Eating food in Atlanta

So for the past days, I've been in Atlanta to attend a conference. The conference was decent - I actually walked away with a couple of things that I could use. I wasn't under pressure to make connections, so I didn't need to schmooze unnecessarily, which makes for a more casual experience. Unfortunately, I probably got a total of 9 hours of sleep from Sunday though Wednesday as I went to bed at 2-3am and woke up at 7am.

Insomniac + jet lag = disaster.

I was excited to go to Atlanta though. I've never been to the South (well actually, I've been to Florida and to New Orleans, but Florida doesn't really count and New Orleans is its own special little place). Atlanta is probably as South as I'm going to get... lol

Things I did...

Martin Luther King Center. Got to see his birth home (but had to sweet talk my way into the tour) which was much bigger than I'd imagined. I got to see his Nobel Peace Prize, his burial site, his personal bible, and see handwritten drafts of his speech. Heard/saw videos of him delivering his prescient "I've been to the mountaintop" speech the day before his assassination which never fails to give me chills. Also went by the Ebenzer Baptist Church, where I chatted with Marvin, an elderly gentleman who is a deacon at the church. He mentioned off-handedly that he knew King and that his brother is seated alongside him on the photo displayed on a placard in front of the church. He was charming, polite, and had that wonderful accent. It was awesome.

Birth home:

Grave site:

Things I learned:

• MLK's favorite game as a child was monopoly.
  
• MLK's family had a formal dinner every Sunday where they dressed up and ate only when the father came home.
• MLK's house is less than a block away from the church where he and his father preached at.

Georgia Aquarium.

I was reluctant to pay the $30 entry fee, but then offering to send a copy of my dissertation to a fellow conference-goer scored me two free tickets (she got them with the price of her hotel room, but was going to be leaving early and so couldn't use them.) Score! So I happily went after the conference was over and it was amazing. Even though there were kids running around, visitors snapping pictures everywhere you turned, and crowds galore - when you stood in front of the large viewing windows and gazed into the saltwater environment teeming with colorful fish, it was incredibly peaceful and a feeling of quiet enveloped me. Then someone jabbed me a stroller, and the mood was broken.

I bet that place would be amazing without all the people.

Things I learned:

• A starfish is actually a "sea star" as it is not a fish, but a crustean. They feel soft and rough.
  
• Beluga whales are the only whales that can turn their necks.
• There are penguins in South Africa.
  
• Sea anemones' suction cups stick to your finger when you touch them.

Hey! It's me. (This picture's totally fake. I was standing in front of a green screen. Too bad they didn't have one of me being faced with the gaping maw of a hammerhead.)

Coca-Cola Museum, er, the "World of Coca-Cola".

I had some time to kill - 2 hours until I was supposed to be at the airport. It was next door to the aquarium. I figured it would be an interesting sociological experience and was curious to see how Coke discussed their hegemonic influence on the world. So I did it. I paid $15 for the priviledge of being bomarded by advertisements and marketing.

Wow.

Let's see. You could take a picture with the Coca-Cola polar bear, watch Coke commercials from around the world, see artists who have used Coke logos in their work, look at Coke memorabilia until your eyes bled, trace the Coke logo on a touch screen computer, see how they bottle Coke, and watch a 3-d film about something Coke-related with some animation in a theater with seats that moved around and sprayed water at you.

The thing I found most interesting were "Coke story" letters/notes that people had written. One man talked about Coke allowed him to get up the courage to talk to his future wife - "let me have a Coke. And your phone number." There were a couple from soldiers who mentioned that a bottle of Coke during World War 2 reminded them of home. Another one from a woman whose husband would wake her and her daughters up with a nice glass of Coke - so that no matter what they'd always have a nice start to the day and enjoy waking up. I got to thinking - what is my Coke story? One day when I was in seventh grade, my mother brought home a denim jacket that had a red ribbon running down along the button holes emblazoned with the Coca Cola logo. There was also a leather Coke patch on the back of the jacket. I was mortified and hid the jacket in the back of my closet and never, ever wore it to school. The end. Now, I acknowledge that I attachments to products and maybe even brands - I love my computer, for example, and cried my 92 Honda Civic and I parted ways (and then dreamed about it). That Coke stuff was just weird though. Maybe it's because my mom never let us drink soda - I don't know.

The "best" part though, would have to be the Coke tasting room.

You walk around with a plastic cup (made from corn of course) and visit soda dispensers spewing out Coke products from around the world. The floor of the tasting room is movie-theater sticky and my fellow visitors seemed hopped up on sugar. I took a sip of some sort of lychee soda from Japan, grimaced, and poured the remainder down the drain. I tried a couple more until I stumbled upon this one soda from Germany (I think) that started with a "b". It tasted like tonic water and was in stark contrast to the high-fructose corn syrup bonanza around me. At first I just stood back and watched people drink it. One woman actually spit it out back into her cup. Then I started nudging people towards it - "Have you tried this one? It's really interesting." Ah, it was great. I grabbed a souvenir bottle upon exiting, and gave it to a woman who was with some girl scouts, as I couldn't take it with me on the plane.

