Mother Jones on the Limits of Organic Food

Mother Jones has a long piece on alternative forms of agriculture.  I won’t try and summarize the article, but it hits a lot of pet obsessions of mine: the limits of organic and local food and the existence of environmentally friendly alternatives to organic food, written from a perspective that’s sympathetic to the broad goals of the organic movement.  (Side note: I didn’t really find the associated Michael Pollan interview to be that great.  He’s probably overextended).

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Apologies that this and the last post were glorified link posts.  I’ve mostly tried to stop doing that, unless the link is too good, or I have something to add.  Otherwise, I’ve been sticking links I want to share in the sidebar.  For those who have the privilege of reading what I share on google reader, the lists partially overlap, but are non-identical.

Coffee Roasting

Wandering around the Sweet Maria’s site, I found this pictorial guide to the stages of roasting coffee beans, just before I returned to roasting from a hiatus.  Hopefully it will still be interesting to the 99% of you who don’t roast your own coffee.  I also picked up a tip from them not to put your beans in a fully sealed container for the first 12 hours.

On that note, I’m increasingly aware of how unevenly an oven roasts the beans.  With a lighter roast, which is what I’ve been aiming for, the batch ends up being four different colors, so the variation is immediately apparent.  All this by way of saying that I’m now officially lusting after a couple of coffee roasters.  Or rather, I’m lusting after the state of having a coffee roaster.  I don’t know which of them I’d like.

No Ideas and the Ability to Express Them

First thoughts on listening to Michael Pollan (we had an audiobook in the car): “He is such a goddamn journalist.”

I’m at the beach for the week, and with intermittent internet access, I’ll be reading and posting in batch mode, or not at all.

Sweet Peas

I’m not feeling up to a real post, so here are pictures of a small part of my dinner

Actually, they’re raw as pictured.  It’s strange that they’re different sizes! That’s because they’re from the CSA, rather than being frozen.  The little ones are so sweet, you could give them to a child as candy.  I recommend the “open your mouth and close your eyes” routine so that the child does not figure out that he is being fed vegetables.

Capresso Gets a Call Tomorrow

I do not recommend using a mortar and pestle to grind coffee, but if you do, the Chemex will be forgiving.  Pour slowly, but expect a weak brew. I’m not one for flavored coffees, but the understated hints of cumin and coriander are quite interesting.

Eat Local Food Later

Hopefully you know that the environmental benefits of local food are highly questionable (here’s one summary–note that the moron promoting local food is eating local meat!). If you want to reduce the environmental impact of your food, go vegetarian and stop thinking about the issue. However I suspect that certain types of local food will become much more important over time–specifically the contrast between food that is flown overseas, and food that only travels by land. As far as I know, there are no really good proposals for reducing the carbon emissions of air travel, whereas there are real ways to reduce the impact of ground transport. So that should partially change the balance.

The article mentioned above notes the difficulty of figuring out which foods are actually the best in terms of carbon emissions–one reason to think that carbon taxes are essential, since they more effectively process information than we can.

In Recent Times

10%: The probability that I grind coffee without replacing the container in the bottom of the grinder.  This then results in coffee grinds spilling all over the counter.

It’s really unfortunate that my current method of getting caffeine requires skilled action before I get the caffeine.

Oh How Snobbery Beckons…

Pittsburgh is not quite the coolest city in the world, but I do quite like it despite its various drawbacks. After reading a NYTimes article on the $20,000 cup of coffee, I was surprised to find out that there’s a working Clover coffeemaker in Pittsburgh, housed at the 21st street coffee and tea shop. The Clover isn’t actually the $20,000 machine, but brews a single cup of coffee to order with exactly specifiable temperature between 180 and 210°. A pilgrimage is certainly in order.

This is the sort of thing that makes Tremendomeatatarianism difficult

Tyler Cowen on the conflicting reasons favoring pork over beef or vice versa.

New Year’s Resolution: Drink More

Tea, of course.  That cabinet is painfully full.  On a more serious note, I also resolve to stop making any political or goofy posts here (philosophy related things are ok) until I have, in my hand, a paper copy of my perception paper for Anil’s course.  Judging from the way things have gone with all previous papers I have submitted to anyone, ever, that will be 10:57 AM on Thursday the 10th.  I will have printed the paper from the 14th floor of the cathedral and rushed downstairs to grab the paper before giving my first lecture to a bunch of unfortunate logic students.

What Happens to Taste-Buds

When I entered college, I was unwilling to put Valentina sauce on my burritos. Now after eating a tortilla chip covered in El Yucateco (11,600 Scoville units), I cover the next chip in Valentina to “wash it down.” (I even ate a Thai pepper whole at a recent party).

I swear I’m going to talk about philosophy sometime soon. I have my eye on a couple of kooky passages in Dave Chalmers’ “Ontological Anti-Realism.” It’s an enjoyable paper, that’s for sure.

Oh Holy Shit, I Have Done A Thing

In case the blurriness bothers you, that’s 1.84 pounds, which was the smallest portion I could find at Lotus. I am scared.