Donate Your Truck and Make it Famous!...

Feb 8, 2011 by

Donate Your Truck and Make it Famous!

Do you have an older truck that you're trying to sell or get rid of? Consider donating your truck for an awesome cause and launch your truck into fame! Truck Farm (http://truck-farm.com/) is a nonprofit that gets local farmers to find used trucks, fill up the bed with dirt, plant a garden, and drive the Truck Farm around to visit kids in urban areas and teach them about where their food comes from. Truck Farm was started up by Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, the makers of King Corn, a Peabody-award winning documentary about the production of corn in the U.S. The Truck Farm pilot program started up in Brooklyn, New York last year and had folks like Michael Pollan and Alice Waters working on the project. Now Truck Farm's goal is to launch...

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Beekeeping in San Francisco

Feb 2, 2011 by

Beekeeping in San Francisco

Ever wonder if people keep bees in the city? Heck yeah they do! Everyone's buzzing about urban beekeeping these days, a popular new movement in cities. I found this great documentary about beekeeping in San Francisco--check it out for some inspiration and education. Beekeeping is legal in San Francisco, so make sure you check your city requirements before embarking on your own urban bee adventure. And if it's not legal, try to get involved with your local city council like Denver did (and I think Napa too) and change that! Here's a link to the San Francisco Beekeepers Association, for those who live in the city or are interested in keeping urban bees. Enjoy the...

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Kickin’ off Truck Farm, Nor Cal...

Jan 28, 2011 by

Kickin’ off Truck Farm, Nor Cal

If you're driving around the San Francisco Bay Area and you happen to see a truck rattle by with a garden blooming in the truck bed, try not to let it distract you too much. I wouldn't want you to get into a car accident. That'll just be me and the Nor Cal Truck Farm crew traveling around, heading off to visit some kids. Truck Farm, you ask? Yes, it's exactly what you're thinking: A truck with a garden in the back. Truck Farm is an exciting project dreamed up by my heroes Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis who won the Peabody award in 2007 for their hit documentary, King Corn. It all started in Brooklyn, New York in 2009, when Ian planted a vegetable garden in the bed of his grandfather’s 1986 Dodge...

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When delicious food meets delicious writing…...

Oct 25, 2010 by

When delicious food meets delicious writing…

My talented friend and fellow M.F.A. graduate Rashaan Meneses recently wrote "Like Fish to Ginger" a lovely and haunting story about a Thai immigrant and the complex chemistry of food and romance. Read the first few paragraphs here, then click on the link for more. It's a beautiful read. The only downside is that now I'm dying for a bowl of curry... Like Fish to Ginger By Rashaan Meneses Before I set out to make my mark in Los Angeles, I chased Sunee. We met in a steamy noodle house in the Dusit District of Bangkok where I elbowed my way from dishwasher to sous chef. Sunee worked as hostess. Both seventeen, she knew exactly what she wanted, and it wasn’t me. Like with a delicate soup, I had to know when to stir...

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Orgasm in a Cup: The Marocchino...

Oct 21, 2010 by

Orgasm in a Cup: The Marocchino

There are two kinds of people in the world, coffee drinkers and tea drinkers. I am definitely in the tea drinking camp. If you asked me to describe one of my favorite pleasures, I would say: Drinking a cup of tea--black with milk and honey in the morning and mint or rooibos in the afternoon and evening. Add a rainy day, a fantastic novel, snuggling on the couch, or chatting with friends, and I'm as happy as a Milanese woman with a new Furla purse. The problem is, no one really drinks tea in Italy. This is the land of espresso. But it's not like I pictured it would be: people sitting around in cafes, chatting as they savored their cappuccinos and lattes. Oh no. That's France. In Italy, people drink coffee like they...

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Smoked Herring (Kipper) with Capers and Onions...

Oct 7, 2010 by

Smoked Herring (Kipper) with Capers and Onions

You know the ol' "if you were stranded on an island" game, where you have to choose what you'd eat or what you'd read, which CD you'd listen to, or who you'd take with you? The one where you're forced to think deeply, and perhaps a bit pointlessly about the that you'd want with you forever and ever? Okay, I admit it, I love to play it, especially when hiking long stretches of trail, or waiting for delayed trains, planes, and automobiles. I am usually quite horrible at it though, because when asked, I suddenly forget the name of every musician I love and every book I've ever read. Food though--food I don't forget. I remember thinking long and hard about that one when asked a few years back. I thought about squash soup,...

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Red Currant Spelt Muffini

Oct 3, 2010 by

Red Currant Spelt Muffini

No, that's not a typo in the title. Allow me to explain. There are no such things as muffins in Italy. I keep asking around: "Hey--do you guys know what muffins are?" And they do, but only as some distant creation formed in strange tins in the United States. "What do you call them?" I asked my boyfriend one Sunday, as I prepared a batch of muffins for his virgin experience. "We call them muffin," Guido replied. "But what do you call them in plural? When there's more than one?" "Muffin," he said, laughing. "But that's ridiculous," I said. "If you're going to use the American word, then you should have a plural form." I thought for a moment about Italian grammar. Since most foreign words like "film" and "computer" are masculine by default,...

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Why I have a crush on Jamie Oliver...

Oct 1, 2010 by

Why I have a crush on Jamie Oliver

If you live in the States, I'm a little jealous. Not just because you're closer to my family, but because you can watch a television show that I am completely in love with:  Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution. I am not the kind of girl that watches television--in fact, I've never owned one until I moved in with Guido, and we only used our basic cable once to watch the World Cup (Hey, I'm in Italy, what can I say?). So, thank goodness for airline entertainment. I was fortunate enough to watch the Food Revolution while traveling over the Atlantic on the way back from the United States. After watching the forty-minute pilot episode, I was totally inspired and moved by Jamie's mission to transform the unhealthy eating habits in the United States. Now this...

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