From the Dirtbag Left Recipe Book

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Pistachio Apocalypse

Oh, Nuts! Why California’s Pistachio Trees Are Shooting Blanks | Bay Area Bites | KQED Food: 

Detail from image by Kreg Steppe (flickr)

In California’s blazing hot San Joaquin Valley, millions of pistachio trees are now buried in clusters of small pinkish-green fruits — what would seem like a bumper crop.

But for many growers of the popular nut, the season is shaping into a disaster. Jeff Schmiederer, who farms 700 acres of family-owned pistachio trees on the western side of the San Joaquin Valley, says about 90 percent of the nuts he has sampled from his trees are hollow — what growers call “blanks.”

“I’ve never seen a year this bad for blanks,” says Schmiederer, who has been farming pistachios since the mid-1990s.

Pistachios are an extravagance I don't partake of as often as I'd like, but still, this news sends a chill down my spine ... then back up, over, and down my gullet.

Gullet. That's one of those words that feels archaic, but underused. Like maw, the gaping maw of a man about to devour a bag of pistachios.

Adventures of an inexpert reader of French language newspapers ...

Aux Etats-Unis, le succès des yaourts grecs oblige Danone à contre-attaquer: 

Un nouveau pot vert à la marque Activia de Danone a fait son apparition dans les rayons des supermarchés aux Etats-Unis depuis quelques jours. Sur l'emballage un mot magique, grec, et des mentions tout aussi évocatrices pour le consommateur américain : 0 % de gras, deux fois plus de protéines. 

Avec cette composition, encensée par les experts de la diététique, le yaourt grec fait un tabac outre-Atlantique. Dans un supermarché à l'enseigne Pathmark de la banlieue de New York, il représente près d'un tiers des produits en rayon.

To call my French "rusty," would imply it was ever a steely, gleaming precision instrument. It was never thus. Comme un fou, peut-être, I elected to study French when given the opportunity to choose a language in middle school. "One day, I will live in Paris, a successful expat novelist drinking espresso in cafés on the shores of the Seine," 11-year-old me thought. It's possible that, in my daydreams, I was wearing a jaunty beret and had a pet monkey. (Look, if you weren't a pretentious idiot as an 11-year-old, I can only take my lumps and congratulate you on your advanced development as pre-teen.)

Photo by Le Xuan-Cung on flickr

Anyways, I've kept tabs on a few French-language blogs over the years, and had a stream of French language headlines pour through my reader feed. (They're interesting for perspective on American politics, not always very liberal as you might think, immigration is not exactly a settled topic and xenophobia seems to be more of a problem there than here; but, recently also for perspective on the struggle for gay rights as marriage equality makes gains overseas.) Estimating generously, maybe a quarter of it makes sense to me. But I will go a few articles and try to figure them out. Online translators occasionally helped, but were often more like those silly text generators that spewed gibberish to fill fake publications in publicity materials. Incapable of handling idiom, or even standard usage, they were good for maybe helping with a translation of a word, but almost never with the meaning. Over the last few years though, they've been getting better and Google Translate, while still a muddle, at least provides useful clues now is convenient in the browser. Still the mysteries of literal translations generally provoke a chuckle.

In the article above, which I read because we buy greek yogurt, despite the fact I can barely choke it down and frequently gag in the effort, the phrase fait un tabac caught my eye. I took it mean "does very well," or something to that effect, but tabac I understood to be 'tobacco' so I wondered if it could an expression like our 'making a killing.' Sure enough, Google Translate rendered it as "make a tobacco," but the link I imagined between 'tobacco' and 'killing' doesn't seem to be there, I think the link is more along the lines of people loving something as much as they love to smoke to tobacco. The nicotine effect, not the carcinogenic. No surprise there given the European love of cigarettes, and the relatively recent, relative to tobacco's introduction to European culture, understanding of smoking as a health hazard.

Attempting to contribute an alternative translation using Transalate turned out to be a bit more difficult than I expected, where I would put "diet experts" instead of "experts of diet" the way the translation groups the French words didn't allow for my English to map directly to the group of words I was trying to offer a translation. A sign, perhaps, that online translators are going to be overly literal and resistant to crowd-sourced fixing for a while yet.

My Ongoing Food Truck Rodeo Continues @TheHumblePig

The Humble Pig Food Truck

Until our new caf opens here at work, we've got two food trucks coming each day. For all the BBQ I've had lately, I probably ought to have mixed things up and tried Hibachi Express, but I was thinking about a big ol' mess of Texas Cheese Fries off the Humble Pig's menu.

