I mean it.

God, I love starting fights! I’ve already got one brewing on one internet platform, might as well bring it here too.

OK, it’s not like I’m saying it wasn’t entertaining. It was. For sure. I guess. Or something. Yes, that’s it: it was…certainly something.

Before we even got to the theater I was thinking: “This is not going to work out so well. I can tell. I like movies with long slow steady shots, preferably where the women are wearing complicated underwear under their complicated dresses, preferably speaking with English accents, preferably set about a hundred years ago, preferably with Cate Blanchett.” I knew what I was getting into, so I guess I have only myself to blame.

By the time the previews ended (and my long-shot-used-to-eyes were already crying out in pain from the constant barrage of images) I knew things were going to go just like, well, how they went. I had an escape plan: Sherlock Holmes started 20 minutes after Avatar. If I couldn’t take the sci-fi, I could escape at least to English accents. But when the time came to escape, I was trapped in a wall of bodies on either side, and Jacob had the popcorn anyway (and the supremely trashy theater had the coveted vegan fake butter, so I could not leave without the popcorn). I decided to go with the flow and see a boy movie. And I’m not saying I hated it, let’s be clear. I had more than a few eye-rolling moments, but I kinda sorta gave myself up to it, as much as a smart person can when seeing such a simplistic popcorn flick.

Basically: I went out on a limb because everyone else wanted to see it. I saw a boy movie, and, as expected, it turned me into a hissing, spitting essentialist girlie girl.

Here’s the good thing I’ll say: at its root, it has a nice, happy tree-huggery message: lets be kind to Mother Earth. If you’re incredibly stupid and this is what you take from the movie, I am thankful this message is there. I just wish people weren’t, you know. So incredibly fucking stupid.

One more good thing: Jacob mentioned someone commenting on some article about the movie on HuffPo who pointed out that it was a good critique of how, under capitalism, the corporate state must be maintained at all times with military force. Good on ya for that one, Cameron, but that’s the only pass you’ll get from me.

What I realized about halfway through is that most (argh, standard disclaimer about how this isn’t true in all cases, blah blah) dudes are stupid. Not exactly a new revelation, but work with me here, I’m making a point: stupid people are happy to see the same movie again and again and again. They like it. Change the setting from a dusty western to a futuristic world, change the skin color of the girls the main character fucks, throw in an onslaught of giant weaponry, and their minds will be blown as if it was the first time.

Extra points if you make (most of) the women “healers” and gentle-voiced, doe-eyed creatures—oh, and if you want to be “edgy,” make sure some—just some!! No need to go crazy!—of them have mad bow-and-arrow skills. You’re really smashing some paradigms then. Oh, and racism? No way! I mean, the gentle earth-loving tribes are a hilariously offensive mix of African-American and Native American facial features, but how could anyone call the movie racist? They are the good guys! Wait, what’s that? They would never have prevailed without the weaponry, know-how, and aw-shucks good-guyism of the main white dude?

My god. AMERICANS! You blow my fucking mind, you know that?

Oh, and you know what else? Fucking ableism.

Update, after another half-hour of thought and conversation: Poor James Cameron. You know what? I think he tried very hard to make a movie not just idiots would like. The problem is that even as he is, on the surface, condemning the intense militarism, etc, he can’t stop himself from jizzing all over it either. It thrills him to no end how big his guns are. It’s so trite that I can’t believe I’m even writing it, but it’s just another dude leading with his fuckin’ cock. Spare me, please.

Lots to say! I’ll try to be short-winded.

Also, here are photos of the lovely wabi-sabi signage at a Buddhist temple and cemetery we visited in Honolulu a few weeks ago. I’ll put photos of the place itself, and the beautiful grounds, in another post.

November 16, 2009 issue:

I marked the reliably-brilliant Elizabeth Kolbert’s reliably brilliant critique of SuperFreakonomics (available in its entirety online!), but I don’t have anything special to add. Just: YES. It’s an excellent response to Freakonomics freaks you might know. (They might have some salient point when it comes to economics, I don’t know enough to know, but their analysis of—and solution to—the climate crisis is just weird.)

And when we turn the page, what have we here? Feminism being discussed in an intelligent fashion by an actual woman? By the lovely Ariel Levy?  (OK, yeah, I got mad at her once, but I’m over it.) My heart flutters. First of all, I’d like you to know that I take full credit for the increasing Ariel Levization of The NYer. Did you notice that her pieces started appearing with more regularity when I was on my warpath about gender representation in the mag? Seriously!

Anyway, have any of you read this When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present book that’s getting so much press that Levy reviews? It looks pretty interesting.

