Shameless Gluttony

shirred eggs

2011-04-16T10:51:00.000-07:00

Fancy breakfast times, to celebrate spring. Shirred, or baked, eggs.

Shirred Eggs with Shrimp
makes 1 serving
2 medium eggs
4 frozen shrimp, peeled and tail off; thawed
Butter
1 T cream or milk (I used coconut milk, a recent obsession)
Salt and pepper to taste
Cilantro for garnish

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. If you have two ramekin dishes, butter those. If not, butter a 5x7" baking dish. I did the second
Crack two eggs into buttered baking dish; or one egg in each ramekin dish. Place shrimp on top of eggs, arranged however you see fit. Drizzle the cream on top of the eggs; this will help them from drying out in the oven. Salt and pepper to taste.
Bake eggs for 12-15 minutes, checking them at 10 min to see if the whites have solidified yet.
Take them out when the whites are firm. Garnish with cilantro, then serve.
Goes great with orange juice (fresh-squeezed if you can), coffee, fruit, toast, and lazy sunny days eating breakfast on a porch or deck. I'm taking mine with coffee, toast, orange slices, and beautiful poetry for class, while enjoying the creek and marsh in my back yard.

split pea soup

2011-01-15T17:44:00.000-08:00

Soup is my comfort food, and winter in the Northwest always needs more comfort. Plus, beans and split peas are ridiculously cheap at GrocOut right now.

Simple Split Pea Soup
makes 4 servings as a side
2 c dry split peas, washed
4 1/2 c water
2 stalks celery, chopped
2 large carrot, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped (I like red onions)
1 T salt
2 c milk or milk alternative thing (I used almond milk)
Pepper, to taste.

Boil water. Put split peas, celery, carrot, onion, and salt in water. Boil for 30-40 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat. Add milk. Add pepper. Stir. Eat. Feel warmth in chest.
If you like meat, add 1 c cooked diced ham when adding the veggies.

Vegan "Cheese" and Broccoli Soup

2010-11-13T23:53:00.001-08:00

Marin is the outlier of the house. By that I mean they're vegan, gluten-intolerant, and allergic to corn and soy, but the rest of us are omnivores. Marin and I are both really into communal meals, which is way more of a challenge on my part than theirs when we decide to cook.
I fucking love soup, so I decided to try to make a cream-of-broccoli soup everyone in the house can eat. This isn't as thick as a normal cream soup is, but it's still pretty great.

-1/4 c Soy-free EarthBalance
-1/2 c rice flour
-1 c vegetable stock
-2 medium broccoli crowns, stalk included, cut into reasonably bite-sized pieces
-1 medium onion, diced
-1 c sliced mushrooms
-4 c vegetable stock
-1 c nutritional yeast

Melt EarthBalance in a 3-qt saucepan over medium heat. Add rice flour. Stir with a whisk or spatula constantly until rice flour turns golden-brown, then add 1 c veggie stock. Stir until there are no chunks, and the EarthBalance/rice flour roux is mixed thoroughly into the stock.
Add broccoli, onion, and mushrooms. Cook until onion becomes clear and slightly tender. Add 4 c vegetable stock and 1 c nutritional yeast. Bring to a simmer, then remove from heat and serve. The nutritional yeast has a tendency to settle, so the soup may need to be stirred every once in a while.

Notes: White or crimini mushrooms are great, but I lucked out and chanterelles were on sale, so I got fancy mushrooms.
Also delicious with bacon bits, but Marin isn't into that, so I didn't include it in the original recipe.
Nutritional yeast is fucking expensive. I got mine ridiculously cheap by going in the bulk section and labeling it with the # for cornmeal. I feel totally justified doing this because the grocery store I bought it from refuses to carry Plan B and their pharmacist judges you if you ask for it. If I wasn't so poor and filled with feminist rage (RAGE!) I'd buy it from the local co-op.

2010-10-28T19:10:00.000-07:00

Today I craved ginger ale, and didn't want to wait the two days to ferment it. I had a 5-inch ginger root laying around, so I decided to make a syrup.
I peeled the ginger and cut it into approximately 3/4" chunks, threw it in 2c water and 2c sugar, and followed the previously linked process for flavored syrups. Afterward I cut the sugary ginger chunks into thin strips, and mixed them with lemon sorbet.

My new roommate Marin (house of 4 now) put some ginger chunks into mashed potatoes with broccoli and it's pretty great too.

2 oz ginger syrup to 6 oz soda water makes a great soda.

Updates?

2010-10-08T12:47:00.000-07:00

What are those?

I have a house with no internet, which should be fixed some time Monday. In this house are two roommates, Cate and Carley, both lovely women from Omaha who share my love of booze and bacon. We have a little garden from the previous tenants that currently has lots of green tomatoes, some green leafy things, sunflowers, unidentified squash, and some herbs. Expect some ridiculousness in the future.
We might set up a still and make some booze in the garage. Corn liquor is first on the list, if this ends up happening.
Side note: our neighbors have chickens. I want to steal them.

Flavored Syrups

2010-09-02T15:42:00.001-07:00

Flavored syrups are surprisingly easy to make. Here are two I've made recently, and a few serving suggestions.

Lavender Syrup
4 sprigs of lavender, preferably including flowers
1 c sugar
1 c water

Combine sugar and water in small pan, cook over medium heat until sugar dissolves. Add sprigs of lavender and cook over low heat for 10 minutes. Remove lavender sprigs, put syrup in separate container and chill.
Goes very well with lemonade.

Rosemary Syrup
2 sprigs rosemary
1 c sugar
1 c water

Do everything you did with the lavender syrup, but with rosemary instead. I haven't tried this with anything but lemon vodka, which is great.

Simple, delicious little details.

sweet tea liqueur and limoncello

2010-09-02T15:25:00.000-07:00

Update: Both the rum and the ginger beer turned out fantastic. The rum is pretty lightly flavored. I steeped one bottle with vanilla, allspice, clove, and cardamom. The other bottle was flavored with the same, plus peppercorn and orange zest.

This summer has been more about experimenting with booze flavors than food flavors. I decided to try my hand at infusing some stuff. I can't get everclear, or anything of that proof, here in Washington so I use 100-proof vodka. Here are recipes for limoncello and sweet tea liqueur.

Sweet Tea Liqueur
750 ml vodka or neutral grain spirit
3 T loose black tea
38 oz sugar
38 oz water

Steep tea in alcohol for 3-4 hours. Filter out tea leaves, discard. Combine sugar and water in small pot over medium-low heat until sugar dissolves to make simple syrup. Allow simple syrup to cool to room temperature. Combine simple syrup and tea vodka. Allow to chill at least 2 hours before serving.

Limoncello
750 ml vodka or neutral grain spirit
10-12 lemons, depending on size
38 oz sugar
38 oz water

Zest lemons using a sharp knife or vegetable peeler, being very careful to get little to no pith (the white part beneath the thin yellow outer layer). Place lemon zest in alcohol, and let steep for 1-2 weeks. Make some simple syrup, as detailed in the sweet tea liqueur recipe. Combine simple syrup and lemon vodka. Allow to chill at least 2 hours before serving.

I plan on adding the sweet tea liqueur to whiskey, and either drinking the limoncello straight or combining it with gin and maybe a bit of rosemary syrup.

Dark and stormy

2010-07-15T12:36:00.000-07:00

A friend and I are making rum. We made the molasses and yeast mixture a few days ago, and now my kitchen smells like fermentation and sugar. It'll be clear when we distill it, but we're going to put it in smaller jars and spice each one individually. Mostly they'll have clove, allspice, cinnamon, maybe some cardamom and I'm going to try one with cayenne.

Speaking of things that are delicious and spicy, I've recently fallen in love with ginger beer and want to try my hand at making some. We have everything necessary except ginger root.

I will definitely combine the two for an entirely home-made dark and stormy. Mmm.

Brunch Recipes

2010-06-22T17:00:00.000-07:00

Served 6 people, with some leftovers. Pretty much I went to my local library, checked out cookbooks that came up when I searched "brunch," and ran with it.

BASICS
1) 8 hard-boiled eggs

2) Assorted fruit bowl

BEVERAGES
1) Coffee
Black, drip. I miss my French press. Milk, soy milk, and sugar available. The coffee I have right now is a French roast, which I should learn not to buy cheap because it's usually burnt.

2) Mimosas:
-1 part champagne
-1 part orange juice
Serve in champagne flutes

3) The Best Bloody Marys... Ever:
-2 1/2 cups Bakon vodka (possibly the only way this is delicious)
-7 cups tomato juice
-1 T Worcestershire sauce
-1 T Tabasco (or other brand) hot sauce
-Salt and pepper to taste
Throw them into a pitcher and stir. If making less, can be shaken in a cocktail shaker with plenty of ice. Serve over ice in a tall glass and garnish with
-Random pickled foods (mine included string beans, olives, pearl onions, and red peppers my stepbrother and his girlfriend made)
-Lime wedges
-Celery stick

FOOD
1) Donuts my other stepbrother was kind enough to bring over, including maple bacon. Not as good as the original Voodoo Doughnuts maple bacon, but still unexpectedly fabulous.

2) Caraway and Sour Cream Soup (from Cinnamon Mornings by Pamela Lanier)
-4 c chicken stock
-1/4 c butter
-2 c medium-dice onions
-1 c medium-dice celery
-1 c medium-dice carrots
-salt and pepper to taste
-1 T caraway seeds
-1/2 c all-purpose flour
-1 c sour cream
-1/2 c milk
Heat the chicken stock. In a separate 3-qt saucepan, melt butter. Saute onions, celery and carrots. Season lightly with salt and pepper. Add caraway seeds. Saute until onion is transparent. Reduce heat and add flour, stirring constantly so as not to scorch. Cook for 5 to 8 minutes to bind flour and fat. Gradually add hot chicken stock, stirring to dissolve the flour mixture. Bring soup to a boil, then reduce heat and let simmer.
In a separate bowl, mix sour cream with one cup of hot soup and stir vigorously to prevent curdling. Pour this mixture back into the soup and heat, taking care not to allow soup to boil. Finally, add milk and season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve hot.
Fancy culinary words in this recipe: roux, mirepoix.

2) Shrimp-Shirred Eggs (from same)
-3 T clarified butter
-8 eggs
-1 large shallot, chopped
-1 c brut champagne
-1 1/2 lbs frozen or fresh shrimp, peeled and deveined
-3 c heavy cream
-1/4 lb (1 stick) unsalted butter
-8 olive rounds
-salt and pepper to taste
Preheat oven to 350. Butter a shallow, oven-proof casserole dish large enough to hold 8 eggs in a single layer.
Crack eggs into the casserole, being careful not to break the yolks. Dot yolks with 1 T clarified butter and bake uncovered in oven until the yolks are set.
Heat remaining 2 T clarified butter in a large skillet. Saute the chopped shallots lightly in the butter. Add champagne and reduce by half. Add the shrimp and cook gently for 2-3 minutes. Remove shrimp with a slotted spoon and keep warm. Increase heat under skillet and reduce juices to a thin glaze. Blend in cream and simmer until mixture thickens, about 20-30 minutes. Remove from head and whisk in 1/4 lb (1 stick) butter, a Tablespoon at a time. Stir in the reserved shrimp, season to taste and pour over the shirred eggs. Garnish with olive slices.

I prepared the mirepoix, other chopped veggies, hard boiled eggs, fruit bowl, and bloody mary pitcher the night before. I also made corn muffins, but they turned out incredibly dry so I don't want to inflict that recipe on anyone else.

I'm not dead.

2010-06-10T17:58:00.000-07:00

I moved and have been getting settled.

Last Monday I made brunch for a few friends and my stepbrothers. I'll post recipes (no pictures, unfortunately) in the next couple of days, and then maybe a meaty review of The Vegetarian Myth (that pun was unintentional and now I hate myself a little.)

I might start posting stuff about homebrew and local microbreweries, as I'm maybe going to make a honey-blonde ale with my stepbrother. The Pacific Northwest is the perfect place to be a beer-lover. My older stepbrother just bought a house with his girlfriend and plans to grow hops around his back porch. Hell yeah.

Quick Link (Food Politics, Race, Privilege)

2010-05-09T10:52:00.001-07:00

I'm having a Lazy Intellectual Sunday where I just read intelligent blog posts and sit on the couch. I've been Reading New Model Minority, and she has a great post called Race, Class, Food, and the Future of the City: A Manifesto. She also has a fantastic article on Global Gated Communities that started out talking about vegetables. Check it.

Sorry this blog has been so inactive. I'll get back on it once I get my laptop up and running. I'm borrowing my roommate's for now.

Feminism, Domesticity, and Self-Reliance

2010-03-15T11:12:00.000-07:00

My computer has decided to be nice today. I hope this lasts.

This train of thought began, strangely enough, in a linguistics blog. Language Log featured a brief entry about the word "femivore" as one of the extensions of the suffix "-vore" as created in a New York Times article. A good portion of the comments are devoted to discussion of the prefix "femi-" and the suffix "-vore", but a few strayed into the political implications of this small but noticeable movement in food politics.

This is something I've been considering for a long time. Starting a garden, keeping chickens, and generally being fairly self-sufficient with what I consume is incredibly appealing. The feminist implications are still a little iffy for me, as a woman still coming to terms with the possibility of domesticity as a form of feminism. I've been told both that I am "the most domestic of [a friend's] friends but the least likely to be a domestic" and that "whether [I] marry a man or a woman [I'll] be the one in the apron." Coming to terms with being a feminist domestic scares me.

This is because "difference feminism" (as I've heard it called) has often sounded like keeping the traditional place of women in the private sphere and men in the public sphere, with too little emphasis on the work that goes into maintaining a domestic space and almost no discussion about the possibility of a "house-husband" or "male domestic"*. I've seen a number of my moderate-to-radical friends in relationships act out the "men make houses, women make homes" (or even traditional gender roles being assigned to partners in same-sex relationships) model way too often for my taste.

Is "femivore" more related to the prefix "femi-" or the suffix "-vore"? Is this movement focused more on gender or food politics? I see it as a wonderful food politics movement with strong influence on gender politics, but the article is more focused on the feminist aspect of this movement in an almost condescending manner. The last paragraph seems like the author is trying to justify how negatively she views this aberrant lifestyle, but instead of encouraging men to participate more in domestic matters, ends up sounding dismissive of the whole thing. I would love to have garden and own chickens in a sustainable, eco-friendly way, but whoever I was living with (roommate, partner, whatever) would have to give equal effort to domestic affairs. Instead of talking about the negatives, about how this movement can be interpreted as both feminist and anti-feminist, we should talk about how to make them equal. More direct symbiosis, less parasitism.**

On a considerably less academic note, the word "femivorism" is one of the ugliest I've encountered in a good while. I hope it doesn't catch on.

The Femivore's Dilemma (via New York Times)
Vaguely related, Why Making Healthful Foods Cheaper Isn't Enough (via NPR)

*note the marked gender of these phrases
**related to The Vegetarian Myth, which will probably be the focus of my next entry, provided my computer stays on long enough for me to compose a coherent entry

Computer Asplosion/Large Quantities of Cupcakes and Shellfish

2010-03-06T12:22:00.000-08:00

Lack of updates due to computer only occasionally wanting to start up, and the fan getting extremely angry after an hour to an hour and a half of being alive.

This week, I have baked 8 batches of cupcakes, with recipes from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World (which is the best cupcake book you could ever buy.) 4 of them were tiramisu, one batch of carrot cupcakes, one batch of pineapple upside down, one batch of blueberry lemon creme, and one batch of chocolate stout. Most of these were given away or for a bake sale. I may make one more batch of blueberry lemon creme cupcakes, as I have extra lemon frosting and blueberry filling.

Last night the upstairs neighbors had a crawfish boil in the back yard. It sounds like it went pretty okay, but they started around 9 and didn't prepare as well as they could have. Not that I know shit about having a crawfish boil, mind you. They left a huge bag of them out all night, but miraculously quite a few are still alive. The still-living leftovers have been gifted to the 4 of us living downstairs, as 2 out of 3 of the upstairs neighbors keep kosher and there are only so many crawfish one man can eat.

I also got a new friend. His name is Klaus the Crawfish. We will probably eat him, too.

I fucking love avocados.

2010-02-25T12:33:00.001-08:00

Taking a page from my friend Max's book, I'm gonna preface this with "Oh man you guys, I had the best sandwich for lunch."

Toasted whole wheat bread. Sliced avocado. Tomatoes. Mozarella cheese. Vegenaise (vegan mayo, which was cheaper than real mayo). Swedish-style mustard. Romaine lettuce. Yellow onions. If I still ate meat or had bacon, this would be the perfect BLT+. I ate it too fast to take a picture.

Vegetable Soup Stock

2010-02-19T21:25:00.000-08:00

AKA "throw a bunch of vegetable scraps in a pot and boil the hell out of it." Also, look everyone I got batteries for my camera! Here's the "before" picture.

I keep the odds and ends of veggies used in other recipes in a freezer bag to use for soup stock. This one's made of bits of green onions, red onions, yellow onions, one small potato, maybe 3 celery stalks, part of a tomato (which I'm finding makes stocks slightly bitter), 2 small carrots, and a heap of pre-chopped garlic. The house buys pre-chopped garlic in bulk, so I don't use fresh-chopped as much as I'd like. There are some spices in there, like salt, pepper, and a bay leaf. I don't remember everything I smelled in the cupboard and thought "this'll be nice," then threw in. I'm precise in my cooking, I know.

As a basic veggie soup stock recipe, you can gather
1 onion
2 carrots
3 celery stalks
1 head garlic (which is what gives it more flavor)
1 bay leaf
and as much salt and pepper as you like

Quarter onion. Peel garlic. Cut carrots and celery into... chunks about 1-2 inches long. Throw all ingredients in the largest pot you own. Add enough water to fill your large pot. Bring water to a boil, then let simmer for 1-2 hours. Strain veggie bits out, wait for the stock to cool, and refrigerate or freeze for later deliciousness.

Here we have the "after."

I spent a decade exoticising the otter

2010-02-19T12:40:00.000-08:00

I find that the webcomic Cat and Girl too often describes my life or my thoughts.

A Few Good Links

2010-02-16T12:02:00.000-08:00

GOOD gets in on the food politics posts. This one's about disposable dinnerware.

Avocado salad I could probably eat for a week straight (PGEW)

Happy Mardi Gras everyone. I'm gonna go try to find some delicious paczki.

Coffee

2010-02-15T12:11:00.000-08:00

Luxirare does coffee food porn. Picture in this post taken from her blog.

For those of you not familiar with the term, "food porn" is a picture (usually a detailed close-up shot) of food to make it look incredibly aesthetically appealing and less like the mess that's usually on your plate. I'm a sucker for it. Luxirare is my favorite at it.

Also, how much of your favorite caffeinated beverage would it take to kill you? It would take 110.8 macchiatos (labeled on the website as espresso shots) or 181.52 cups of black tea to kill me.

Valentine's Day

2010-02-11T22:48:00.000-08:00

I'm going to make 2 dozen crimson velvet cupcakes on Valentine's Day, and all 3 of my readers are invited to partake. There will probably be some left over on Monday, which means the two readers from out of state have time to get to New Orleans.

note: this image is not a cupcake i made

Moar Food Politics

2010-02-10T18:40:00.000-08:00

I've just heard of a book called Against the Grain by Richard Manning. From what I've read about it, it sounds like a case for feeding cattle grass instead of grain to help fix the environmental destruction caused by certain forms of farming. I might (with my meager funds and book store gift certificate) buy this and Omnivore's Dilemma, then contrast their arguments. There's also the option of The Vegetarian Myth by Lierre Kieth, which sounds like it's along the same lines as Against the Grain.

Some day I'll get to posting more about delicious things and less about my conflicted thoughts on said delicious things.

Note: I couldn't find Against the Grain on the website for the book store where I wouldn't have to pay my own money, so I purchased The Vegetarian Myth and The Omnivore's Dilemma. They should be here in the next week, so I can start reviewing and analyzing with a little more background than I already have. In the mean time, I'll post a recipe or two and buy some batteries for my mediocre camera to post some food-porn.

Dietary Restriction

2010-02-07T01:32:00.000-08:00

I'm pretty into trying to cut meat out from my diet. I'll try not to rehash every tired argument about being vegetarian or vegan everyone's heard before. I've never been a fan of PETA. Well, in middle school I was into them, but fuck middle school. I'm not particularly offended at what some have called the subjugation of animals. I'm more concerned with the environmental impact of and having some form of relationship with the meals I eat. My love of food and love of over-analyzing everything means that I think about what's on my plate and going into my body a hell of a lot.

I feel like the worst foodie* who is into politics ever, because I haven't read Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma yet. I'm really feeling the need to read it right now, and maybe blog about some of the products I'm cooking with and their origins and impact on the environment and my body (bio, nutrition, etc.) I think I have a little bit of what Pollan writes about buzzing around my head, just from looking into the locavore and freegan movements. This project could encourage me to buy more local and simpler ingredients. What I don't want to happen is that I learn about this, think long and hard about it, and then continue to buy what I consider to be "bad" foods while feeling guilty but somehow secure because of my knowledge of how horrible it is. The Liberal's Dilemma, if you will.

