Lonnie August 1st, 2009
Some time ago, I got to posting on giving up plastic, especially when it might touch food. Now that there are more young families moving into Eastwood, it might be a good time to revisit this idea. Plastics break down, and there really is no safe amount of plastic molecules that you’d want in your body, much less baby’s.
Lonnie June 10th, 2009
Sean Kirst recently wrote an article, The Dinosaur: More success by design, citing one of his previous articles, The Dinosaur, by design, that reinforces that idea that we have a prime example in our town of a business that works, despite all the ways people think it should not work. And that’s the Dinosaur, now the #1 barbecue in the country. And it’s working by design.
Sean said in 2005:
Sitting in the car Thursday, watching as men and women flowed in and out of the Dinosaur, it struck me that people go there because it offers something unique – and because it embraces, rather than fears, authentic city ambiance. The funny thing is, if the Dinosaur went by the Walgreens rules (referring to Walgreens “need” for suburban, big-box style development – ed.) , a true Syracuse phenomenon would probably dry up and close its doors.
Sean reminds us that many of our pre-conceived notions of what makes a business work just fall apart in the face of this reality: a restaurant putting out top-notch food that caters to a serious diversity of people can be a destination. It doesn’t need to demolish a building to be successful. It doesn’t need acres of blacktop in front of it. It doesn’t need to alter the streetscape. It fits right in with the city and people come from all over to be there. And they aren’t afraid, and they don’t complain about having to walk a few blocks from their parking spot to get there. (They gotta do something to burn off the calories they’re about to eat!) This is what a real city is about.
But, sadly, Mayor Driscoll is singing the old last-century tune that has ruined much of Syracuse (and the fabric of countless cities across the country): demolish, demolish, demolish. Pave paradise, put up another drug store, and… you won’t know what city you’re in any more. And you certainly won’t have economic development, because your money will be siphoned off to the coffers of a big corporation in another state.
We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again:
How difficult is that?
Keep up the good work Sean! We need you!
Lonnie February 28th, 2009
With the economy tanking, one begins to think about things even more elemental than whether a business district is built for humans or for cars. (I can hear a few developers breathing a sigh of relief…) Yeah, I’m thinking it might be a good idea to grow food. We already know, thanks to Karen, that it’s possible to grow a lot of food in Eastwood.
Lonnie November 19th, 2008
My son and daughter-in-law live out in the country and they have 16 chickens. I’m so jealous, not of the effort that it takes to raise chickens, as little as it appears to be, but of the delicious eggs they have every day. I’ve been eating some of them and it’s quite an eye-opener. They’ve got really bright orange yolks and they scramble up to a warm, sunny yellow, unlike the anemic things you get at the grocery store. Moreover, I trust what these chickens have been eating: mostly organic kitchen scraps. Continue Reading »
Lonnie April 27th, 2008
We’re avid readers of Anthony Bourdain’s books. Two of them have impacted our family somewhat dramatically. The first was Kitchen Confidential. Aside from being just a great read, it was also the third book our then-early-adolescent son read. He read it cover to cover, but it was at the third chapter that he came running to announce that he wanted to be a chef. Why? He pointed to the title of Chapter 3: “Food is Sex”. That did it. A couple culinary degrees under his belt, he’s now in charge of the mignardises in a restaurant in New York.
But the book that continues to inspire me is A Cook’s Tour, and specifically the chapter, “Where Food Comes From“. Read it, and you’ll understand why he says that where our food comes from is not always pretty. But it’s the larger concept behind that chapter that makes me think a lot and sometimes do strange things.
Strange thing #1: I make coffee in a 70-year-old vacuum coffee pot.
Lonnie October 26th, 2007
It’s almost November and we’re still harvesting tomatoes, basil, thyme, rosemary, peppers and red cabbage. Come to think of it, every plant in our experimental raised-bed garden in our urban yard is still producing! I learned a lot this summer: Continue Reading »
Lonnie July 12th, 2007
One of the reasons we moved from the ‘burbs to the city was so that we wouldn’t have to drive so far to get to the kinds of stores we like to shop in: small, ethnic grocery stores that have fascinating ingredients, as well as the Regional Market with its locally-grown and produced foodstuffs. It’s not just that the vegetables are fresher and the eggs taste better, it’s that we can buy more of our food in bulk in these places and thus control the way they’re packaged. We’re trying to avoid plastic. Here’s why: Continue Reading »
Lonnie May 8th, 2007
I love visiting another Syracuse blog, Cookin’ in the ‘Cuse. Just working my way through her links, not to mention her articles, makes me feel extra good about … well, food, and doing positive things. The link I followed today, Eat Local Challenge, brought me to something that’s becoming increasingly, incrementally important in my life: eating locally produced food. Here are ten reasons to eat local food. Once you’ve read them, you might consider starting to make those small changes that eventually make a real difference in the way you eat, in the Syracuse economy, and in the amount of energy spent to get your food to you. The day of the 3000-mile salad is coming to a close.
Nobody says you have to suddenly stop eating everything you’re used to and start eating what’s left over from last fall (ugh! a turnip? an old cabbage?). Rather, begin to make choices based on the following:
If not LOCALLY PRODUCED, then Organic.
If not ORGANIC, then Family farm.
If not FAMILY FARM, then Local business.
If not a LOCAL BUSINESS, then Fair Trade.