Food and Seasons

This tomato sauce I made a few weeks ago was one of the last vestiges of the winter days.



A few days later it was on to something a bit lighter -- leftover brown rice and broccoli, with red onion, grape tomatoes, muenster cheese, and salsa lizano, all microwaved. It's hard to beat for an easy meal.



But then spring really arrived. And that meant it was time for a shopping spree:



That's right -- white wine, asparagus, and a picnic blanket (Bed Bath & Beyond).

Friday I cooked up the asparagus with some more rice and some mahi mahi (the frozen, pre-marinated stuff from TJ's -- quite good) for a late night dinner that I should have presented more artfully:



And now it is officially spring.

The left and china

I feel weird giving this stuff ink (err, pixels), but it's sort of sadly amusing. Some of the socialist/communist parties in the US are still pro-China. I forgot that this stuff existed. In fact, a handful of members of the Party for Socialism and Liberation were out in San Francisco at the torch relay, demonstrating in favor of China, the NY Sun reported (the Sun is a fascinating source of information, I tell you. Some of it is fake news. But some of it is true, if obscure).

On a different but related note, Uri Avnery's recent column on China is useful, though I think ultimately wrong. He argues that while he'd like a free Tibet, he's troubled that the media and the public have so focused on Tibet (politically safe -- sort of) while ignoring other liberation struggles that conflict deeply with US policy (say, Palestine).

I think he goes a bit overboard; after all, the cause of human rights in China is in conflict with existing US policy -- which sort of supports human rights in China, but as a very very low priority in bilateral relations. So it's not that un-radical, really..

That expensive food

In last week's food section, Kim Severson argued (with help from Michael Pollan and Alice Waters) that rising food prices might actually be a good thing, or at least have some substantial benefits. The idea is that when corporate / mass produced / unhealthy foods go up in price, but the price of local / healthy / organic stuff remains the same, those latter items become relatively cheaper.

It doesn't smell very good to me, and Tom Philpott has done a nice piece in Grist neatly tearing it apart.

Oh SFT, how you impress me

Today, on the left coast: