A blog about food, history, data visualization, and more
Soon after I started blogging 10+ years ago, I learned about Creative Commons licenses, which some creators apply to their own work so it can be shared with certain restrictions (note that this blog is currently licensed with a CC BY-NC-SA 2.5, and my Flickr collection also has a CC license). After figuring out the mechanics, I started using CC-licensed […]
With the demise of Google Reader, Bloglines and other RSS readers, the Bloglovin’ tool is one of the best ways to keep up with your favorite blogs. So, if you like this blog, follow my blog with Bloglovin.
This space is the new home of Mental Masala’s years of posts about food, history, travel and much more. After attending the International Food Blogger Conference in July, I resolved to move my blog to a place where I would have more control. As I started planning the move, I decided to pull the plug […]
Back in June, I wrote about setting up garden infrastructure to grow burdock root (a.k.a. gobo, Arctium lappa) so that I could have a local source for recipes in Elizabeth Andoh’s Kansha: Celebrating Japan’s Vegan and Vegetarian Traditions (my review of the book is here.). My plants seem to be doing well, with each one […]
One of my minor frustrations with Elizabeth Andoh’s “Kansha” (my review is here) is that quite a few recipes feature burdock (a.k.a. great burdock, gobo, Arctium lappa), but all of the supply in local markets seems to be grown in Taiwan, even in Berkeley Bowl and Tokyo Fish Market, two markets that have many types […]
The Edible Schoolyard, an educational garden and kitchen at Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School in Berkeley, California, has been my path, so to speak, twice recently. The first time was a cover story in the East Bay Express. The second was an actual visit to the garden, my first visit ever. I wrote a […]
Two years ago, I wrote a somewhat light-hearted piece about the “depluminator,” a device that enabled me to pick plums from limbs high on the two plum trees in my yard. It was really simple, consisting of a rake, a box, and a bungee cord. But it didn’t work very well. I soon learned that […]
I’ve often wondered about the minds of litterbugs. What makes someone drop a piece of garbage on the ground instead of disposing of it properly? A recent article in Science magazine shows that a litterbug might be responding to signals from the surroundings. The article itself and a short summary require a subscription to the […]
(Update, 3/6/17: fixed broken links, updated photos) A few weeks ago, I visited Gold Ridge, Luther Burbank’s experimental farm in Sebastopol while touring the wine country and counting the hours until our reservation at Ubuntu in Napa (which unfortunately closed in late 2011). Luther Burbank may not be a household name, but his work touches […]
A few months ago, I purchased two red onions from the farmers market but was unable to use them before they started to send out bright green shoots. Just for kicks, I planted them in the garden. They grew vigorously, eventually sending up several-foot tall scapes and later some flower buds. A few weeks after […]