Things I learned:

• People in Europe don't like things as sweet as Americans.
  
• Coke's production lines are incredibly fast and the bottles travel through the conveyor belts in a blur.
  
• There are people really like Coke. I mean really like it.
  
• Coke used to be 5 cents.
  

Things I ate...

Okay - so can you tell I'm trying to stall with the whole "eating food" thing? lol

It was a friggin disaster folks. It started with me eating a large plate of fried catfish, barbequed pork, the best macaroni cheese that I had ever eaten (sorry Mom!), and collard greens and it ended with me scarfing down a styrofoam tray of roasted chicken, black eyed peas, and dirty rice as I sat in the airport waiting for my flight back to Los Angeles. When in Rome, I rationalized. And I didn't want to sound like an West Coast asshole by questioning people about the origins of their produce/meat - "yes, yes - but is this fried okra locally grown and organic?" Add to the fact that I was stuck in the touristy downtown area, with no use of a car.

Of course, if I had done a simple google search before I left, I could have found something like this. (sigh) I suck. It was pretty pathetic as I was really adhering to the plan prior to my trip. When I stay in hotels, everything goes to crap. Okay - enough self-flagellating. Tomorrow/today is another day... and I found this place that makes the best veggie burgers that I've ever eaten. The veggie burgers are actually better than the beef versions... I meant to take a picture of it, but by the time Mr. Insomniac reminded me, I only had a couple of bites left. Next time I will exercise more discretion.

Article: Nurture beats nature!

I read an article on this pretty interesting study on Yahoo.com - granted it has a small sample, and I'm not familiar with the methodology, insert other caveats, etc. etc. - but it was interesting nonetheless.

Excerpt:

In a small study, the researchers tracked 30 men with low-risk prostate cancer who decided against conventional medical treatment such as surgery and radiation or hormone therapy.

The men underwent three months of major lifestyle changes, including eating a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes and soy products [emphasis mine], moderate exercise such as walking for half an hour a day, and an hour of daily stress management methods such as meditation.

As expected, they lost weight, lowered their blood pressure and saw other health improvements. But the researchers found more profound changes when they compared prostate biopsies taken before and after the lifestyle changes.

After the three months, the men had changes in activity in about 500 genes -- including 48 that were turned on and 453 genes that were turned off.

The idea that lifestyle changes can modify the expression of genes is fascinating to me. Most people don't understand that the whole nature vs. nurture debate is an ongoing interaction - that depending on your environment, you can have a completely different genetic outcome. In graduate school, we often talked about this process in utereo (e.g., Mom smokes crack, certain genes will be altered) or with intelligence (rich sensory environment vs. impoverished environment), but healthy lifestyle makes perfect sense too.

I wish I had documented some sort of health status before I started all this. I didn't check my blood pressure or cholesterol before I embarked on my whole EFNTMMP lifestyle change (Mr. Insomniac convinced me not to) - but actually now that I think about it, my blood pressure is on record from my visit to the ER for my sprained ankle (but it was rather high. My mom was all, see Insomniac... you need to exercise more. And I was like, Mom - I'm in a hospital! My ankle hurts! I fainted! Of course I have a high blood pressure - I'm stressed! I took some deep breaths and it was back at my normal reading - something like 100/70.

Oh well.

Trader Joe's Product Raves

Product rave #1:  Trader Joe's Island Soyaki marinade (large bottle $3.69)

Sorry for the pic - should have taken it before I poured half of it out... lol .  Rookie mistake.

Ingredients and nutritional information:

1 tablespoon has 30 cals and 1 gram of fat. Sodium 290gm, Carbs 4 gm.
Ingredients: Soy sauce, sugar, pineapple juice, vinegar, soy oil, sesame seeds , fresh garlic, onion, fresh ginger, sesame oil, onion, garlic and ginger powder.

Looking at the ingredients, nothing seems out of whack - no high fructose corn syrup - and everything looks pretty natural.  I decided to use it as marinate for the vegetables that I picked up at the Farmer's Market.  So I tossed some zucchini, Indian eggplant, shiitake mushrooms,  and red pepper with the marinade along with some seasonings and placed them on the GFG (our affectionate name for the George Forman Grill - welcome to apartment living folks!)  The resulting dish was surprisingly flavorful without being too cloying sweet.  A delightful summer dinner.

Product Rave #2:  I'm trying to stay away from prepared foods, but I recognize that sometimes you just don't have the time to cook a meal from scratch.  I had purchased some things from Trader Joe's to eat (in case of emergency, open box) if I couldn't prepare a meal.  Here's one of them: the Roasted Vegetable Multi-Grain Lasagna for $5.49.  You can see the nutritional information here.

