Frank talk about tuna.

This is an entry I wrote last year but never released, and now I never even ever think about tuna, so I suppose that I'll never finish it.  I do still like the preserved whole tuna, though.  Hopefully you'll enjoy the videos.

This is a movie of Italians catching tuna. It'll hold your attention, ~5 min. It has some fun facts. Did you know that tuna never stop growing? Ever.



Even if you aren't interested in 5 minutes of fisherman, this is a public service announcement.  I believe that this is a TV commercial from NOAA, its only 60 s long, and pretty funny. (Maybe some of you have seen this before, but I never watch TV, so its new to me).

Last night we ate tuna!  I do not feel guilty about that.  But I do feel guilty about my inability to feel guilty about it.  (Same story with fossil fuels, really.)  I'm sure you are familiar with fresh tuna and canned tuna.   I only recently learned of an additional way to preserve tuna, packed in olive oil.  Its all the rage in Spain.

Would you eat a scone with peas?

I am Wade.
Wade-I-am!

I do not like scones.
I do not like them
Wade-I-am.
I do not like them in the dark.
I do not like them when I fart.
I would not eat one in a tree.
I would not eat one given me.

Okay, okay I told a lie,
I'd eat a scone that is free.
But I would not eat one instead of brie!

I prefer a sconce to a scone
Especially if Côtes du Rhône

Now crispy muffin go away.
While you are gone please change your ways.

hollow out and fry thyself
return to my lips -
filled with wealth
for if cream you have I'll be in luck
you will be my favorite -
a doughnut

The straight-shooter vs the salad shooter.

Maybe I have heard of a salad shooter. I'm not sure. I've heard of salad. I've heard the word shooter. I know what a straight shooter is. So what is a salad shooter?

Earlier today I discovered that train of thought in my subconscious. I know not from where it cometh, but I know wherefore it came.

I was reading an article in The Onion, entitled Chinese Factory Worker Can't Believe The Shit He Makes For Americans, which I quote herein:

"Often, when we're assigned a new order for, say, 'salad shooters,' I will say to myself, 'There's no way that anyone will ever buy these,'" Chen said during his lunch break in an open-air courtyard. "One month later, we will receive an order for the same product, but three times the quantity. How can anyone have a need for such useless shit?"

Immediately, I had to know what a salad shooter was. Well, I found a picture.  This is a picture of a piece of plastic with radish slices falling out of it. There is a cord extending off to one side: this baby is electric. I can imagine that this device would be incredibly useful to the following groups:

1) Vegetarians with no hands so they can't slice a radish.

2) Vegetarians who are blind so they can't slice a radish.

I want to race. I bet I can grab my chef's knife and slice a radish before you can even get that thing down off the shelf. True, you are less likely to get hurt using the shooter, but if you can't eat vegetables without maiming yourself you need to listen closely.  Listen very closely.  There is a sound from somewhere behind you.  That quiet creeping sound behind you is natural selection, and its coming for you.  You totally have the skills to make food without getting hurt, you know that, you don't need me to tell you that.  So why would you ever want one of those things?

There is something addictive about gadgets in the kitchen though.  I like to buy sharp knives and nice measuring cups, and spectacular cookware.  So I can see where if your idea of a gourmet meal was a sliced radish, then one of these things would be a dream come true.  You could tell ALL of your friends, "I eat sliced radish whenever I want now.  Anytime of the day that there is electricity available, I can have a sliced radish. Power goes out, well, I just got a suffer.  No way to get a sliced radish with the power out. But thanks to modern convenience, I have electricity all the time.  One demand, baby.  We have electricity on demand, and as a result we have the luxury of a sliced radish whenever we want one."

Rules for food.

Today, Michael Pollan has asked readers of the Times to submit their food rules. He's looking especially for generational or ethnic wisdom. The prophet Muhammad, for example, always used to say that a full belly should contain one-third food, one-third drink and one-third air.

I posted my rules on his page, (although they are pretty loose rules, I think of them more as advice):

1. "Eat until you are not hungry anymore, not until you are full."
   That rule is something that I do more or less subconsciously.
2. "Do not buy any food in the grocery store that you can't see first."
   This means don't buy foods in packages that aren't transparent, otherwise, you are buying on a "picture" of the food, not based on what the food itself looks like. This includes boxed crackers, chips, cereal.
   
3. Everything in moderation, including your moderation.
   That includes the first 2 rules, so, a couple of times a year I'll eat an entire pint of Ben & Jerry's in an evening. And I'm proud of it.

Do you have any rules? Let Michael know, and post them here, too!

Do you like to consume meat?

I like to consume meat.

On average, American's consumed 222 lbs of meat each in 2007. That's 87 lbs of chicken, 66 lbs of beef, 51 lbs of pork, 17 lbs of turkey, 1 lb of veal, and 1 lb of lamb.

222 lbs! That's almost 10 oz / day. Plus you have to consider vegetarians. So, if you ate any meat at all, you probably ate on average more than 222 lbs. Probably on average.

In 1950 Americans ate only 144 lbs of meat each, but we each ate 7 lbs of veal. Talk about quantity over quality these days.

On that same page you will find a link to egg consumption. We each ate 259 eggs in 2007, but in 1950 our ancestors ate 380 eggs each. Butter consumption fell from 11 lbs each to 5 lbs, and cheese consumption practically quadrupled from 8 lbs each to 31 lbs.

I definitely like cheese.