I think a lot about what I put in my body. I think about how what I put into my body effects the world around me, with its path starting in a strangely global way but leading into my tummy. So much goes into things we consider simple, particularly convenience foods, with things like ramen, frozen meals, and the ever talked about fast food having an incredibly complex path into our mouths. This isn't just about how going veggie (or vegan, maybe possibly some day) could effect my health. Currently I rarely eat meat, maybe once or twice a week, with the goal of complete vegetarianism in mind. Going vegan is a maybe, some day. These decisions are based more on the environmental impact of feeding our meat when it's still alive and growing, giving it range land, slaughtering the animal, storage, and then transporting the dead meat in freezer trucks. That's a hell of a process, and a time commitment, for a burger or sausage.

I'd also love to do a deconstruction of some of the vegan and vegetarian recipes I find all over, too, for their overall environmental impact. Soy-based meat and dairy replacements involve a huge amount of processing. Some ingredients that seem to be staples for some vegan meals involve shipping from far away, which I'm not entirely comfortable with. But, I have to remember to stick to one project at a time.

There is so much involved in one meal, it blows my mind. My next project will probably be an analysis of each meal I eat, maybe just for a day or two, and trying to find viable replacements that are both better for the environment and for my body.

Unfortunately, I'm dirt poor right now. That could put a damper on my plans for more involved projects. If only I could get a grant for eating...

*what does this word even mean

Why isn't it summer yet?

2010-02-03T17:14:00.000-08:00

I want to make tea-tinis.

Pasta Primavera

2010-02-02T15:49:00.000-08:00

Tonight I made my own twist on the Poor Girl Eats Well recipe for penne primavera. Absolutely delicious, fairly quick, and I got to feed my roommates before they dashed off to do important scholarly things.

All the cooking steps are the same as the PGEW recipe, but here are my altered ingredients based on what was in the house:
A fistfull of uncooked spaghetti (I'm scientific, I know), then cooked and set aside
3/4 c broccoli florets (cooked in a separate pan, as one of the housemates has an allergy)
1/2 c green peas
1 medium carrot, thinly sliced
8-10 medium white mushrooms, sliced
2 small yellow onions, thinly sliced
2 tomatoes, diced
1/3 c white wine
1 T heavy cream
1/2 t salt
Plenty of freshly ground black pepper
1/2 t dried tarragon
1/2 t dried fennel
1/2 t dried oregano
Grated parmesan cheese, for garnish

OH MAN

2010-02-01T15:44:00.000-08:00

I forgot to link my absolute favorite food blog. All the ingredients she uses are insanely expensive, and her food and fashion posts are essentially the same, but it's all incredibly beautiful. This is Luxirare.

oh shit!

2010-01-29T23:53:00.000-08:00

I'm back! As a food blog this time. Nothing yet, as I have a cold and don't really feel like cooking, but I'll post recipes and photos soon.
For now, here are some links to my favorite food blogs:
Poor Girl Eats Well
Broke-Ass Gourmet
(notice a theme?)
FoodGawker (more focused on aesthetics than delicious, but does have some good recipes)
A Hungry Bear Won't Dance

renege'd

2009-08-21T14:49:00.000-07:00

i lied to you! i just got me a shiny new tumblr. newnewnew

shift

2009-08-21T11:49:00.000-07:00

Since I rarely update about the intellectual subjects I love to blabber about, I've decided to add a little more to the topics I write about here. Mostly this will be music and shallow things like fashion and design (of all types, even maybe including furniture which I feel weird talking about but shutup i like modernist design in housewares ok.) To commemorate this moment, here's a short film with music by Copy (Portland electroliciousness).

astroturf

2009-08-18T16:32:00.001-07:00

Oh man it's been a while. A brief little update with a nifty little widget, via FreePress. It tells you the nonprofits that aren't really grassroots, but "astroturf" and funded by corporations.

