Green Gossip
for the omnivores, carnivores, locavores, vegetable nerds, travelers, tea-timers, and lounge singers in all of us.
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May102013
Alcohol Under a Microscope
The latest art? No, but one could argue the point. Its actually different types of alcohol photographed under a microscope. The photographs are taken after the liquid has crystallized on a slide and then shot under a polarized light microscope. Fascinating results. The company that undertook this venture is called Bevshots. “art. distilled.”
- American Draft Beer
- Champagne
- Tennessee Whiskey
- Tequila
- Red Wine
- White Wine
- Gin
- Vodka
May62013
The story behind Sriracha
With a distinctive bottle and taste, Sriracha has gone from an unpronounceable challenge to a staple sauce for many Americans. In the U.S. alone, $60 million worth of the sauce was sold last year alone.
But it wasn’t always such a prevalent item on store shelves. David Tran, the man responsible for popularizing the hot sauce, had a long journey beforehand:
When North Vietnam’s communists took power in South Vietnam, Tran, a major in the South Vietnamese army, fled with his family to the U.S. After settling in Los Angeles, Tran couldn’t find a job — or a hot sauce to his liking.
So he made his own by hand in a bucket, bottled it and drove it to customers in a van. He named his company Huy Fong Foods after the Taiwanese freighter that carried him out of Vietnam.
Read more via our profile of Tran, and his beloved hot sauce.
Photos: Gina Ferazzi, Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times
Or “hipster ketchup” as I have heard it called.
(via nare-bear)
May32013
A Helpful List for Those Who Know Me
So my Birthday is coming up. I don’t really care that I’m going to be another year older and another year wiser; I’ll still get up in the morning and go to work and read a book and maybe have a cupcake. I don’t relish in the thought of being showered with gifts. But I know Those Among my dedicated and lovely friends and family will insist on something. You always do. I love you for it. And it’s usually something I actually use.
I don’t like things that are wasteful in any sense. I want to be able to get life out of things I own. So I have made a list that might be helpful. Some of you may already be privy to this, but I have made major life decision in the last year. I want to be farmer. I want to grow on my own land. I want to incorporate chefs and citizens into my life plot. I want to build my own business with my own hands. I call this plan FarmLab 2020. By 2020, that’s 7 years, I want to have made significant progress towards reaching this goal: either be in negotiations for land, setting up produce accounts, or even starting a season.
Sticking with my Code On Wastefulness and Efficiency, I ask that for the remainder of my life, for all the future birthdays and gift-giving holidays, here is a list of Things I Need To Start My Own Farm. If I start accumulating now, think of how much less of a stress-bomb it’s going to be when I really start digging ;)
The List (in no particular order)
- Long-handled shovels
- Ditch-digging shovel
- Post-hole digging shovel
- Trellis stakes (unspecified amount)
- Trellis netting (ditto)
- Stake pounder
- Chains
- Twine
- Work gloves (not the pansy kind, the gripping kind. I like the bamboo gardening gloves.) Lotsovem.
- Work pants (ditto)
- Harvest knives- stainless steel
- Pruners
- Harvest containers
- Rachette straps
- Axe
- Pick-axe
- Pitch forks- 3-tine hay fork, 4-tine manure fork, 10-tine silage fork
- Long-handled hoes (I like the Korean Hoes (insert joke here)).
- Knife and hoe files
- Trellis clips
- Trowels
- Drip tape (unspecified amount)
- Farm truck
- Large flat-bed hitch-trailers
- Compost/manure
- Rakes
- Brooms
- Seeding flats of all sizes!
- 2x4s
- Ladders
- Hoop houses/greenhouses
- Heat lamps
- ****Seed stock!! (Gift certificates to seed companies like Seed Savers Exchange, non-GMO and NO MONSANTO/CARGILL/DUPONT/SEMINIS. Here’s a good site to start)
- Wheel barrows and wagons for carting heavy things
- Reemay (lots and lots)
- Chicken wire
- Chicken coop
- Delivery truck
- Irrigation system- hoses, sprinklers, Waterboys
- 5 gallon buckets
- Hay/straw
- Utility knives (like Leatherman)
- Tools- pliers, screwdrivers, wrenches, hammers etc etc etc)
- Roto-tiller
- Plow and disc-er
- Tractor with bucket
- Row seeders with discs (like Earthway Seeders)
- Row markets
- Knee pads
- And when in doubt, gift certificates to hardware and gardening stores like Menards, Ace, Fleet Farm, Home Depot, and any smaller local specialty garden centers, of course :)
Some of these things are easier given as gifts than others. This is my entire working list, it changes, and by no means to I expect to be given everything. I feel awkward about even putting this up, but I know it’ll be helpful to some.
So I love you! Peas and tanks!
May12013
The Godfather: A Game of Corleones
[via]
Ice Cream: A Game of Cones.
(via apingaround)
April302013
Booyah: Chicken Tetris. Julio makes serving these a real pain in the ass.
April262013
'The World's Most Outdated Law': Why the Next Farm Bill Should Be the Last
Years ago, the rationale for the “wool and mohair subsidy” was to assure we could have wool combat uniforms for Vietnam. Today, we provide crop insurance for export and biofuels crops like corn, soybeans and even cotton—all in the name of food security.
April252013
Your dad knew how to take an epic shot before you did and he’s got the photo composition skills to prove it. Back when a man could get shit-housed off a few dollars of sweat-pant money, he was out capturing the portraits that inspired Bob Ross to paint. He was a pornographer of mother nature’s beauty who exposed the world to sights they’d never seen.
So hipsters, when you’re taking panoramic iPhone 5 shots of nature’s wilds and attempting to share your moment of serenity on instagram so you can whore it out for double taps, remember this…
Your dad would be insta-famous if instagram was around when he was capturing his human experience.
Thank you Lily!
(via dudeswithbabies)
April202013
Origami. It’s a sea slug.
April82013
“Heavy tillage mines the organic matter for its nitrogen. By fracturing open the soil with plows or other tillage instruments, oxygen pours into the soil, stimulating a flush of microbial activity that burns up organic matter, releasing its nitrogen in mineral form along with copious amounts of CO2… Soil represents the world’s largest pool of carbon, with an estimated 170 trillion pounds of carbon in the soils of the contiguous United States alone. According to one study, if just one percent of the organic carbon in tropical soils is mineralized each year because of anthropological perturbations (such as farming), than 141 billion tons of carbon will be emitted into the atmosphere, as compared to the 0.33 billion tons emitted in the burning of fossil fuels and 1.8 billion tons emitted during deforestation.”
- James Glanz, “Saving Our Soil”
THIS IS BLOWING MY MIND. Holy tillage, Batman.
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