And then! Turn to the next page, and here’s a great review of that Bauhaus exhibit currently at MoMA, which I saw (during the members-only preview nonetheless) because I’m so hip and urban and font-liking and shit, and which was pretty interesting, and also fascinating from a feminist perspective, as the Bauhausians, a term I maybe just made up, were pretty welcoming to the ladies among them who also maybe wanted to make spare bare chairs and such. (That was an amazing sentence, no?) Actually, in a sort of essentialist twist that I personally delight in, it seems that what the ladies wanted to make were weavings, and very awesome weavings at that.

November 23, 2009 issue:  The Food Issue!

Cakes baked on spits! Deconstructed animals A L’Orange! The Michelin ratings system blown wide open! How artificial flavors are made! An appearance by my love, David Karp! That oldest of chef’s secrets, unceremoniously spilled by silly Adam Gopnik—that all of us put vastly more fat in our mashed potatoes than any lay person could even comprehend! And even, at long last, a typo!

Yes. I do believe I found that personal holy grail, a typo in The New Yorker. So silly, but I have to point it out: page. 97: “It is found in the Szechuan chili, and that is a unique sensation.” (It’s a quote, that’s why it’s such a weird sentence.) The Szechuan CHILI? My dear David Remnick! Chili is a dish eaten in the southwest of these here United States. Chile is the singular form of those hot little peppers used in Szechuan foods.

Well, OK. I guess it’s widely accepted that either one is ok, but still. I was taught that chili only refers to dishes made with chilies, and I’m sticking to it.

Niggling typos not withstanding, the whole issue is a pleasure, particularly if you are on a lazy vacation with lots of reading time. Yum indeed.

November 30, 2009 issue

Ariel Levy again makes an appearance, this time with something I never thought I’d see in a mainstream magazine: a wildly complicated analysis of gender. Specifically in relation to sports, specifically in relation to the fascinatingly complex and gender bendery case of Caster Semenya, the South African runner. I devoured the article, “hmm”ing my way through it, scratching my head, trusting Levy’s analysis and insights. Particularly spot-on is her analysis of how

South Africans have compared the worldwide fascination with Semenya’s gender to the dubious fame of another South African woman whose body captivated Europeans: Saartjie Baartman, the Hottentot Venus. Baartman, an orphan born on the rural Eastern Cape, was the servant of Dutch farmers near Cape Town. In 1810, they sent her to Europe to be exhibited in front of painters, naturalists, and oglers, who were fascinated by her unusually large buttocks and had heard rumors of her long labia. She supposedly became a prostitute and an alcoholic, and she died in France in her mid-twenties. Until 1974, her skeleton and preserved genitals were displayed at the Musée de l’Homme, in Paris. Many South Africans feel that white foreigners are yet again scrutinizing a black female body as though it did not contain a human being.

Really interesting stuff.

December 7, 2009 and December 14, 2009 issues:

Hmm. Now that I take a look, I see that I marked absolutely nothing.

Maybe my vacation is finally taking hold after all. Yay!

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Jacob’s stepmother is from Thailand, and grows a truly astonishing amount of (primarily Thai) vegetables in a beautiful upland garden here in Hawaii. Here is one part of the green papaya forest, with Thai chile plants in the foreground. One morning we volunteered to help harvest chilies.

Just a few links for this lazy holiday week:

Blogreader Orlande pointed these out months before, but MY GOD! SO ADORABLE! Handmade vegan shoes. I’ll take one pair of each, please!

There is something beautiful and calming about a three-star New York Times review (beware: intense non-veganism at that link) even of a restaurant I will never, ever go to. Maybe this means that I’m a bad anarchist because deep down I value standards and being judged. Luckily, I am on vacation and am not going to think about it that deeply.

The chilies are HOT.

Oh dear this little French girl is cute. Just ludicrous.

Sometimes, as a subversive sort of “fuck you” to health food freakers, and because it looks so fun, I tell myself I want to get into intense sugar work like this or this or this. The desire always passes…but I hope that one day it doesn’t. In ten years, I’d love to have given myself over to the world of refined, refined sugar in all its glory.

Here’s a fascinating read about the real-life world of a non-supermodel model (since my favorite secret guilty pleasure blog, Elyse Sewell’s brilliant Livejournal, is apparently defunct, I apparently have a vacant spot for jaded ex-model stories).

This is her last batch, being sun-dried to a toasty crisp. She cooks with a LOT of chilies.

Two bits of local outrage to end with:

First, what is UP with this freaking New Paltz Middle School MADNESS? How can people who are against the renovation not understand that a) it has to be done, for the safety of “the children! the CHILDREN!!” and that b) it will cost much more down the line, if we don’t do it now? I’m so confused. Is it the same old boys network freaks who wanted to build a completely new school? Do they even understand the math at all, or are they just 100% corrupt? Either way, they certainly have a lot of cash—$800 ads in the NPT every week, really? I’m not very coherent on the whole thing, obviously, but School Board member KT Tobin Flusser is, so go read what she has to say.