I was too early though, they weren't serving the Cheese Fries yet, so I went with the pulled pork sandwich plate instead. Sandwich was great, even the roll was tasty and fresh, but the baked beans are what really won me over.

World class. So good.

I don't know if they're *really* baked beans? I might have called them a tangy yet lightly sweet, bean-dense chili? Regardless, they were awesome and I want a bucket more.

You may be thinking, "Wait a second, has there ever been a food truck this guy didn't like?" and I guess I can't blame you since I do seem to have enjoyed all the ones I've tried recently. I'm chalking that up to my employer only contracting with the best and there being a big pool of trucks to choose to from in the Triangle.

Mission: Triange-Area Food Truck Sampling continues with @KoKyuBBQ

KoKyu (flickr) was at work today, so I got to try a new a truck ... and I'm glad I did.

It was tough to pick between the many menu options -- Reuben's Cubans looked intriguing, and I would've liked to have tried some of the vegetarian selections, but I finally settled on the Korean BBQ Tako ($3) and the Carolina Carnitas Slider ($4). If I had to pick just one, I'd probably choose the Carolina Slider because it was such a great combination of ingredients, but I'd certainly order both again. While not a huge lunch,  the two together felt like a pretty good value for all the flavor delivered.

This is a truck that's definitely worth seeking out, which shouldn't be hard because, like all self-respecting trucks, you can follow them on twitter to keep tabs on their movement.

It's Food Truck Monday! | @MaMaDukesLLC #NC #Durham #foodtruck

Are the food trucks where you are as good as they are here in the Triangle? I hope so. In my quest to try as many as I can, I ate at Mama Duke's for the first time today for lunch and it's definitely up there with some of my other recent faves.

Now, if you know me, you may know that I have one thing in common with conservative pundit Bill O'Reilly: I get excited by falafel. A key difference being, I know the difference between falafel and loofah. So, today I had a falafel burger for lunch and loved it -- it had great flavor, was hot and fresh, and was complemented by fresh lettuce and tomato. How good is it?

Guys, it's Sofa King good.

The generously sized burger with a side of cranberry slaw felt reasonably priced at $8. And I'm the guy who always whines about expensive food from food trucks is. Someone on yelp said it was a big enough burger for two to share; I wouldn't go that far though, it was a an appropriate size for one grown-ass man. Maybe two small children, or petite women, would want to split it?

Falafel burger with cranberry slaw. 

Related: Mama Dukes is apparently a Southern slang term. I'm a New Englander, had never heard it before.

It's Food Truck Thursday! @Sympathy4Deli

Another first for me, today I'm trying Sympathy for the Deli ...

Sympathy for the Deli truck

Looking over the menu, there are a bunch of things I want to try. When I see a Reuben, I almost always get the Reuben. The BLT is a buck twenty-five cheaper and could be used as justification to get two sides. It'll have to be a game time decision made after checking to see if there are any specials on the board. 

Peakles ("spicy, pickled sugar snap peas") look intriguing, but herb-rubbed kettle chips sound like an excellent sandwich complement as well. Wanting to try both on a budget is making me lean towards the BLT. Decisions, decisions ...

... And I went with the Reuben.  BLT wasn't on the menu today. A few of pickled pea pods came on the side of my chips, so I still got to sample both sides. Good stuff. I'll spare you my usual OMG TEN DOLLARS FOR LUNCH! griping because you've heard it all before. It is what it is, right? Relative to the other food trucks I've been trying lately, I think this one may have delivered the most value for the buck.

I used to like my Reubens heavy: heavy with butter in the bread, heavy on the dressing, heavy on the swiss, and good-n-greasy pastrami. These days, not so much. I was quite happy with my lean-ish pastrami (could've been a little pepperier for my taste, but I don't imagine anyone would be disappointed with it), the rye flavorful and lightly grilled. Overall, it was a well-balanced Reuben that hit the spot. The herbed chips were tasy and the peakles were a nice change of pace, but I was fine with the sample size.

Reuben, chips, and a few peakles.

If it's Tuesday, it must be another Food Truck for lunch! @ChirbaChirba

Chirba Chirba Dumpling Truck: Home

Good eats here!

