Guerrilla Composting

I've got a problem. I suffer from CBE--Compost Bin Envy.

Let me explain. We've been dutifully, diligently, doggedly separating out of compostables for almost a month now, and let me tell you, it's taking an effort to dispose of our little biobags responsibly. For a while we took them to Whole Foods, but the dock where the compost bins sit is often closed and locked. We've made note of where we've seen other bins around the city, but really what I want is to be able to compost as easily as we recycle.

Our landlady is, unsurprisingly, a lot like Pearl. Even after we explained the whole composting program to her and its many benefits, she refuses to allow us to have a cart for the building.

So, these days, we are forced to go out under the cloak of night, clutching a groaning biobag (can't they make those things tougher??) in search of an unsuspecting green cart in which dump our compostables.

I feel like a weird sort of guerrilla, striking you-never-know-when, flinging my compost into a cart and then vanishing wordlessly into the darkness.

Don't make that face. We're not the only ones out there with unreasonable landlords who won't take the trouble to get us a FREE, yes FREE green cart. I know there are more of you out there, keeping to the shadows, darting out furtively in the twilight looking for a safe haven before your biobag dissolves into shreds and leaves you on a street corner with a pile of coffee grounds and wet orange peels at your feet.

Walking up our street the other day, I noticed that a brand-spanking new compost bin had just gotten delivered to our neighbors' apartment building. Probably for the whole building to love and cherish.

Look at it, lounging catlike in the sun, just waiting to be fed with ecofriendly returns.

I couldn't resist a peek inside this pristine little green hope chest and discovered that apparently they also ship with small individual compost carriers FOR EACH RESIDENT.

Aw, man... you're killin' me.

I sigh as I drop the lid down and make another mental note to pin this location on our Compost Battle Plan Map, and to check when pick up is on our side of the street.

Thank goodness we don't live in Houston. How-- I ask you-- HOW can you live in a city that only recycles 2.6% of its trash? Where residents wait ten years just to get a recycle cart??

Coolest Thing I Learned Today: Mason Jar Blender

I tend to avoid using my Osterizer blender, which I've had since graduating from college. It's old, it's hard to clean, and there is just no counter space for such a thing, so it lives in the far reaches of a high cabinet. In fact, I almost got rid of the behemoth when my Omnivore bought me my fab Braun stick blender, which mounts quietly on the wall and is simplicity itself to clean and use. I'm something of a packrat however, and I'm not so quick to the task getting rid of stuff. So although the blender parts sat in a "to be donated" pile for about a year, they soon migrated to a "might be useful" pile a year later, and from thence to a "well, it's the back of a high cabinet anyway" spot.

Well, it's apparently Divine Providence that kept our blender from the Goodwill truck, because just a little while ago, I ran across this amazing piece of information on Simply Recipes. The business end of a blender (i.e the blades and the collar, which unscrews from the container for easy cleaning), can also be screwed onto a standard mason jar. Flip it over, and slide it onto the base as usual, and you can blend and chop away inside a mason jar, then pull it off, flip it back over and unscrew. Put its regular lid back on and you are now ready to store.

Are you kidding me? Where has this tip been all my life? No, really--why has no one EVER told me this? According to Elise, blenders used to SHIP with mason jars, so you could use them together. They've ALWAYS been this way!

We just made a glaze for our Slathered Lime Ribs-- lots of garlic, ginger, cilantro, soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, hoisin, ketchup, etc.-- all went into the jar. Popped on blender blades and collar, onto the base-- Vvvrrrp, vvvrrrrrppp, vvvrrrpp, and Voila! Instant sauce, no muss, no fuss. I'm flabbergasted at how brilliantly easy it all is.

The Atlas jars that Classico tomato sauce comes in-- and which I use to store beans and rice and such in our pullout pantry--are exactly perfect for this trick. Homemade peanut butter here we come!