Second, our blogreader pal Dan recently pointed out, in a well-written letter to our erstwhile local rag the New Paltz Times, that this whole natural gas drilling thing is a giant fiasco that threatens the very survival of our beloved Catskills.

This appears to be the next big battle in my neck of the woods between capitalism and the continuation of our local ecosystem, and I’ve been steadily ignoring the horribleness that is looming ever closer. The worst aspect of the war to come, it seems to me, is that it really pits us (mostly middle-class, let’s admit it) environmentalists against mostly working-class (if such a thing was permitted to exist anymore, which it’s really not) people who see the quick cashy allure of letting the very land under their feet be drilled (by such upstanding companies as….Halliburton!). This pollutes drinking water (and it’s not like all of NYC depends on upstate for their drinking water or anything…) and puts their houses at risk for fun things like exploding—but it does give some cash-strapped homeowners some desperately-needed dollars.

It’s a mess from top to bottom, and the very thought of stopping it is so daunting it makes me want to breathe into a paper bag. But stop it we must. And so we shall.

Dan points out CatskillMountainKeeper.org as the place to go for outrage/info/action.

Also, Dan? We’ve never met, but someone just told me you’re David Porter’s son? The David Porter who almost single-handedly defeated Wal-Mart in NP? I’m so in love with your dad!!! This makes me want to have a little New Paltz-Resistance is Fertile blog meet up thingie! Just you and me and Brittany and KT. And ol’ what’s-his-name! Um….maybe not.

It’s no secret that one of the amazing perks of my job (and a major reason why I hesitate to expand my business) is that I work mostly by myself. The miracle of laptops and Netflix and iTunes means that my head is constantly filled with dozens of fascinating podcasts and movies. Unfortunately, it also means that I sometimes have almost no memory of movies I’ve watched, as you can’t exactly chop onions and watch snooty French New Wave cinema unless you’re prepared to suffer in one way or another.

So I often compromise by saving the subtitled films and sumptuous period pieces for that mythical “time off” that ends up happening only once a year (now!!), and I get through the long cooking days with documentaries, sitcoms, and rewatching movies again and again and again until I’ve figure I’ve looked up here and there enough to have caught the drift.

Because of this compulsive re-watching, and because it’s rainy outside, I thought I’d compile this list of favorite feminist movies (my definition of “feminist” here is very wide, encompassing all sorts of interestingnesses that touch on issues of gender/class/race/etc).

I’m sure you know of lots more that I’ve missed, so please fill me in and help to make my cooking days fly by on wings of righteousness!

The idea that baby feminists (either actual babies, or young people, or those just getting into le féminisme) might see this list and work their way down it is giving me all kinds of good tingly feelings. What fun you have in store, my friends. Do you ever get jealous of people who haven’t yet delved into that favorite book or band or TV show of yours? A farmer friend of mine is just starting to read All Over Creation, and I literally can’t wait to hear how she likes it. I think about it maybe five times a day.

(A note about me and movies, just so you know where I’m coming from: I’m a super lightweight. With a few exceptions, if a movie has any violence in it whatsoever [unless it's very fleeting and easy to look away from], even if the violence is a commentary on the dreadful nature of violence itself, I just can’t watch it. It brings me to a terrible place, which is not what I want out of a movie. It’s not that I watch only fluffy chick flicks, I do like to be challenged and provoked and to have my assumptions stretched by my film choices, but I don’t want to turn off the computer feeling so depressed or rageful that the day is ruined. No Dancer in the Dark for me, alas.)

Allons-y!

