Scandalous: The Humane Society of the United States, Gaithersburg, Maryland #californiafoiegras

And here I was, excited as a pimp at a hoedown, thinkin' that someone had actually stumbled on my poor lil site, even if only to disagree.

Alas, The Humane Society of the United States, HQ-ed in Gaithersburg, Maryland has someone trawling the internet, looking for mentions of "california foie gras" so they can leave a self-promoting, GAVAGE IS EVIL, SCARY FORCE-FEEDING comment.

So let's close this post with a lovely photo, courtesy of (stolen from) the Kung Food Panda's blog:



Gettin' wet just lookin' at that thang.

My mouth. With saliva, y'all. You nasty.

The Remains of the Day (12/20/10, El Fin)

5 pm. That therrrs my first cousin once removed, Jing4Xing4, sitting at the glass covered coffee table writing her Chinese homework, the "be, pe, me, fe" of the pinyin system to eventually teach her the full-on, logo-graphic character.

(I've been watching lots of Justified lately--a show centered around Raylan Givens, a hot-tempered, lankily sexy Federal Marshal with preternatural gun-slingin' skills and an ability to stay calm in precarious situations, played by Timothy Olyphant, who previously played Seth Bullock, a hot-tempered, lankily sexy Marshal turned Sheriff with preternatural gun-slingin' skills and an ability to stay calm in precarious situations...hence the "therrrs".)

Anyhoo, your PSA of the day:

The pinyin system, aka the New Phonetic System, can be written romanized or with another set of "characters," like so:



I guess you can loosely describe pinyin as the Chinese "alphabet," but it's an alphabet that...doesn't combine to make up the actual characters--it's just there to sorta standardize the sounds.

Yeah, I don't really get it either.

Anyway, here's the little one fuxin' with an abacus, of all things. I didn't actually think folks still used 'em, let alone were still being taught it in schools...what is she, a first grader?

Holy shit! Magic sauce! Mythical martial art-ing, abacus-using, good-at-math, Asian creature!


I cannot even begin to understand the workings of an abacus, let alone explain it--so, here, check the wiki.

Or not.

Ladies and gentleman, what we've all been waiting for:


Clock-wise from noon: 1) some kinda seaweed, 2) some kinda soup, 3) sweet p'taters, 4) peeled chestnuts, 5) salt-fried belt fish, aka the largehead hairtail, which can grow up to 2 meters, 6) pickled radish, 7) picked...mustard greens? 8) stir-fried...vegetable matter, 9) lo ba bung, a toe-curlingly delicious braised ground pork with soy sauce, shallots, garlic, rice wine, etc., 10) and traditional (?) boiled corn.

I'm shittin' you--I don't know nothin' 'bout boiled corn.

My lil cuz, top left-hand corner, is eating a super organic egg--the egg yolk a bright marigold. More on that laaaatteerrr.

No More Foie in Cali?

Came across this article in the NYTimes yesterday eve': In California, Going All Out to Bid Adieu to Foie Gras

Eight years ago, the Governator signed SB 1520, a statute prohibiting the sale and production of foie gras--and it's set to go into effect this coming July.

This is absurd. Perhaps my opinion is morally relativistic--shark-fin soup and "the collapse of an ecosystem" = bad--I'm sure those you're-either-a-vegan-or-a-perpetrator-of-genocide folks over at PETA would argue that it is.

But for me, the line is clear: annihilation of an entire class of animals (I think that's the correct taxonomic category) versus an infinitely replicable resource.

And then we come to the question of inhumane treatment of animals, to which Marion Nestle, an NYU professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health (and Sociology), responds, "I’ve seen the videos, and everyone says the same thing: they all seem to run up to be fed" (NYTimes). And if that's really the issue, why not simply regulate the industry, rather than banning the product outright?

The kicker is the following comment by John L. Burton, the mostly politically reasonable dude who introduced the bill, expounding on the sold-out, eight-course foie fest held at L.A.'S Animal restaurant: "This is like what they did before Prohibition: Everyone was giving away the booze. Whatever makes them happy."

Really, current Chairman of the California Democratic Party? You probably don't want to use Prohibition in your analogy--since it was a mistake and was eventually fuckin' repealed. And while I don't imagine the statute will lead to widespread, black market, criminal activity and folks blinded from eating bootleg foie, raised in a bathtub--maybe we should look to the more recent past: Chicago, anyone?

(A friend who cooked at Spring during the Chicago ban tells me that they kept using foie gras in the dishes--as a sauce, not in its original state--and just didn't list it as an ingredient.)

In other news: Obama's crackdown on medical marijuana. Cali's just gettin' fucked six ways to Sunday, y'all.

You Want to Die, Bitch?

"Study abroad in a nutshell"



See also: Stuff White People Like #19 Traveling