Come on, people-- I know there are more of these sorts of fantabulous tips out there. Don't be holding out--share your tips with us!

Travelling in New York

Moving around New York.

An uncharacteristically empty avenue.




One of my favorite open secrets in New York, the view from Roosevelt Island is, in my opinion, one of the best in the city. And the aerial tram ride over is still fun, after all these years.



Admittedly, New York can, however, be less than helpful for the tourist.

A bit of Vienna in New York

So after the initial panic had subsided and I realized that the doctors at New York-Presbyterian probably knew what they were about (they were after all rated as the 6th best hospital in the nation by U.S. News and World Report, and Dad's doctor is apparently a bona fide superstar in the thoracic surgery realm), I calmed down a little. The nursing staff gently pried me away from the bedside as visiting hours closed, and left to my own devices in an over-heated New York, I decided to seek a little comfort in a Viennese Eiskaffee, iced coffee with cream and a goodly dollop of vanilla ice cream.

I haven't had a good one since we went to Vienna three years ago, but through a Percoset-induced haze, my Dad informed me that Cafe Sabarsky at the Neue Gallerie on 86th has a terrific Viennese cafe--the real deal. I had no other things on my agenda, so I headed on over. Of course, when I got there, there was a line out the door and down the hall for Cafe Sabarsky.

(Side note: I have now decided that the reason that New York is such book-reading town is that everyone has to wait on such LONG lines that they have to bring along books--lengthy books--to pass the time. I saw a guy reading Dickens in line at Whole Foods, and you could probably finish Atlas Shrugged while waiting to pay for your soy milk and frozen raviolis at Trader Joes. This, I have decided, also explains the density of New Yorker magazine articles: just long enough for a wait on line at the new Balducci's.)

ANY-way, I'm not big on patience, so I headed downstairs to Cafe Fledermaus, which is admittedly less glamorous, but has no line and the same menu. I ordered some summery spaetzle with corn and peas, and my blessed Eiskafee and sat there with my New Yorker for a little escape from the summer heat and craziness.


New York was uncharacteristically rainy for July, but I like that, especially in the hot weather. The droplets steam off the molten pavement and for a moment everything seems breathable. This whole escapade and the stifling heat made things feel a bit surreal, in fact, as if I were drifting around the city with only a moderate sense of purpose.

Outside of the Neue Gallerie I headed for the 5th Avenue bus and spotted this lonely looking balloon on the sidewalk. I've been a big fan of Lamorisse's The Red Balloon since I was a little kid and the image struck me as particularly appropriate to the wistful way I was feeling at the moment.

New York State of Mind

So I'm back in the Bay Area after a busy week in New York. Although I'd planned it as a vacation trip, for my Dad's birthday, it turned into a bit more of an emergency trip when Dad had to go in for surgery.

I spent most of the day in the hospital, but when they kicked me out after visiting hours ended, I just didn't feel like moping around the apartment.

Whatever else you may say about New York--the sky-high price of milk, the endless lines, crowded streets with people rudely rolling their strollers over your toes--the city always has little magical moments that just don't seem to happen elsewhere.


Olafur Eliasson, whose terrific exhibit I'd seen at the SF Museum of Modern Art, has turned on his wonderful waterfalls in the East River, so I wandered down to the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge to have a gander.







I half expected to see hordes of people clogging the bike path under the drive, but to my pleasant surprise, it was just me and a few other art lovers enjoying a stroll along the water at dusk, as we all watched the lights come on in the city.


Fishermen still wait patiently for their (edible? inedible?) catch, and locals from nearby Chinatown sit on the benches, taking in the view across the river.




I walked all the way to Pier 35 to see the tall cascade, and marvel at the pleasure that running water seems to evoke in humans.




A tug pushing a barge filled with trash plows by -- man-made beauty and man-made garbage.





It's well worth staying past sunset to watch the real beauty of the Waterfalls come out.





What is this? No idea. And why do things look so strangely surreal at night in New York?