OK you guys, it's another day, another food truck, and another chance for me to say "OMG it's so good! But why so expensive?" because that's essentially been every one of my food truck reviews in a nutshell thusfar.

When did I become Scrooge McDuck?! (via)

So yeah, like I said last time, I think I just need to get in the mindset that food truck food is convenient, and you pay a bit of a premium for the food to come to you. My other choice is some pretty gross stuff in the cafeteria here at work, which I'd pay just as much if not much for anyways. If you are willing to pay about a buck a dumpling in theory, you will not be disappointed with Chirba Chirba in practice. I just wolfed down five of the Bayside Chive dumplings and loved them. I could eat five more no problem ... but I can't justify spending $11 for lunch.

If you get a chance, try 'em out. And vote for them here; I just did.

Another day, another food truck: Pie Pushers

To get straight to the brass tacks: a fine, if unremarkable, slice of pizza and a tasty side of garlic knots undermined by cold tomato sauce for dipping.  I got a single specialty slice, the "Local Farm Hand," which featured carmelized onions, local sausage (meh, not a lot of it and no discernible taste), and mushrooms. The crust was fine, the slice was hot and fresh, the sauce was not bad, but not special, and it was a decent size, but felt overpriced* at $4. The garlic knots, 3 decent sized lumps dough with whole garlic cloves folded in were closer to reasonable at $3, but if I were making the menu at what I thought (knowing nothing about food truck economics) were fair prices for food that came to me, they'd have been $2, and the slice of pizza would've been $3.

Pie Pushers website

* It's not lost on me that I seem to find everything overpriced. I may be getting to the age where the noggin isn't properly adjusting prices for inflation based on a lifetime of experience stretching back to the 1970s. "I remember when a loaf of bread was nickel," my grandparents would say. "Yeah, but Franklin Delano Roosevelt was President then and things have changed," I remember thinking. Am I stuck in the Reagan 80s? What a horrible thought.

The Slippery History Of Eel Pie Island

From A British King To Rock 'N' Roll: The Slippery History Of Eel Pie Island : The Salt : NPR: 

Image via NPR.org

Our search for the source of these vanishing eels led us to southwest London — to Eel Pie Island, a tiny slice of land with a flamboyant history that stretches from Henry the VIII to the Rolling Stones.

I'm not curious about eel pie. Would've been something to see the Yardbirds play there though ...

[Updated with a limited time Empire Avenue EAster Egg ... click to activate.]

Of gay-hating chicken sandwich slingers and free speech ...

Rahm Emanuel’s dangerous free speech attack - Salon.com: 

"You can shove your over-rated chicken sandwich up
your ass and stay the fuck out of my city."
 - Rahm Emanuel [paraphrased, by me]

Greenwald writes:

Obviously, it’s perfectly legitimate for private citizens to decide not to patronize a business with executives who have such views (I’d likely refrain from doing so in this case). Beyond that, if a business is engaging in discriminatory hiring or service practices in violation of the law — refusing to hire gay employees or serve gay patrons in cities which have made sexual orientation discrimination illegal — then it is perfectly legitimate to take action against them. 

But that is not the case here; the actions are purely in retribution against the views of the business’ top executive on the desirability of same-sex marriage ...

Well, I blogged in general support of Menino telling Chick-fil-A to get bent, so I should own up if I've gone off the deep end and stepped on the top of the slippery slide into Liberal Fascism. Let's see if I need to walk it back.

I still eat at Chick-fil-A; I just make sure to fuck my sandwich lovingly in its asshole before I eat it.
— rob delaney (@robdelaney) July 27, 2012

First, I should explain my assumption was Menino's letter was basically political grandstanding, not a ban on Chick-fil-A with the force of law. Just like I am fond of shaming Chick-fil-A's founder and current CEO, I see no problem with a politician doing so. The article read at Boston.com didn't report that he had actually forbidden Chick-fil-A from opening, or that he was saying he would. Menino's most forceful statement was: "I urge you to back out of your plans to locate in Boston." An urging is not a ban, or even a threat to ban. A threat to ban would look like this: "I will ban you."

Let's take a side step and answer the hypothetical, what if Menino had banned Chick-fil-A, assuming he has the authority to do so.