• Hard Candy: with Teeth, the best movie I’ve seen all year. Have you seen it, do you love it???
• Teeth: with Hard Candy, the best movie I’ve seen all year. Have you seen it, do you love it??? (yes, both of these break my “no violence” rule. But they are both eminently worth it.)
• Daughters of the Dust: Sort of hard to find, but so beautiful.
• I’d never listened to the Dixie Chicks before, but Shut Up And Sing, all about that mess you probably heard involving their comments about Bush, made me put down the truffles I was rolling and cry and cry—not in a bad way, exactly, though the way they were treated (and the stereotypes their treatment reinforced) were sickening, but also in a super cheeseball “hooray for girl power!!!” way. One caveat: If you’re a non-makeup wearing feminist like me, their intensely caked-on makeup (not just stage makeup, also every day makeup!) and girly girl outfits (what I call “girl drag”) is simultaneously fascinating and offputting—a combination that kept me constantly stopping the movie so I could more closely scrutinize their hair styles.
• Dogville: one of those stomachache-causing movies that I’m never sure are worth it or not.
• I know it’s sooo played out, but I totally cried at Juno! How embarrassing!
• Harold and Maude, of course.
• Saving Face
• Breasts: A Documentary
• Foxfire, totally awesome ’90s flick with a Jenny Lewis character that will melt your heart.
• I’m not sure anyone would ever put “Bob Dylan” and “feminist” in the same category (“she breaks just like a little girl,” anyone?) but you’d be hard-pressed to find a more feminist filmmaker than Todd Haines, who conjured up the girlcrush of my dreams in the person of Cate Blanchett in I’m Not There (apparently every December I have to go on about my love for I’m Not There), as well as gave us much to muse on in Safe and Far From Heaven.
• Transamerica
• This Film is Not Yet Rated, a documentary about the ratings industry that is just plain brilliant and fascinating, and, in a weird way, is a great primer on why our entire culture is pretty much in the toilet right now.
• Orlando is not only a beautiful, spellbinding book by my girl Virginia Woolf, it’s a movie directed by the always-wonderful Sally Potter starring my other #1 girlcrush (along with Cate Blanchett), Tilda Swinton. Oh my, so much feminist energy concentrated in one movie, I almost can’t stand it.
• Sally Potter also directed Yes–Oh man, I loved this movie. It’s all in iambic pentameter!!! And it’s not at all as annoying as that sounds.
• Boys Don’t Cry (oh, sadness, sadness, sadness)
• 9-5!!!!
• Muriel’s Wedding
• Akeelah and the Bee!
• The Magdalene Sisters
• The Corporation (not feminist per se, but just about the best documentary ever made)
• Persepolis (I liked the books better, though)
• SAVED!!!!!  A MUST SEE! OH GOD! One year I watched that movie like 50 times, and it never got old! Still hilarious!!
• Yentl! I was obsessed with Yentl in high school for some reason. It still holds up!
• Vera Drake
• Anything by John Cameron Mitchell, Hedwig and the Angry Inch and, especially Shortbus, is worthy of the feminist film title.
• Monster
• Capote (feminism isn’t just about women, you know! Plus, I love Harper Lee!)
• Before Stonewall
• After Stonewall
• The Celluloid Closet
• Born Into Brothels, so sad.
• My Vie en Rose, so rad!
• Babette’s Feast: the least vegan, and yet, most beautiful and touching, film of alllll tiiiiime
• Go Fish
• The Laramie Project (can you tell yet that Netflix pretty much exclusively recommends “Gay and Lesbian-themed” movies for me?)
• Carrington
• Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price
• The Cockettes: FUN!!
• Divine Trash
• Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic
• Silent Waters
• Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst
• Antonia’s Line: beautiful, so beautiful.
• Frida
• Priscilla Queen of the Desert: Yum! Pure pleasure.
• Erin Brockovich
• Bear Cub
• My Flesh and Blood
• Welcome to the Dollhouse
• Maria Full of Grace: oh my, what a sad one.
• Thirteen
• Bend It Like Beckham
• Fabulous! The Story of Queer Cinema
• L’Iceberg: so weird. So so weird. See it!
• Small Town Gay Bar
• ************************************Angels in America*******************************My favorite, as you know.
• Magnolia
• Wanda Sykes: Sick & Tired
• Margaret Cho: I’m the One That I Want
• Ellen DeGeneres: The Beginning
• Margaret Cho: Assassin
• Wanda Sykes: Tongue Untied
• Puccini for Beginners: I believe I referred to it as a “delightful romp” when I first saw it.
• Sacco & Vanzetti: not really about feminism, but so interesting, I had to throw it in.
• Quinceañera
• Whale Rider
• Rabbit Proof Fence: another saddie. But worth it.
• The Piano
• Anything Lili Taylor is in, particularly, of course, I Shot Andy Warhol (I wasn’t all that into Casa de los Babys, but OK, I guess that too).
• The Weather Underground
• Kiki’s Delivery Service, all about my job! I hear that everything by Hayao Miyazaki is lovely, but that’s all I’ve seen.
• All those Elizabeth movies, ahhhhhhhhhh CATE!
• Anything and E*V*E*R*Y*T*H*I*N*G John Waters has ever touched. Including random rolling papers, pieces of dog shit, Manic Panic bottles–anything. If JW has so much as let his shadow fall upon it, it’s infused with the best kind of revolutionary energy—case closed.
• Rocky Horror Picture Show–but if there is some horrid anti-feminist message in there, let me know. For some reason it played at my house all the time (along with This is Spinal Tap!) and I haven’t seen it since I was about 12.
• The Hours, though yeah, hardcore Woolfians I know have major problems with it, but whatevs.
• The Queen
• Ghost World
• Triplets of Belleville: which I just couldn’t get that into, but I think that was a flaw of mine related to inattention.
• Pretty in Pink (hi! I’m old!)
• Daughter from Danang: American Experience
• Southern Comfort
• Fur
• Don’t Need You: The Herstory of Riot Grrrl
• The Heart of the Game
• Anne of Green Gables yo!!!!!
• Monsoon Wedding
• Caramel: Meh, I dunno. I saw this last week and expected to like it a lot more. I also thought it would be more about food, less about depilation. It was still cute though.
• The Business of Being Born
• Lipstick & Dynamite, about women wrestlers!
• Fat Girls: again, I wanted to like it more than I did. It happens sometimes.
• The Closet: cute, and en français!
• Valley of the Dolls: not so much “feminist,” as, well, explaining the need for feminism.
• Grey Gardens: the original, I haven’t seen the Drew Barrymore one.
• Tout va Bien
• Masculin Féminin
• Boy Culture
• Fast Times at Ridgemont High
• The Breakfast Club
• Blue Crush: ooh, girl surfers!
• Marie Antoinette: the pink! The sweets! The outfits! It crushes me!
• Iris
• Breakfast at Tiffany’s? If not feminist—and I could honestly argue either way—you can’t say it’s not fun.
• Jane Eyre
• Chisholm ‘72: Unbought and Unbossed
• Sophie Scholl: The Final Days
• Thelma and Louise
• Volver, and all Almodovar films!
• Real Women have Curves: I actually think this movie is pretty cheeseball and bad…yet I still liked it. So weird when that happens!