Looking at the ingredients, it looks healthy enough and that it corresponds to the MP rules (no high fructose corn syrup, no unpronounceable ingredients, no artificial or natural flavors, etc.)

Ingredients:
fire roasted tomatoes, fresh multi-grain lasagna noodles (wheat flour, durum wheat semolina, liquid whole eggs, water, multi-grain pasta mix (flax seed, triticale flour, oatmeal, rye flour, oat bran)), ricotta cheese, mozzarella cheese, roasted zucchini, broccoli, cauliflower, roasted peppers (yellow, red, green), roasted onions (red and white), carrots, milk, canola oil, roasted mushrooms, garlic, cornstarch, salt, sugar, wheat flour, spices

You can heat it up in the microwave or the oven - I used the oven and sure enough, upon tasting it, it was delish!  I added a green salad and Mr. Insomniac and I split the tray.  Incredibly satisfying and a soon-to-be Insomniac staple purchase from TJs.

Beef: The Story of No. 534

Yesterday I watched the show 30 Days - an hour-long documentary/reality show series on FX created by Morgan Spurlock of Supersize Me fame.   The premise is simple - people step out of the comfort zone for 30 days and change their lifestyle.  lol - sounds familiar?  Okay, then.

Anyway, last night's episode featured a hunter living with vegans and engaged in an animal activist lifestyle. Some of it was a little much, like the performance art piece of a man in a chicken costume carrying a meat cleaver and chasing a bloody Colonel Sanders around in a circle or the woman who compared eating meat to Hitler killing Jews.  Not sure I'd go that far.  But they did show a commercial feed lot, which I thought was really interesting.  It stretched extremely far and the camera showed a few ranch hands manhandling some calves.  I don't know how common such an activity is, but it was pretty disturbing.  

I think meat is tasty.  I like to eat it, but lately I've been having some ethical issues eating it with my usual gusto.  I don't think I'll ever be a vegetarian, but I think even when this whole experiment is over, I'm going to commit to eating less meat.  I always thought that the single-serving shrink wrapped hunks of meat sitting in the refrigerated portion of the supermarket were a little mysterious.  So I did a little internet research and stumbled across this - a New York Times article by my main man Mike Pollan (I call him Mike now) entitled "Power Steer".  It's a little long, but it's a quick read and really fascinating.

In the article Pollan plays cattleman and details the life of a 8-month old calf (No. 534) that he buys from the Blair brothers, fourth-generation cattlemen who own a 11,500 acre "cow-calf" ranch in South Dakota.  Through the course of the article No. 534 hangs out with his mother eating grass, gets "backgrounded", heads to a feed lot, and then to the slaughter house.   Will Pollan make a profit on No. 534 after he's gotten fattened up?  By following the life and death of this specific animal, Pollan discusses many of the issues related to rearing animals for food - feed lots, the economic and ecological consequences of meat production, the use of hormones and antibiotics, the implications of corn-fed animals, conditions of workers, etc.  

An excerpt:

Cows raised on grass simply take longer to reach slaughter weight than cows raised on a richer diet, and the modern meat industry has devoted itself to shortening a beef calf's allotted time on earth. ''In my grandfather's day, steers were 4 or 5 years old at slaughter,'' explained Rich Blair, who, at 45, is the younger of the brothers by four years. ''In the 50's, when my father was ranching, it was 2 or 3. Now we get there at 14 to 16 months." 

Culver City Farmer's Market haul

So after going to the Hollywood Farmer's Market for the past couple of weeks, the Culver City market seemed rather quaint.  Whereas the Hollywood market as four rows of stalls, the CC has only one - but it's still a good time.  Mr. Insomniac stood me up because he was doing "surgery" so I had to go by myself and didn't have the use of his cell phone camera.  Boo!

Here's my haul for $18:

• 1 bunch of organic spinach (following the dirty dozens)
  
• 3 watermelon pluots
  
• 2 apricot pluots
  
• 3 indian eggplants
  
• 1 red pepper
• 1 stalk of organic celery (ditto dirty dozens)
  
• 1 carton of homemade roasted red pepper hummus
  
• 2 avocados
  
• 1 large head of cabbage

I was pissed that the chocolate man wasn't there.  I've been craving some really good dark chocolate - I blame my friend Bridges for introducing me to transcendent chocolate during her time in Belgium.  But alas, he wasn't to be found.  

A few of the things I picked up are staples (celery, spinach, pepper) but some I have never cooked before.  Like the indian eggplants or even cabbage - lol.  I've eaten cabbage, but just have never thought to cook it for myself.  Weird I know.  I even had to call my grandmother to figure out some basics ("how do I wash it anyway?").  I'm not ashamed - this is supposed to be a learning experience for me.  

