It's Fat Tuesday!

Go, be gluttonous and unruly.

Pretend you're in N'Awlins with Baltimore's most raucous Dixieland horn-blowers, Sac Au Lait, tonight at the Windup Space. 9 pm!

C'est free!

Happy Thought Chocolate

Hershey's got you bogged down by negative corporate consumer energy? Lindt infusing your subconscious with airs of snobbery and greed?

This Valentines Day, let your chocolate bring you closer to enlightenment.

You need chocolate that's been blessed by monks!

Calling themselves "a leader in the revolutionary field of intention-enhanced food," Intentional Chocolate offers such chocolate products as truffles, bars, and hot cocoa--every bit of which has been infused with the prayers of Tibetan monks.

All chocolate products at Intentional Chocolate is embedded with this intention:

“Whoever consumes this chocolate will manifest optimal health and functioning at physical, emotional and mental levels, and in particular will enjoy an increased sense of energy, vigor and well-being for the benefit of all beings.”

No word on whether "optimal health and functioning" means avoidance of weight gain when consumed in excess. I'll keep you posted.

Thursday Things

Tonight's looking interesting.

7:00 at the Windup Space is Ignite Baltimore, an urban forum of sorts that gives 16 Bmore influencers 5 minutes and 20 power point slides each to speak about a topic that's meant to "ignite Baltimore." Looks like it's sold out, but they're inviting people to show up at 6:00 to try and reserve a spot. I also heard a rumor that Joe Squared will have free pizza (which very well may be too good to be true).


And then,

Heard from a friend that Ben Frock and the Subatomic Particles, the avant gardeiest of jazz quartets (who recently released a new EP), will be playing tonight at Hon Bar--my favorite neighborhood bar that serves Resurrection on tap. This will likely happen laterish, probably after 10:00.

And then tomorrow's Friday!

I LEGO N.Y.

Chirstoph Niemann's Abstract City blog for the NY Times was my favorite thing about today.

http://niemann.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/02/i-lego-ny/

Urbanizing Amish Country

Back in December, an Urbanite article took me out to the quaint and colorful Lancaster, PA to dispel the popular myth that it's a tired town with nothing but women in bonnets selling shoofly pies (mmm). In fact, it's a city with galleries showing hot pictures of Debbie Harry, whose mayor drops the F-bomb!

Read the article in the actual magazine--it's free!--or online HERE.

Below are photos.

[Lancaster Market--Romanesque revivalized]

[Where the art is]

[At one stall, Dan Stoltzfus stood behind his baked goods. Tall, dressed in a blue collared shirt and black pants, he toted a straw hat and wore a long gray beard, sans moustache—a married Amish man’s tag. He tensed a bit when he saw my camera and notebook—many members of the Amish community are wary of camera-toting tourists and reporters looking for colorful features—then pointed to a large jar full of pickled vegetables. “Chow-chow,” he said. “It’s our best seller, won a blue ribbon. Take a picture of it,” he added. “Just leave me out of it.]

[Pretzels, apples, Things in Jars]

[Facades, facades, facades]


[Green and crafty]


[Post industry]

George Bush hates cheese, French people

Foodies and extravagants across America best stock up on their delicacies, fast. George Bush, in one of his last acts as President, raised tariffs on such imported fine goods as chocolate, truffles, foie gras (what Washington trade bureaucrats call "fatty livers of ducks and geese," says the Washington Post).

The biggest hit came on Roquefort cheese--the infamously stinky marbled and crumbly blue cheese crafted and cultivated in the 600-person town of Roquefort, France. Bush imposed a 300% tarriff on the cheese, for reasons not many seem to understand. The act not only will make Roquefort too expensive for most (me) to be able to enjoy, it was a major statement (if symbolic) to France as a whole. The 600-person town of Roquefort, which sustains itself almost wholly on the production of this cheese, is expected to feel the harshest effects of this decision.

These tariffs go into effect in March, and will likely raise prices significantly on these imported fine foods.

As the Economist's Free Exchange blog reports:

Yes, while Europeans will be relishing delicious bleu cheese, Americans can eat hormone-injected beef with a side of stale freedom fries.

Below you'll find my premature homage to the soon-to-be extinguished odor of this sublime piece of bovine mastery: The Christmas dinner I prepared this year. Three quarters of the dishes featured Roquefort in some way. Maybe it was a premonition?

[Brussels sprouts with Roquefort, glazed pecans and a balsalmic reduction.]

[L: Mixed greens with candied walnuts, blood oranges and pomegranates.
R: Butternut squash/apple soup with Roquefort garnish.]


[Oh, a time of such innocent indulgence.]

Steamed Veggies

"Vegetarians have better sex," reads the tagline for PETA's commercial that was recently rejected for air during the Super Bowl by NBC.

Here's what the Washington Post has to say. Lisa de Moraes makes it seem the whole thing was an overblown stunt to avoid paying the exorbitant Super Bowl TV ad spot fees (get your commercial banned, get a whole bunch of press about it, and people will youtube the shit out of it). First naked women on billboards, now sexy vegetables? PETA! Get ahold of yourself.

See for yourself. I, for one, think they could have gone way further with this one. The carrot scene in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, anyone?