Archive for February, 2008
A Plea to Matt Damon
Ok, for starters, if you’re not Matt Damon, you need not read this post. This is a personal discussion between him and I, and I’d appreciate it if you keep your fat nose out of this. (more…)
Potentially AWESOME
One of the few things I remember from my highschool physics class is the concept of potential energy. It basically says that if you, or any object, goes up, you’re storing up potential energy, because gravity will inevitably bring you down. So if you throw a ball up in the air, you’re putting energy into sending it upwards, but you’ll also get some energy back as it falls back to the ground. Very basically: what goes up will come down, and it will come down with some force.
A scientist in virginia is putting this basic principle to work with his new invention: a gravity lamp. It’s awesome and I want one. Aside from looking like a prop from the Star Trek set, it’s totally cordless and powered only by you – the user. All you have to do is lift a weight up, and then the light truns on and stays on for 4 hours while the weights slowly fall and release their gravity-induced energy.
I’ve actually seen something like this before, but sadly I can’t find a clip to share with you. If you rent the 1986 classic Harrison Ford movie “The Mosquito Coast,” you’ll come across a scene towards the middle of the film where Mr. Ford has built a really awesome ceiling fan that runs using this falling-weight gadgetry. (more…)
Compost in the City
Most people probably don’t find compost very sexy, but I’m actually quite passionate about it. Organic waste, like food scraps, sticks, leaves, dried flowers, etc. aren’t really “waste” at all – they’re potential dirt. And dirt is good. All you really need is a bin and some worms, and you can trun your food waste and yard scraps into nutrient-rich soil for your garden. And in New York, which is plagued by soil shortage and an expensive waste disposal system, compostable garbage should be coveted.
Unfortunately, most New Yorkers send these nuggets of nutrients to the dump rather than keeping them around. And I really can’t blame them. There isn’t much space in the city for composting – even if you have the cahones to set up an indoor worm bin, most New Yorkers don’t have enough space inside their apartments to squeeze one into. The city should really set up a more effective system for collecting yard and food waste (right now all we’ve got is a yard waste collection program). But that’s not the point of my writing today – I’m here to discuss a more urgent and somewhat personal matter.
My apartment, as you may know, has an outdoor deck area with plenty of space for composting. As you may not know, however, is that Boyfriend and I are leaving the city at the end of this month and heading out on a road trip (more on that later). This means that I have to somehow get rid of my compost before the next tenants arrive to take over our (beautiful) home and garden. And I can imagine that they’re not going to want to deal with this: (more…)
Pie Pockets
Like most Americans, I love eating food in single, hand-held servings, especially when it can be frozen and conveniently heated up in my toaster oven at any time of the day. Unlike many, however, I’m a little bit squeamish when it comes to food additives and preservatives and food items with more than 7 or 8 ingredients. In an effort to negotiate my love for food pockets and my disgust for most frozen foods, I did a little experimenting with pie dough and my oven. It was a rather successful experiment.
These pie pockets have apples, dried cranberries and walnuts in them (with sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon, ginger), but I figure you can pretty much put any kind of pie filling in there (or any savory pot pie or samosa filling). The key is to get a good dough going first. (more…)
Turkey Burgers with Bok Choy and Beet Salad
Boyfriend and I had some friends over this weekend and cooked up a nice meal in their honor. The main ingredients all came from the Union Square Farmers Market, which isn’t as lush and fruitful this time of year as it is in the summer, but even in February you can find a meal there. I picked up a couple of pounds of ground turkey, some beets, a tub of goat cheese and some baby bok choy, all grown locally in New York and New Jersey.
Turkey burgers are as easy to make as hamburgers – just mix in some spices, an egg, some breadcrumbs, garlic or onion (if that’s how you like it). We also like to mix in some barbecue sauce to give the meat a little kick. Serve it with all your normal burger condiments and on nice big fluffy rolls from a local bakery. Turkey is a great substitute for beef, as it’s lower in fat, and also less energy and water-intensive to produce (since cows are bigger, they take more feed and time to produce the same amount of meat as pork and poultry).
Bok Choy is also easy to make, and is also the cutest of all the green vegetables. (more…)
People Power in the New York Times
It turns out that I’m not the only one thinking about how to convert human energy into electricity these days. The New York Times reports today that Canadian researchers have developed a gadget that harvests energy from the knee joint as people walk, using a knee-brace with a mechanical device that can collect about 5 watts or electricity (enough to power a few cell-phones or other small electronics). Plus, it doesn’t take any extra effort to generate power using it – all you have to do is walk, and the juice starts flowing. It’s unlikely that these things will be on the market any time soon, but its really good to know that there are guys in white coats in labs out there making these things. Maybe one of them is working on a hand-crank cuisinart battery at this very moment…
Super Repentance
Yesterday was perhaps the most American of days (excluding Xmas, 4th of July, and this coming Thursday, which I’m sure I don’t have to remind you is the first day of Chinese New Year). My friends and I gathered around the TV and put on the game, and treated ourselves to a feast fit for about 300 sumo wrestlers. There were ten of us.
Now, it’s not like I eat this way every day. The Superbowl is a special day, where we’re all given a free pass to binge on salty, fatty, orange-colored foods. It’s part of what makes America great. Right?
No, not right. Aside from the crippling stomach situation that resulted from my 8-course meal (consisting mainly of chips, cream, cheese, cream cheese, salt and beer), the feast left me with a soul-ache. This had a lot to do with the fact that most of the food I procured for the event wasn’t seasonal or organic (except for the salsa and some of the chips). And it had a whole lot to do with the sheer amount of food that my cohorts and I stuffed so willingly into our faces. (more…)
