Category Archives: Blather

Days of PDX

Today marks my 11th day in Portland, Oregon.

The house is still full of boxes, though fewer and fewer as time passes. We haven’t had many times we needed to open something in a hurry, but there have been one or two incidents.

Peaches and strawberries are still in season. I didn’t manage to each ANY in Chicago this year, so I can’t tell you how happy this is for me. So far in PDX, I have eaten peaches straight and in cakes and as sides to savory meals. I have gorged on strawberries. (And tomatoes.)

There’s a farmers market just across the street from my house. And there’s a couple green spaces nearby that are fun to walk around. A big park nearby has me considering purchasing this cart and an exercise pen to have a makeshift yard for the pups to run around in while I work nearby.… Continue reading →

Readings You Might Have Missed

Food

To Cut Food Waste, Spain’s Solidarity Fridge Supplies Endless Leftovers.
I need this to be a thing I can contribute to, pronto. I always cook far, far too much. And I really hate food waste.

Beer

Waste Not, Want Not: 5 Ways Breweries Recycle Their Waste
I am endlessly fascinated by learning about what different breweries do in dealing with their waste streams. I think because it’s all such simple waste (water, grain, etc), and thus something I can see potential in and have some clue about how to reuse it. And probably because I know there’s some amazing potential for goodies in there.

Science

Building standards aren’t to blame for chilly offices
So what is? Because, at this point, we’ve all ready about how it’s sexism in building standards.… Continue reading →

Two Weeks of Links

I didn’t do links last Monday because something more important came up. So this week, instead of one link per section, you can have several! Except in the beer section, because the beer stuff I got these last couple of weeks somehow wasn’t my jam.

Food

Beyond Brothels: Farms And Fisheries Are Frontier Of Human Trafficking When Americans think about modern-day slavery, we typically tend to think of sexual slavery and movies like “Taken”. The reality is that trafficking is as much, if not more, about forced work of a non-sexual nature. Food is often produced under such conditions.

Europe’s Taste For Caviar Is Putting Pressure On A Great Lakes Fish. Lake Superior apparently has really adorable tiny fish that, in turn, have really delicious roe.… Continue reading →

Why Do You Write?

Chuck Wendig asks this over at Terrible Minds. It’s his non-fiction flash-fiction challenge. I enjoy that idea, so I thought I’d try to tackle the subject.

The simple answer is I write because I enjoy it. And because I need to write.

I’ve always enjoyed writing. I’ve always needed to write. But I haven’t always done it.

Funny, isn’t it?

I remember hauling a journal around most of my life, and writing in it constantly. I remember wanting to be a lot of things when I grew up, but somehow writing was always involved. I thought I was going to major in English in college (because I didn’t know creative writing degrees were a thing you could get), until suddenly a fantastic teacher changed my life and I ended up in biology.… Continue reading →

Five Fascinating Links

Food: Whole Foods, Expensive Cheese, and the Dilemma of Cheap Prison Labor.

I had no idea public-private enterprises for prison labor use existed (again). It seems like a sticky situation, in that I can understand the arguments that this is a good thing and a bad thing. It’s definitely something for me to further mull over. And I’d love to know your thoughts on the matter, please.

A cheese board with built in cutlery. Alas, it won't help me cut through the ethical problems with so many cheeses.

Beer: The Defining Reason to Talk About Sam Adams Not Being ‘Craft’

“Craft” is a tricky word in the beer industry and in the beer community. You may have heard about (or participated in!) the debates around “craft vs ‘crafty’,” but the conversation seems to have died down some in the years since that press release was put out.… Continue reading →