Movies I haven’t (yet) seen, but have a feeling they are good:

• Precious
• The Passion of Joan of Arc
• Ladies and Gentlemen: The Fabulous Stains
• Milk (though I did see a great documentary about Harvey Milk, The Times of Harvey Milk)
• Whip It, sure why not, a good fluffy empowery story is always nice to cook to.
• Itty Bitty Titty Committee
• Mean Girls
• Harlan County, USA

I’ve definitely talked some smack about my mom on this here blog (and she seems to have magically forgotten that it exists–shhh! Though I love her, let’s not remind her, OK? It’s nice to have a mom-free space.), so I thought I’d balance it out a little with this insanely adorable exchange which epitomizes everything awesome about my mom and none of the craziness. Well, some of the craziness, but only the sweetest sort of craziness. It just makes me laugh.

So my (and, most likely, your) pal Brittany and I were chatting about abortion on Facebook, as you do in this day and age. My mom had just joined the Facebookverse a few days prior, and I was nervous and weird about her being in my internet space, but this comment let me know it was going to be more than OK—it was going to be fun. And it has been! I’m shocked.

Is it only insanely hilarious to me how my mother has no compunction at all about hopping onto a discussion about how women should be paid for abortions and exclaiming over her new jeans?

*

In other news: On Being A Bad Vegan, Part Three: BEES!!! will be guest-written by my pal Christy and she is a mama with one newborn and one, um, not-newborn (toddler? What comes after toddler? Walker? Child, I guess.) and about a zillion other fantastic projects and jobs and things happening, so it will arrive when it arrives, and it will blow your mind when it does.

Oops, I forgot a link:

Dustin pointed out this SO PERFECT Alternet article: Are Liberals Pathetic? My answer is a solid YES. Gotta love that Chris Hedges! This is a must read, for sure.

In an anarchist society, who will pick up the garbage? A spot-on, super quick read. (Thanks to Facebook pal DS for the link)

And from anarchism to my other love, thinking consumerism! A really great gift guide that the Bonbons were included in– I sort of want everything mentioned, particularly the quirky and lovely animal portraits.

And also

Good article in the NYT on the dangers of kitchen plastics and chemicals.

Also from the NYT, an article pretty much totally about my life, except that I don’t sell my wares on Etsy. And don’t make “more than $140,000 a year.” But still, it’s my business life down to a tee: a so-called perfect work life whose one big giant trade off is working every minute of every day, forever.

Oh, and! As previously mentioned, my farmer pal Kira got a sweet little write-up in the Times too! Oh, how cute is she? I’m amazed they got her to stand still long enough to take her picture—by far, she’s the hardest working farmer I know.  (And I make it a point to know farmers, so I know of what I speak.)

My fave band/performance artist, The Blow, is back from a little hiatus!

My BFF Christy introduced me to this lovely Portland blog. It’s super stylie, pretty,  & thoughtful—in short, delicious in every way. We both hate American Apparel and love hair dye, fermentation projects, and veganism, wooo!

Randy has a great post all about his fermentation 101 experiments (among other interesting life tidbits) and I’m not just saying it’s great because he mentions me favorably in it! Sample bit of typical Randy awesomeness: “there seems to be an unwritten exception to noise ordinances allowing any amount of racket so long as it is produced by gas powered tools designed to manage nature.” Oh god, so true.

This is a reminder, to myself (and maybe you too!) to save my copious amount of jars for the fine folks at Wintergreens when I get back to cooking next…decade!