If a community doesn't a want a non-essential, commercial enterprise, do they have the right say, "Not here"?
— cdogzilla (@cdogzilla) July 27, 2012

Greenwald, sagely, points out:

If you support what Emanuel is doing here, then you should be equally supportive of a Mayor in Texas or a Governor in Idaho who blocks businesses from opening if they are run by those who support same-sex marriage — or who oppose American wars, or who support reproductive rights, or who favor single-payer health care, or which donates to LGBT groups and Planned Parenthood, on the ground that such views are offensive to Christian or conservative residents.

Yes. No dispute here. If this were Governor Romney of Massachusetts saying, "I urge Hippie Vegan Fake Burgers-R-US to stay out of my commonwealth because their support of Planned Parenthood which the good Christians I represent find offensive," I'd say, "Whatever, asshole." But I wouldn't say he has no right to say that. However, if he said, "I forbid Hippie Vegan Fake Burgers-R-Us from opening a store here," then I'd have a problem.

Back to what politicians are really saying and doing about Chick-fil-A. The difference between Menino and Emanuel is that Emanuel, from what I've read, is supporting an alderman who does in fact want to ban Chick-fil-A from his neighborhood. There seems to be real intent to say, because of your support for hate groups, your business can't open here. (And, make no mistake, the Family Research Council, despite its protestations, is a hate group.)  So, while I encourage and support them in calling out Chick-fil-A for supporting the Family Research Council and other groups I think are either openly hateful or just silly and irrelevant, I don't think they can ban those businesses on those grounds.

To answer my own question, communities do have the right to say "not here" to businesses, but they need a valid reason, some identifiable violation of zoning rules, or support of illegal groups ("terrorist" organizations, organized crime families), being hateful idiots is not reason enough.

Even hateful idiots have the right to make a living. We have the right to call them hateful idiots and not spend money at their businesses. Let's do that.

[Update 7/27/12]

"If a man can't manage his own life, he can't manage a business," says Cathy, who says he would probably fire an employee or terminate an operator who "has been sinful or done something harmful to their family members." 

The parent company asks people who apply for an operator license to disclose marital status, number of dependents and involvement in "community, civic, social, church and/or professional organizations." ["The Cult of Chick-fil-A," by Emily Schmall in Forbes, 7/23/2007]

We already know they consider being gay "sinful," so it raises the question, do they discriminate in hiring and firing? Did "probably fire" ever become "fired"?

"Chick-Fil-A Faced 12 Employment Discrimination Suits Since 1988" | Liberaland

Aziz Latif, a former Chick-fil-A restaurant manager in Houston [who] sued the company in 2002 after Latif, a Muslim, says he was fired a day after he didn’t participate in a group prayer to Jesus Christ at a company training program in 2000. The suit was settled on undisclosed terms.

OK, you guys, now how do we feel about Rahm Emanuel's position?

Blogroll Addition: On The Devil's Wind, The Heavenly Aroma Was Wafted To Me

Was pointed today to a series of posts about bacon that awakened me to heretofore unconsidered possibilities:

Image via Devil's Wind

Sriracha Truth

via The Oatmeal

World's Happiest Onion Ring

You eat Cheetos this way too, don't you?

Eating Cheetos like a boss.

Heads up #Fuquay ... Help CupCake Bite get on Cupcake Wars!

Cupcake Wars...:

We're looking to get a good size crowd outside the shop around 3 pm [Saturday, Jan. 28th, 2012] ! It won't take more then a few minutes. Feel free to bring signs or just yourself to show your love for the show and our town! We just need ENERGY! 

Maybe a lucky break we didn't get to the NC State Fair this year ...

Troxler mystified by State Fair's link to E. coli outbreak :: WRAL.com: 

Fried chili at the 2010 NC State Fair

State Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler said Wednesday that he is “perplexed” by a growing E. coli outbreak linked to the North Carolina State Fair. 

At least 30 people were sickened after attending the fair, which officials have called the "probable" source of the outbreak, but health officials haven’t been able to pinpoint a common activity among them.

Had a good time last year at the Fair, but I like to experiment and try the fried whatever-probably-didn't-need-to-be-deep-fried foods.

Best Cute Overload I've seen in a while ...

Well this looks delectabuhls — Cute Overload

Hurricane Irene signage in Wilmington, NC

Hurricane Irene, funny sign :: WRAL.com:

Via WRAL.com

"Tastes like chicken," says killer plant digesting a blue tit.

BBC News - Killer plant 'eats' blue tit at Somerset nursery:

Image via BBC

It is believed to be only the second time such a carnivorous plant has been documented eating a bird anywhere in the world.