Buffet of Sundries

[offbalance]

+ My team (Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock Hindenburg) won trivia last night!! Go us! And it was awesome to get to hang with valjean615 for more than a few hi/bye type seconds.

- Barnes & Noble may be in trouble. While I tend to much prefer local indie bookstores to corporate chains, Barnes & Noble was the first bookstore to strike wonder into my young heart as a wee thing. The (now defunct) Kings Plaza B&N was a bright, airy space with shelves that reached to the ceiling and ladders. To my young eyes, it was huge, and awe-inspiring. And, my parents never seemed to mind when quasisonic and I wanted stuff from there. Alas, any bookstore is many years gone from that rat trap of a mall, but when I think of B&N, I don't think of that big green behemoth that exists now - I think of that beautiful store with its beige-and-brown bags featuring the renaissance illustration of a man and his books. So this makes me a bit sad.

* I probably don't need this but it's SO pretty. ::adds to wedding registry:: I am unsure how I will fit into my kitchen if I get all of the crap I want on my registry. When I was a kid, I thought housewares/kitchen stores were boring, and considered it a huge deal when my mom FINALLY let me go to Barnes & Noble myself while she shopped at Lechter's next door. Now? I'm nutty for housewares. Yet another case of "You'll change your mind when you're older" actually being true.

- I'm with Gawker on this one. These k-cups seem FAR more wasteful than traditional coffeemakers.

+ The Rockefeller center greenmarket is back! \o/ I have been celebrating its return by consuming many of Millport Dairy's whoopie pies. The whole stand makes me miss our yearly trip to Lancaster County. And if the booth wasn't quite so mobbed, I might ask the nice Mennonite man running it where in Lancaster they were. Oh, Kitchen Kettle - I miss you most of all.

* I have a bumper crop of zucchini I'm trying to figure out what to do with. Some will go into this stir fry I like, but I'm trying to decide between making more zucchini fritters (time consuming but awesome) or just cutting them up, coating with olive oil and spices and roasting them. Hrm. That may win.

- Dear Food Blogs: Yes, I realize it's an awesome time of year for vegetables, and you all have giant freezers with lots of space, but some of us do not, so giving me soup recipes in 90+ and very humid weather is not of interest to me. Also: I know this may come as a shock to you, but not everyone has a back deck and a barbeque.

+ Today is CSA day, and among the goodies in my vegetable share is a cantelope. Now, silly me, I thought cantelope was a fruit, but not according to my CSA. Not that I'm complaining - I LOVE cantelope. It's just amusing, and every day I'm less surprised that my CSA's abbreviated name is FFS.

Comments

[whtegrlwthehair.livejournal.com]

zucchini bread! zucchini cookies!

[offbalance.livejournal.com]

Both sound good, although I'm hoping to avoid baked goods and do healthier things with the zucchini. *sigh*

[firynze.livejournal.com]

Zucchini bread! You need zucchini bread! Or stuffed zucchini!

Oooh, I covet that bowl. I never knew such a thing existed, and it's probably totally pointless, but ooooh.

Also, you have the best trivia team name EVAR.

(I got a single-serving watermelon with my share this week. I love melon season)

[offbalance.livejournal.com]

I was avoiding zucchini bread because I had it in my head that I wanted to be super-duper-carbs-are-evil healthy this week, but maybe I'm just being stubborn and should just bust out the Joy of Cooking already.

ME TOO. Oh, come now - no kitchen item is TOTALLY pointless. I love the design and the multipurposeness of it.

Thank you! It was disaster-themed night. We've been using a variant of it since the Star Wars/Star Trek night, when the last word was Jedi instead of Hindenburg. (It's a Big Bang Theory reference!)

Ooh! That sounds fun! Tiny watermelon!

[firynze.livejournal.com]

Dude, it's carbs cut with a ton of veggies. You can do it. :-D

The tiny watermelon is awesome. Perfect size for one person for breakfast!

I love the design on that bowl, but I can't think what I'd end up using it for!

[stacyinthecity.livejournal.com]

Wow, BN! I kinda feel the same way about starbucks though, so there is that.

And foodblogs, yes I have the same problem! And agreed on the kcups.

And also, what days/times is the rockefeller greenmarket? I'm just down the street!

[offbalance.livejournal.com]

Re: Starbucks - really? How?

The Greenmarket seems to be W-Fri, and I think it's either 8 or 8:30 to about 6 or so. It's very nice, and there are some rotating vendors, too. Mostly it's nice to buy produce on your lunch hour!

(let me know if you decide to go tomorrow...I'll meet you!)

[stacyinthecity.livejournal.com]

Yes, lets meet tomorrow!

Starbucks started in Seattle and went down to Portland before it became the monster it is today. It was just starting to get out there in the world when I lived in Portland. I even owned shares in Starbucks in the early 90s and went to a shareholder meeting. Kenny G was there. Michael Bolton was not. So back then, it was the local shop that was just venturing out into the world. I always feel so conflicted about Starbucks now - I prefer supporting most mom and pops (unless of course, their prices and service is crap and they treat employees poorly - the same sorts of reasons I don't like most chains, actually), but back int he 70s, wasn't Starbucks just a mom and pop too? So isn't it just a mom and pop that became hugely successful?

[moobie.livejournal.com]

If you pop the foil off a k-cup and dump out the grounds after you brew, the k-cup itself can be recycled.

[offbalance.livejournal.com]

Have you tried this?

[moobie.livejournal.com]

I do it all the time at home. The hot chocolate ones I usually don't even take the foil off cuz all the powder gets dissolved when you brew it.

I mean, I can't vouch for what the recyclers do with the k-cups after I put them in my recycle bin, but they always take them. :)

[quasisonic.livejournal.com]

you can also get a reusable cup and get regular coffee grounds to brew in the keurig machine.

[redesigner.livejournal.com]

Sorry, but you'll have to pry my Keurig machine (I'm on #2 now, as my first sadly gave up the ghost a year ago) from my cold, dead hands.

I can't seem to find the link to it now, but some blog somewhere determined that K-Cups are actually easier on the wallet if you're one of those folks who drinks just a cup or two a day. A box of 24 is $13.95 *max* (much less if you buy regularly or on eBay), which makes the coffee cost 58 cents MAXIMUM per cup. (And less if you "borrow" your coffee from the office, as I do. Ahem.)

Compare that to buying a bag of grounds. A 1-pound bag will probably run you about the same, if not more, but you ultimately end up wasting much more of the coffee from overmeasuring, spilling it everywhere, or forgetting about it and discovering that it's gone stale because you forgot to stick it in the fridge. In any case you not only lose money and time but you gain frustration and mess.

On top of all of that, as for the environmental concerns? I have few, if any. When I brew my coffee at work or at home, I brew it into my reusable ceramic mug that I wash and reuse over and over again. The K-Cup is smaller than a Dixie cup, is as thin as a piece of paper, and is far less waste volume-wise than a cup of Starbucks coffee in any size. Plus, I've found the Green Mountain Coffee Company to be an incredibly kind and conscientious operation. I wouldn't be at all surprised if biodegradable plastic K-Cups were in the works--oh wait, it already is.

So yeah. Don't knock it 'til you've tried it. Just sayin'. :)

[katiebea.livejournal.com]

Le Creuset? You'll get no arguement from me on wanting anything from them. It's gorgeous!