Word on the street (that street being audubon.org) is that the excellent Audubon Field Guide to Mushrooms is soon to be an iPhone app!!!! My exclamation points runneth over! My dog-eared copy of the book hangs out in my car trunk, along with a battered ’shrooming basket, and the promise of a shiny new fabulous-sounding app (the bird one has bird calls!) is making me feel all tingly.

Hello sweet beets,

A Facebook pal friend asked for my pumpkin pie recipe and I thought I’d toss it on here even though I don’t have a picture of it and it’s not exactly my recipe, but rather an adaptation of an old recipe from Fine Cooking. It’s so great though. Make it, take a picture, and send it to me along with your kudos, will ya?

Fun fact! I started making this tart my regular Thanksgiving pumpkiny dessert after Khaela Maricich (yes, Khaela of The Blow!) tasted it alongside my standard non bourbony pie and declared that it “had more going on.” My god, I love that Khaela. We’re actual friends, but every time I see her I still can’t stop from basically screaming about how much I love her and making dorky references to all her songs. This is of course slightly awkward and I commend her for being so awesome about it (full disclosure: she’s more of a Jacob friend than a Lagusta friend, but how great to be in a couple where you get to be friends with all your sweetheart’s friends, non? Actually…read this paragraph quick, because when Jacob sees it he will sigh in that “you don’t have to share everything with the internet” way and I will feel weird and take it down. He is in Sweden today though, so I can blab on and on about my deep and wild love for Khaela to the entire world without any sighing disrupting my oversharing.).

I LOVE THE BLOW!!!

Pumpkin Bourbon Tart with Walnut Streusel

1 11” tart

• This recipe looks long, but it is really just three easy components. It calls for a stand mixer and a food processor, but it can be made without these by combining the tart and filling ingredients (separately) in a bowl and by hand-chopping the streusel ingredients and combining them with a fork or pastry blender.
• The coconut oil should be at room temperature, which means that it shouldn’t be completely liquefied or completely solid – it should be soft enough to scoop out easily but still white. Since it can be tricky to get it to this consistency, especially in very hot or cold kitchens, remember that is always better to err on the side of it being more liquid, because otherwise the dough or streusel could end up with holes that were once solid coconut oil. However, a colder oil makes a more flaky pastry, so finding a balance between workable and too warm (liquid) is worth it. If you’re scared of coco oil or don’t know what kind to buy, read my coco oil manifesto here!

tart crust

2 c all-purpose flour

1/3 c sugar

1 ts. orange or tangerine zest (tangerine adds a special quality)

½ ts. sea salt

10 Tb. coconut oil, at room temperature, see note above

2 Tb. flax seed “eggs” (you know, just boil 1c of water and 3 Tb. flax seeds for a few minutes, then strain it. If it’s too thick to strain, add more hot water and whisk whisk whisk. Voilà! Egg whites!)

¼ c coconut milk, more if needed

1. In a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mix the flour, sugar, zest, and salt. Add the coconut oil and combine on low speed until the mixture looks crumbly and like dried peas – about 2 minutes.
2. Add the flax seed “eggs” and coconut milk and mix on low speed until the dough is just combined. If the dough is too dry to come together, add more coconut milk a spoonful at a time.
3. Evenly press dough into a 11” ungreased tart pan with a removable bottom. Refrigerate. (Yep, a pressed crust! EASY!)

pumpkin filling

15 oz. pumpkin or squash (I like Blue Hubbard squash the best), steamed (use canned pumpkin and I will kill you. Just STEAM SOME SQUASH, you can do that, Jesus!) [If anyone has both a scale and measuring cups and can tell me how many cups 15 oz. is, let me know and I will update this for the benefit of non-scale-owners. But if you're serious about baking, you should buy a scale!)

scant 1 Tb. agar powder (I talk about it here)

½ c evaporated cane juice sugar

¼ c packed minimally processed dark brown sugar

2 Tb. all-purpose flour

1 ts. ground ginger

1 ts. freshly ground cinnamon

¼ ts. freshly ground cloves

½ ts. sea salt

½ c coconut milk

¼ c bourbon (once I accidentally used Southern Comfort and it was delicious as well, which is weird because I usually find SoCal vomitious.)