quick word-vomit about segmenting of society and marketing

2009-04-14T22:58:00.000-07:00

AdAge is a leading advertising industry magazine. Here's a little bit about what may become a greater trend in advertising: the increasing push of the utility of a product and less specific identification of the product with an identity.
The comments section is particularly fantastic, as it contains some great critique. My personal favorite is the one that says "you lost me at 'consumer generated media'", which says to me that the commenter is probably very confused by the MySpace. The next comment provides better commentary, saying that self-segmentation (such as the type Facebook uses for those little side-bar ads) are not the death of consumer segmentation, but considerably better than any focus group could be. He also says that what "marketers need to think about is how to encourage more consumers to share their preferences with marketers – replacing privacy concerns with a desire to receive more relevant and appealing marketing communications." Ew.

two sides to every story: somali pirates

2009-04-10T18:46:00.000-07:00

Most of what I've heard about piracy off the coast of Somalia pertains to their nautical reign of terror and hostage situations. Here are some nice alternative perspectives that do a pretty good job in not justifying all while excusing those that are excusable. There is also analysis of the surrounding political situation that has allowed (or pushed) this to happen.

You Are Being Lied To About Pirates (via Huffington Post)

'Toxic waste' behind Somali piracy (via Al Jazeera)

Piracy challenges global governance (via KenyaImagine magazine)

And, as a final link, here's the simultaneous blog post by Gabriel Teodros. It contains a video of K'Naan, a Somali rapper, talking about the situation from a more personal perspective.

Twitter, Fans, Owning Your Culture

2009-03-17T15:09:00.000-07:00

There is a group of people on Twitter that are tweeting as characters from Mad Men, the fabulous AMC show about the advertising industry in the late 50s/early 60s. They tweet in-character, and at each other, as if communicating about work and their personal lives. At first I thought they were a sort of viral-but-not-really marketing stunt, but it turns out they're made by a group of fans that are dedicated to the show and the characters. This is fantastic, and apparently they're the talk of the tech-crowd at SXSW.

Here are a few of them:
Don Draper
Betty Draper
Peggy Olson
Roger Sterling

"Arrest of Asbo 'suicide' woman"

2009-02-27T16:31:00.000-08:00

why give the monetary cost of her suicide attempts to the ambulance drivers?

bahahaha

2009-02-10T01:02:00.000-08:00

I may be doing a research paper about heteronormativity and heterosexism in magazines aimed at young teen girls. This will be depressing and fun. I'll post my results here.

Speaking of creative commons, Wikipedia informs me that "[Lawrence] Lessig has known president Barack Obama since their days teaching law at the University of Chicago, and has been mentioned as a candidate to head the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates the telecommunications industry." I would flip shit, in a good way.

why.

2009-02-06T21:34:00.001-08:00

This is possibly the dumbest news article I've ever read. I expect better from the BBC.

But I do dig the image of Putin dancing to Abba.

39Xnever

2009-01-25T22:11:00.000-08:00

that was a short-lived project.

fabulous/39x3

2009-01-21T01:06:00.000-08:00

in his inaugural address on Tuesday, Mr Obama emphasised the idea of respect for justice and the rights of the individual, rejecting "as false the choice between our safety and our ideals".

Maddie was another badass girl who shaped me. She, too, was the most punk rock individual I knew at the time (in early middle school.) She still makes me think of Spuds McKenzy Chuck Taylors and whimsical social criticism.

39X2

2009-01-20T02:17:00.001-08:00

Meryl was my best friend in fifth grade. She introduced me to sarcasm and punk rock and rebellion. Well, as rebellious as a fifth grader can be. Last I met her she was a vegan with a pierced hood.

39X1

2009-01-19T00:07:00.000-08:00

Today is the first day of a new project. See if you can guess what it is. The rest of these will be narrative most likely. I'm not sure if I will fulfill my goal. Idea stolen from here.

ugh

2009-01-17T12:37:00.001-08:00

Dear Israel and Palestine,

Fucking stop it, guys. Seriously.