I'm planning on marinating and grilling the eggplant, zucchini, and red pepper tonight for my Wednesday night dinner, and using the red pepper hummus and avocado in sandwiches for lunch for the rest of the week.  I cooked the cabbage for dinner on Tuesday, with some leeks, butter, salt, and pepper and it was tasty.  The spinach I'll eat raw as a salad one day and the pluots will make a nice dessert.

Restaurant Review - M Cafe de Chaya w/ WeeMo

Last night I had dinner with the famous weezermonkey at M Cafe de Chaya, a contemporary macrobiotic cafe featuring "balanced, nutritious, creative cooking which can be enjoyed daily by everyone, not just vegetarians or people with dietary restrictions... Our chefs prepare each item fresh daily, using only the finest ingredients without any refined sugars, eggs, dairy, red meat or poultry."

It took me about 20 minutes to find a parking place, 1o of those minutes were spent trying to figure out what the following parking signs meant: "No Parking 10-12 Tuesday. 2 Hour Parking 8am - 8pm, Permit. No Parking Nights." I mean, WTF? I was about to drag LSAT taking Weezer to my car and make her do some sort of diagram to help me.

Next to the macrobiotic cafe is Pink's Hot Dog stand. For those of you who don't live in Los Angeles, it is legendary for the throngs of customers queued up at all hours of the day.

I figured if the marcobiotic dining didn't go well, we could get some chili dogs.

Anyhow - the food. I got a California Club Sandwich, which consisted of savory tempeh “bacon,” lettuce, tomato, avocado, carrots, sprouts, and soy-mayo on house-baked multi-grain & seed bread. I was craving tomatoes - tell me I can't have something, and I want it even more. The sandwich was really tasty, although a bit unwieldy. After two bites, most of it had spilled out of the dainty club triangles. Bitch! So my plate ended up looking like a mess, while WM's was neat and clean. She got a Grilled Tuna Burger: seared ahi glazed with teriyaki sauce, dressed with sliced avocado, pickled red onions, daikon sprouts, spicy yuzu mayo, and fresh shiso leaf served on a house-baked whole wheat bun. It looked really good.

Here's WeezerMonkey's review - she took all kinds of fancy pictures. Pretend I said what she said. And pretend I took those pictures too.

Now my review of WeezerMonkey lol:

I relished the opportunity to see the behind the scenes version of More Fun Than A Barrel. I've always been impressed by the pictures weezer takes - she really captures the feel of where ever she is. And her food pics are especially great. Maybe I could get some tips for my own humble blog. So I sat back and observed closely.

For some reason, I assumed that she took pictures with her iphone. Not so! She pulled out a digital camera from somewhere (I guess her purse) and started snapping away - even going so far as to artfully arrange the food on her plate, prying open her tuna burger, rotating the plate to get the best angle, etc. All of this took about 3 seconds. I made her do my dish too. Then after we left, she whipped around and clicked off a couple of shots of the interior, the exterior, et voila! Elle est finie.

WeezerMonkey is pretty much exactly how you would expect her to be if you read her blog. She's incredibly funny, game for anything, expressive, bright, considerate, and has a great laugh. I enjoyed myself immensely.

When I got home, I showed Mr. Insomniac her blog and he was all, "Wow - that's a nice blog. See? I told you you needed a logo. Where's that plant picture I showed you? Yeah, her blog looks good. Where'd she get that barrel?" Always something with that guy.

NY Times article - Putting Meat Back in Its Place

LizzieB and another MMer pointed this article in the New York Times out to me - merci beaucoup!

Putting Meat Back in Its Place, by Mark Bittman

Some of my favorite bits:

Remember that most traditional styles of cooking use meat as a condiment or a treat. This is true in American frontier cooking, where salt pork and bacon were used to season beans; in Italy, where a small piece of meat is served as a secondo (rarely more than a few ounces, even in restaurants); and around the world, where bits of meat are added to stir-fries and salads, as well as bean, rice and noodle dishes. In all of these cases, meat is seen as a treasure, not as something to be gobbled up as if it were air.

I'm due for a nice batch of black eyed peas, or as Grrlygrl informed me, some hoppin' john. The recipe is pretty simple - beans, onion, water, bay leaf, some garlic cloves, and some meat to season. You can eat them over rice, and/or accompanied with some corn bread or collard greens.

Nearly every culture has dishes in which meat is used to season rice or another grain. Consider dirty rice, fried rice, pilaf, biryani, arroz con pollo: the list is almost endless.

This is true. At the Charity Ball I went to on Saturday, they served heaping plates of jambalaya - rice seasoned with chunks of sausage and shrimp. I divided my plate into half and ate half the portion, taking out most of the sausage. It was very satisfying. Almost as satisfying as the crepe dessert bar. I was able to adhere to my new way of eating even when presented with a catered meal.