1. In blender, combine all filling ingredients over low speed until combined. Set aside.

streusel topping

¾ c walnut halves, toasted, cooled

¼ c crystallized ginger, coarsely chopped

¾ c all-purpose flour

1/3 c evaporated cane juice sugar

¼ c packed minimally processed dark brown sugar

½ ts. freshly ground cinnamon (I always use canela Mexican cinnamon from my local Mexican market [Casa Latina in Poughkeepsie---I call it a Mexican market even though it's a Latina market because I am a big giant racist.] and grind it in a spice grinder, but you can use your sad little tin of cassia cinnamon, sure, go right ahead, even though it’s probably like 10 years old and doesn’t taste cinnamony at all…)

½ ts. sea salt

1/3 c coconut oil, at room temperature

1. In a food processor, combine walnuts and ginger. Pulse to chop into medium pieces. Remove. Add remaining ingredients except coconut oil and pulse briefly to mix. Add coconut oil and pulse until just barely combined. Remove blade and stir in walnuts and crystallized ginger.

assembling the tart

1. Heat the oven to 350F.
2. Pour the pumpkin mixture into the unbaked tart crust. Do not overfill tart pans because the filling puffs a little. It might overflow a little in the oven. I personally like the look of it when it does, and it sinks back down after it comes out of the oven, but if you want a tidy tidy tart, take out 1/3 cup or so of the filling and just eat it. Scatter the streusel topping evenly over the pumpkin mixture, covering it completely. Put the tart on a cookie sheet.
3. Bake until the topping is evenly cooked and no longer looks wet in the center, 50 to 65 to 75 minutes, depending on your oven.
4. Let the tart cool on a rack for at least 2 hours before serving. The tart can be wrapped in plastic wrap and refrigerated overnight; before serving, let it sit at room temperature 1 to 2 hours.
5. The flavor of this tart is best after one day, and it will keep up to 6 days.

…Or so I’ve been telling myself since I was fifteen and first read The Fountainhead and committed those lines to memory.

Well, here’s a shameful secret: I’ve really been enjoying the audio book of this new Ayn Rand bio. I’ll have lots of thoughts to share about it…soon.

Sorta soon.

In the meantime, it’s my busiest work week of the year (making hay while the sun is shining sounds good on paper, but it sure sucks when you collapse from sunstroke…) and after that my sweetheart will be home for a few days and we’ll be raking leaves and petting lonely cats and catching up on Mad Men and generally acting like we share our lives even though our lives seem to be conspiring to make us liars lately.

Until then, here are some peeled chioggia beets and raspberry orange tarts. Enjoy!

While I’m gone please feel free to debate and discuss the philosophy of Objectivism; Ayn Rand’s insanely weird life; the virtues of altruism versus the virtues of egotism; various thoughts on the sexiness or lack thereof of Ayn Rand’s characters (I have soft spots for Howard Roark and Dagny Taggart, myself), whether or not the grassroots left truly is being torn apart by lazyass dreamers who can’t shake themselves out of their idiotic mystical visions long enough to get anything done; and, the topic I really want to bring up: can collectives ever accomplish anything? I’ve been a part of a few, and I think I can make a strong case that Rand-style individual actions get a shit load more done with a shit load less drama. Is there something inherently virtuous in working together, or are we deluding ourselves? No collective I’ve  ever seen is a true collective, all have had a certain sort of hierarchy in order to survive. What’s wrong with that? As long as it’s not a fascist hierarchy that is killing its underlings, what’s wrong with admitting the truth: we are all good at different things, and shouldn’t pretend to be equals at everything.

Also: should an avowed anarchist who describes her political leanings as somewhere to the left of Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky be getting as much pleasure as I am getting out of the ideas of a woman who so loved capitalism? Or could it be said that in a certain sense Rand was an anarchist? Her love for capitalism was, it seems to me, really a love of the meritocracy. Money doesn’t have to be involved in a meritocracy, and I’ve always thought that in any worthy anarchist society cream would still rise to the top (which by the way is a totally vegan metaphor if you’ve ever opened a can of coconut milk in the wintertime)—it’s just that everyone, creamy or not, would have a say and a stake in how they live their lives.

Here’s another thought: as much as Rand was an avowed capitalist, I’m an avowed barterer (I GOT THE COAT! IT WILL BLOW YOUR MIND! PIX TO COME!!), and it seems to me that bartering is the purest, most anarchic form of capitalism—bartering is capitalism minus governmental and societal bullshit, it is capitalism stripped of anything but the perfect question: “what is it worth to you?”

So basically what I want to say is that lefties shouldn’t ashamed to like Ayn Rand. She made a lot of mistakes and was sort of a giant bitch with an addiction to amphetamines and some serious emotional issues, but! Her sometimes overly simplistic, sometimes shrill ideas have real value. Inherent value, even.

xoxoxo

John Galt

PS: Um. Maybe I just shot my wad on that Rand post TK. Oops.

You know? Totally.

Why, hello there, internet!

Lots to say, as usual, not much time to say it, as usual. But right now I’ve got a Noodle-cat on my lap and some nice honeybush tea on my desk and old, old, old M. Ward on the record player—everything feels just right. Let’s chat a little.

First of all, as someone who watches a fair amount of TV on the computer while working, I was excited about this new Wanda Sykes show. As Jon Stewart put it: “…Wanda Sykes is going to be starting up her own late night talk show—wait, that’s got to be a misprint, she’s not a white man. Well, I guess now we’ve seen everything.”