XOXO,
Courtney

Larry Lessig+Stephen Colbert

2009-01-15T17:21:00.000-08:00

Lawrence Lessig on The Colbert Report
very funny, very pertinent

and the remixes keep coming, and even if some of them suck, they're all wonderful

2009-01-08T18:59:00.000-08:00

drm

2009-01-06T11:42:00.000-08:00

win!
partway, not epic. because " what we're going to end up with is a new form of DRM. The more you pay, the less DRM you get bolted onto your music."
but my balls " the record industry has been trying to level the playing field," record companies do no such thing. (plz see napster)

word vomit

2009-01-06T01:18:00.000-08:00

Found Magazine is the illusion of intimacy combined with the thought that another person could find a glimpse into our lives as interesting as we do theirs, or even better, that millions of people could find us as interesting as we find ourselves.
(same as reality tv)
Ze Frank made an episode of The Show about it, but he is more for individualism (to be fair, so am I to an extent.) He also made an episode (and interactive project) about experimentation with aesthetics revolving around making your Myspace ugly.
According to this book I'm reading, Hello I'm Special: How Individuality Became the New Conformity by Hal Niedzviecki, it's all a symptom of our society pushing further toward "radical" individualism.
God, I made a bit of web-art about this last year...
thougts?
additions?

i wish this blog was more of a conversation...

technology

2008-12-30T23:39:00.000-08:00

I just checked out my aunt and uncle's blogs and now I feel vastly inferior. They both write about technology and education, so not exactly what I'm trying to get up here, but along the same lines.

I'll try to use them as inspiration and quality standard.

the darker side to shoe-throwing

2008-12-16T14:41:00.000-08:00

from bbc
from al jazeera english

intellectual crush

2008-12-04T16:18:00.000-08:00

b-cuz brains is sexxxy

-Shirin Ebadi
-Douglas Rushkoff
-George Lakoff
-Kenji Yoshino
-Reza Aslan
-Thomas Frank
-Ze Frank (no relation)
-Slavoj Zizek is climbing the ladder...
-Edward Said
-Judith Butler
-Michel Foucault
-Germaine Greer

mini profiles, highlights, and gushing may come in the future (so many promises you make courtney...)

branding

2008-11-30T13:05:00.000-08:00

The Beeb has a very interesting article about terrorism and celebrity. It reminded me of an episode of Ze Frank's The Show about branding and celebrity in today's world.
There's a weird attitude that any publicity is good publicity. The desire to be in the spotlight, regardless of why, seems to permeate our culture. Reality TV is a prime example of this. The advent of the internet and social networking has made it easier for individuals to produce and distribute amazing works of art and information, but it has also made celebrity into a strange creature that can be anywhere for anything, positive or negative.
This will be expanded when I am less hung over.

internets

2008-11-16T17:41:00.000-08:00

the psychology of the internet

One of these days, you're going to see a fatty essay about the internet here. Right now it's still in the planning stages.

what the hell

2008-10-24T19:02:00.000-07:00

why would you do this?

I am... beyond amazed, or disgusted. I really don't know...

Colin Powell said something awesome!

2008-10-19T10:11:00.000-07:00

also he endorsed Obama, hell to the yeah

"I'm also troubled by, not what Senator McCain says, but what members of the [Republican] Party say... such things as 'Well, you know that Mr Obama is a Muslim'.

"Well the correct answer is, 'He's not a Muslim, he's a Christian, he's always been a Christian'. But the really right answer is, "What if he is?' Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer is 'No', that's not America."

full article on BBC here

internetssssssss

2008-10-16T23:12:00.000-07:00

Today is not the day to ramble about the impact of the internet on society or the individual.
That will come later, and it will come long and hard (much like me.)
But for now, Ze Frank did a lovely little experiment with Facebook and identity.

subjectivity

2008-10-14T23:20:00.000-07:00

The problem with being into both poststructuralist theory and social activism is the border between acting as an ally and when yr privilege and bias are shaping yr actions.
Talking about bias in (Re)Imagining the Middle East is way harder than it was in Designing Languages. Maybe because this class is forcing me to reevaluate cultural biases that are pretty fundamental to my way of thinking, like I value the objective quite a bit, but haven't come to terms with the... nonexistence? of true objectivism.
Also, generalizations are difficult to avoid... about everything. It's frustrating sometimes, as human brains work based on categories. Changing these categories is hard shit to deal with.

i did it

2008-10-14T19:11:00.001-07:00

I feel like I'm on lj for grownups/college students.

That's the way it's gone, right? Myspace to Facebook, LJ to Blogger. Are there any I'm missing?...

Anyway. I think this is going to be a place for some intellectual bullshit to go down. I'd love love love feedback, from anyone (including you stranger), as sometimes I don't know what the hell I'm talking about...

I have the feeling there will be lots of ellipses in this blog.