whitewater drafting

haphazard rhetoric

i had to lie

Lisa Jaeggi - I Had To Lie

there's just something about the plucky syncopated nylon, the easy calico steel, and cool, cat-like vocal agility.  plus, this video has <150 views (at the time of this post), making it seem like a best kept secret... like learning how to read.

This is Peter.
This is Jane.
Peter likes Jane.

(download)

p.s. photos from google searching and Ladybird Prints & song via stg.

 

El Trompo

(download)

Taco Bar & Cactus Grill
277 Augusta Ave

the best taquitos in Toronto?

i can't validate that claim as i haven't had many taquitos in toronto, let alone in my lifetime, but these were def the best i've ever had.

pictured: quesongo (grilled mushroom with molten cheese & corriander with self-serve lime wedge on soft corn tortillas), daubed with guacamole, and washed down with horchata.

and by the end, you'll have to agree, you've been served by America.

Fresh Bamboo Leaves: an archaic expiry date indicator for bento

perusing the 'to be shelved' carts at university libraries are always fun (and a great distraction from thesis writing).  

as a real time compilation by a collective of scholars, you'll most likely find a motley assortment of subjects you'd never dream would manifest in a devotion of binded text.

(i'm not sure why my language is especially 'purple' today, but i think it has something to do with having recently watched hitREcord's Morgan and Destiny's Eleventeenth Date: The Zeppelin Zoo)

anyway the other day i spotted a carted book on Food Culture in Japan and found out something especially interesting.

have you ever noticed that sushi or bento boxes often come with those small green plastic sheets cut to resemble grass?

turns out, in Japan's days of old, obento, or bento makers would lay fresh bamboo leaves as a bed for eaten goods in the boxes. Since the leaves would brown at a predictable rate, they would reveal the freshness of consumptive fare to chopstick wielders.  being impractical in modern Japan, plastic is now substituted!

ah, and therein lies the p-word, a definitive obscenity in an environmentalists' vocabulary. and resultingly extreme, it has occurred to some that it should be banned. something to think of thinking about.

Weird Food Fridays: Cashew Apple

Scientific name: Anacardium occidentale

Forget nuts, I wanna sink my teeth into apples.  
The cashew apple that is.

Don't get me wrong, I love nuts, but WHOA! check this out:

(The dark kidney-shaped part is a cashew inside its shell)
Who knew cashews & apples were one?

Cashew trees are tropical evergreens native to Brazil that are nothing without bats.  (They're dependent on them for pollination)

Its phylogenetic family Anacardium (ana - 'upwards', -cardium = 'heart') also houses mangoes (!!!), sumac (a spice), pepper trees (bearer of pink peppercorns), pistachios & poison ivy (bearer of unbelievably itchy skin).

The cashew apple is a pear-shaped red, yellow, or orange pseudofruit which ripens Sept-Jan and has thin skin which makes it hard as hell to export.  However, the apple is juiced, pulped, syruped, jammed, and turned into honey or alcohol locally, esp. in Northeast Brazil where it ranks as one of the highest consumed tropical fruits.  Interestingly, Goa, India is known for fenny, a distilled liquor made from either cashew apple juice which is extracted by foot stomping or coconut palm sap.  

The seed, or the cashew nut is considered the true fruit which resides within a double-walled shell.  Between the walls, a liquid is present in honeycomb-like cells.  This liquid contains anacardic acid, a skin irritant related to urushiol (the toxin in poison ivy) but is put towards a variety of uses such as brake fluid, adhesives, paints & insecticides.  As well, the resin from cashew tree wood can be made into book & wood varnish which deters ants & other insects.  Roasting the cashew nut will rid it of toxic fluid which is why cashews are virtually always sold shelled & roasted.  
AWESOME!

Read more:
1.  About medicinal uses & growing req's here
2.  About scientific research on cashew apples & vit. C content here
3.  General info & nutritional differences between regional areas here

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Image from: http://bit.ly/jcdnx2