Who DOESN'T do this?

Nachos Libre

Happy Independence Day!

I just got back from a week in one of the most iconic of American of cities, New Orleans, Louisiana. First time in Dixie for this one, and it was lovely.





















































Music, stunning architecture, excellent (if rich) food, some of the best beer around, and some of the nicest folks I've encountered. Definitely shortlisted as a place I could settle, and I can't wait to go back.

There are so many wild blackberry bushes near my new apartment, I have a full size stove and oven, and it is summer in the Bay Area. So, I've been making PIE!

You know this is homemade, because there was a thorn in the first piece. ;P

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.

Since my work moved to downtown Oakland, not only have I had the pleasure of taking in some thrifting on a regular basis on my lunch hour, but I also get to have the fantasticity that is Oakland Chinatown at my fingertips.

I love Oakland's Chinatown. I like it much better than San Francisco's. The difference is that in Oakland, Chinatown is a community where people live, work, and shop for their everyday necessities, and it is less of a tourist attraction.

Don't get me wrong, there are really great shops in SF's Chinatown, and there are plenty of people making their homes there, but it still has that tourist trap vibe. In Oakland there are no tourist attractions, just great food and great markets (and lots of designer knock-off spots). The closest nod to tourism would be the sidewalks, painted with lovely and colorful designs:















Anyway, since all of the shops are catering to residents, accordingly, you get all kinds of wonderful places where you can get wonderful things...

Tasty meats:















A plethora of fruits and veggies, super cheap:















And shops crammed with everything under the sun:



















But my favorite thing about Chinatown is definitely this little shop:















Cam Huong makes the best banh mi in Oakland -- so good that when my ex-coworker and I would go there for lunch, his Vietnamese wife who lived in San Francisco would always ask him to get one to bring home for her.

Also great for these lean economic times -- only $2.50!

Mmmmm, tofu and pickled and jalapeno goodness...



















I bought a grilled pork sandwich for Trevor, but he scarfed it before I could take a photo. They are that good!

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!

Okay, so y'all know I've been seeing a new acupuncturist who is giving me something that smells and tastes like pee pee to drink for part of my treatment.

What y'all don't know is that I'm also on a detox diet for the duration of this treatment. I am supposed to abstain from:

sugar
caffeine
alcohol
beef
pork
fried food
rich food
spicy food

And, it goes w/o saying -- my occasional yummy Nat Sherman.

Which, you know, pretty much means abstaining from MY LIFE.

But the funny thing is, the tea I drink twice a day actually helps me not crave this stuff. And I've lost 5 pounds. So it's all good, right?

You would think so.

Today we went to a poetry reading at McNally's, home of the best damn Guinness pour this side of the Bay. And good god, I almost cried because I couldn't have one.

So, today, an ode -- to all the foods I've loved before:

Alcohol:


















Sugar (my ultimate chocolate bar):


















Rich and Fried and Pork (homemade pork gyoza at Rikyu):














Caffeine (Blue Bottle espresso):














Sigh.

Where's the spicy food? Forget it -- that one actually hurts too much to post anything. I regularly eat so much spicy stuff that the evidence would just be a picture of me with a big grin. So sad.

I read an excellent article today in local and seasonal focus, free foodie mag Edible East Bay about one of my favorite foods, the sea vegetable.

Growing up with a Japanese mother, I was introduced early on to the tastiness of seaweed. I’ve also been privy to its use as a component in tissue engineering, thanks to my college friend Tim who would routinely begin the evening with an entire flask of Taaka, his confidence unshaken that someday he’d get a new liver that would be grown in a vat.

But I was unaware of the huge sea vegetable industry in California and Ireland, and seaweed's almost unreal health benefits. I think everyone should try to integrate just a bit of this superfood into your diet; to encourage folks the mag included a luscious recipe in the article, which I will use here to therefore encourage you, ma peeps.

Cooking savant, instigator of creative pantry-clean-out suppers, and nutrition nut that I am, I love recipes that seem loony and jacked up for most people but are good for you and taste divine. Plus, for all my dirt-twirler peeps, this one’s vegan, and cheap! Trust me, this one’s a goodun…

Sea Palm Fettuccine with Pumpkin Seed Pesto

Pesto:

1 cup pumpkin seeds
1 bunch cilantro
2 tbsp olive or flax oil
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
Juice of 1 lemon
Sea salt to taste

Puff pumpkin seeds on stove over heat for 1-2 minutes. Combine all pesto ingredients in a food processor and blend until smooth. Add salt to taste.

Fettuccine:

2 oz sea palm fronds
3 cloves garlic, chopped fine
2 tbsp ghee or olive oil
2 1/2 cups water
2 red bell peppers, chopped
2 small zucchini, chopped
1/4 cup pine nuts
Sea salt and lemon to taste
Cilantro for garnish

Freshen the sea palm by soaking them in a large bowl of water for 20 minutes. Toast the pine nuts for 3-4 minutes. Drain the sea palm. Heat olive oil or ghee in a saucepan, add garlic, and then sea palm; sauté for 3 minutes. Add water and simmer until tender, about 10 minutes.

Sauté peppers and zucchini. When sea palm is tender, drain and add to vegetables. Stir in toasted pine nuts. Add lemon juice and salt to taste. Distribute between 4 plates, top with a dollop of pesto, and garnish with cilantro. Serves 4.