Oh yeah!

Foraging Fruit Gains Popularity












Supporters of this movement hold two basic principles. One, it’s a shame to let fruit go to waste. And two, neighborhood fruit tastes best when it’s free.

“There have always been people harvesting fallen fruit,” Ms. [Asiya] Wadud [pictured] said, “but there’s a whole new counterculture about gathering and eating public fruit. This tremendous resource is growing everywhere if people just start looking around.”

Also great about this article: more Oaktown, and more of my favorite thrifty ways.

I've got free fuyus, figs, lemons, plums, and squirrel-nibbled avocados on seasonal rotation in my neighborhood -- what about you?

And from free fruit directly to the compost bin:

S.F. OKs Toughest Recycling Law In U.S.

Throwing orange peels, coffee grounds and grease-stained pizza boxes in the trash will be against the law in San Francisco, and could even lead to a fine.

The Board of Supervisors voted 9-2 Tuesday to approve Mayor Gavin Newsom's proposal for the most comprehensive mandatory composting and recycling law in the country. It's an aggressive push to cut greenhouse gas emissions and have the city sending nothing to landfills or incinerators by 2020.

People very often will not take it upon themselves to change for the better -- especially if it puts them out a bit -- unless they are forced. The haters and libertarians are crying foul about this recycling program, but c'mon, what else is there to do? Where do we think our Earth is going?

So I say good for San Francisco, and I think it's about time, but there has to be real enforcement. Hard to imagine in a city that cannot seem to do a thing about it's shameful homeless population, no matter what programs are put into place. We'll see.

Oi, another food post! Haha, can you tell it's getting colder, and my body is telling me to fatten up?

I tried out a place yesterday that I've been hearing a lot about, Amanda's Feel Good Fresh Food in Berkeley.















Great space, non? Clean and bright.

Amanda's serves "fast food" -- burgers, fries, salads, sodas -- with the same aesthetic as some of the big chains. But there's a big difference.

First of all, many combo meals are actually healthy, and come in under 600 calories. She achieves this through a smaller burger all around (yay!), and the burger is grilled and served on a crunchy whole wheat bun, with all the fixins that normally come with a fast food burger -- lettuce, tomato, special sauce. There are also options for organic American cheese, avocado, or olive oil grilled onions, and you can get walnut/mushroom veggie burger or grilled chicken if you're not a beef eater.

I got a cheeseburger, and it was really delicious. It was well cooked and wasn't greasy or suffering from that fast food oil taste, the tomato and lettuce was crisp and fresh, and the bun was so crunchy and light. I was also impressed that the ketchup is organic, and thus high fructose corn syrup free.

I love cheeseburgers, but I often can't finish an "American" sized burger unless I prep my belly all day, and I not only like to eat healthy but I have to watch my cholesterol, so Amanda's is a godsend.

She also bakes her fries, and she offers sweet potato fries as well. Holy smokes, they are good! Her salads are made with organic greens, with goodies like radicchio, grapes, organic peaches, almonds, and jicama, and are served with an organic whole wheat roll.

All of her packaging is done fast-food style, for that fast-food aesthetic to make you feel like you're having something bad for you, but it is all compostable.

But the best thing for me was the homemade sodas -- sweetened with agave nectar and stevia. Not only does this slash the calories in a soda in half and rid you of the high fructose corn syrup factor, but the soda doesn't taste as sweet.

Cola and sweet potato fries:



















I love cola, but never drink it (except the occasional Mexican Coke made with sugar). I was in heaven!

Can't wait to take my 7 year old nephew here when he visits next. Highly recommended when you have a hankering for fast food and don't want to feel guilty about it later, or have it come back to haunt you!

San Francisco Start-Up Produces Jet Fuel From Algae

I don't know much about this, but it presents well. Seems to be a much better alternative to corn. Okay, I'm paying attention.

Thumbs up!



















Spent the afternoon working on the thumb's garden for her birthday, and the evening drinking tequila and beer. I love summer.

Speaking of gardens, this was a fascinating read and an inspiration for my own dog and chicken yard someday, though it's still hard for me to get over the oog factor:

Maggot Composting

Some things I’m obsessing about...

Tim Noble and Sue Webster's most recent exhibition at the Freud Museum. I am absolutely in love with Black Narcissus.























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Apparently it has been out for a while, but I just heard that Johnny Depp has bought rights to and at this point will be producing one of my favorite books of late, The People's Act of Love. I also hear he may take a role, along with Russell Crowe. Not what I imagined in my mind, but I have faith Johnny!

Speaking of film, am I the only one in the world who really liked Spiderman 3? I loved it! Seriously worth the ticket price for emo Peter Parker, for real.












Also worth the ticket price -- finding out from the previews that there are actually films I want to see in the coming months, and getting to eat a bucket of popcorn. Yay for Bourne Ultimatum, Harry Potter, and the new Julie Taymor, and yay for movie theater butter.

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Did you know there is a blog dedicated to cupcakes?

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This is for my girl T. Look at these sweet things I bought.

























Also see here and here for more "it's been hotter than hell why are you buying boots" madness.

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I've been thinking a lot about green waste – specifically when I get ice cream at Ici and it's in a compostable corn-based bowl with a compostable corn-based spoon, and on my walk home when I'm throwing the bowl and the spoon into someone's green waste container when I'm finished, instead of into the trash.

Corn-based compostable and biodegradable dishes and utensils. Wow. Sure, there are problems, as with anything. But humans are not going to stop using plastic until it is too late, and that is an insurmountable problem. We need solutions, and waiting around for something perfect is going to destroy us. Corn bioplastic is a great great thing for urban areas with green waste/composting facilities, and it may encourage more cities to introduce green waste management to their garbage portfolio. The answer to getting this going is time -- like when Oakland outlawed styrofoam (BTW, yay Oil Independent Oakland 2020!) -- and government subsidies for communities to get green waste processing facilities and for the plastic manufacturers so they can convert their factories, in order to avoid our delicate capitalist economy crashing down around us.