekend?” has been replaced by “So, have you set a date yet?” People — women especially — beam and bounce, and in some cases, squeal [...] [8 Mar 2010]
- Lessons I learned by making art
- There are three: Mistakes can be the catalyst for something beautiful. The piece above is a perfect example. I was going for an entirely different effect when I realized it didn’t look so good. So I took a paper towel and wiped off the layer of burnt umber I had just painted. It two left [...] [30 Jan 2010]
- On being a chef during the holidays
- It’s one part obligation to your family. One part obligation to your craft. A dash of showing off, and let’s be honest, one sprinkle of trying to keep your various relatives from fucking up dinner. Richard Blais of Flip Burger Boutique and Top Chef fame in his blog post Knife’s Edge: Family meal. [22 Dec 2009]
- On fishing, fish oil, and the commons
- For the last decade, one company, Omega Protein of Houston, has been catching 90 percent of the nation’s menhaden. The perniciousness of menhaden removals has been widely enough recognized that 13 of the 15 Atlantic states have banned Omega Protein’s boats from their waters. But the company’s toehold in North Carolina and Virginia (where it [...] [17 Dec 2009]
- And my net worth keeps on growing in the wrong direction
- ZIP code 30032 near Columbia Drive and Glenwood Road, for example, was reappraised downward by a total of $287 million. The median decline in tax appraisals was 21 percent, but sales data show that the median price fell by nearly half. This suggests that tax valuations could have been cut even more, and that some [...] [9 Dec 2009]
- H1N1 comes from pigs
- The H1N1 flu virus that triggered the first influenza pandemic in 40 years seemed to come out of nowhere, but, of course, that wasn’t the case. The virus mutated inside a pig before making the leap to human beings, and scientists have traced it back to a strain that first emerged in U.S. factory pork [...] [9 Dec 2009]
- Genetically modified eggplant, hunger and India
- Two kinds of eggplant, neither genetically modified. Photo by istorija In India, where food production depends on the vagaries of the weather, GM foods are a hot button for not just debate over bio-safety but also the power of multinationals to influence food choices. The GM eggplant strain has been developed by American agrichemical giant [...] [30 Nov 2009]