I had high hopes (my crush on Wanda is long and deep), but it seems to be sort of a Real Time with Bill Maher minus the Bill Maher creep factor plus more cheesiness and with, let’s just admit it, crappier guests. And her rah rah Obamaism was tiring after just one episode, though why I expected anything more from a mainstream talk show I’m not sure.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised when a truly interesting figure gets a bit of a handhold in the “real world” and all her quirkiness is completely tamped down…but come on Wanda, I think you can do better. (And if you can’t, I’ll keep watching just because you’re so freaking cute.)

In other feministy zeitgeistey culturey news, I was fascinated to read this Feministing post all about where The Wire gets it wrong when it comes to gender. I don’t completely agree—Kima!—but it is food for thought, for sure.

Speaking of Feministing, a site I’m partial to (and have advertised the Bonbons on), it is currently being boycotted by those who believe that the Feministing crew are horrible transphobic ableist racists.

I dunno. I don’t really buy it.

Some random thoughts on the whole mess which will probably get me in a lot of trouble with very few people and not make much sense to people not intimately familiar with the site (to learn what the hell I’m talking about, click the links mentioned here. Thanks to Facebook friend JC for the heads up, and I hope we can still be pals though we disagree!):

• To be honest, it truly seems like a whole lot of the left punching itself in the eye, which is, of course, our favorite activity. Oh infighting, where would we be without you?
• That said:
• Jessica Valenti, the face of the site (though I know much has been done to change this by bringing in a much more diverse editorial staff) has never, in my eyes, been that interesting or deep. She’s just….fine. She’s the Ms. Magazine of my generation—nice, slightly boring, slightly simplistic, but a good cheerleader to bring intimidated stupid people to the big bad F word. But there is a LOT to Feministing besides her, so if her, like, white middle class privilege worries you, you don’t actually have to read her posts or her books.
• Claims of extreme transphobia and hostility toward trans women on the site: I can’t claim to have read all of the long long long threads that the pages I’ve seen link to (and if you have specific examples of the perceived horrible treatment of trans women on the site, I’d like to see them), but man oh man! Trans issues are complex for a lot of cisgender people, myself included, and I appreciate Feministing’s attempt to work through the more nuanced and complicated aspects in an inclusive way. Also, it seems that most of the problems people are having take place in the comments, and it seems ridiculous to blame the site for that.
• 
• Also, why boycott? Why not hop on the comments thread and make your views known? I know people feel like they have and that the staff isn’t listening, but walking away is a silly way to respond. Isn’t feminism about dialogue? You don’t like the way one of the biggest feminist websites is run? Keep talking about it until it changes, people. My god–what do you do in the real life when you don’t like something, just walk way to a “safe space” where no one disagrees with you? (Yes, that’s what I do, but I’m not the one complaining.)
• And people boycotting because of “their classist “boycott Walmart” post”: HA! Ha! HA! HA!!!!! Wait, let me rephrase: So, let me get this straight. There are people who, as feminists, see nothing wrong with Walmart? There are people who, as feminists, think that it’s CLASSIST to point out problems with WALMART? Could someone please explain this hilarious logic? It’s CLASSIST to say that people should be paid more than minimum wage with no benefits and not locked inside their jobs at night when they are stocking shelves? And is a feminist utopia one in which we all own cheap shit made by largely female sweatshop workers? And…um…who’s calling who a racist? I mean, yes, there are places where literally the only store is Walmart. And there are people who are underpaid and thus must shop there to buy vital things like food. But to say that pointing out the giant problems with Walmart is to deny these facts and somehow hate on people who have no choice but to shop there is, well, just mindblowingly idiotic.
• In short: I don’t get it. Feministing could be more diverse and inclusive, of course, but I truly get the sense that they are trying pretty damn hard. Maybe they fuck up now and then, but don’t we all? I guess I’ve bought into the great Feministing swindle, but I truly think their hearts are in the right place, which is why I’m a loyal reader and occasional advertiser even when I don’t agree 100% with every single post.

OK, time to turn the record over, see ya!

I’m already mourning the passing of the Season of Wearing Cute Dresses in a pretty hardcore way. Yuck. Forgive that I already posted a picture of this outfit (which I have christened “You’d Never Guess She’s a Man-Hating Anarcho-Feminist,”), but I did a lot of tailoring to it to make it fit (there was a LOT more lace) and I’m pretty much in love with it. Those tights have little twee hearts on them!

Lots happening out there in the world, plus I am over my horrid mood of last week! Let us celebrate with links:

My BFFF (extra F for how Fucking much I love him) Than Luu is doing some ridiculous food blogging on his travels around the world with his band Black Gold (Oh look! Another opportunity to mention the music video I was in, how handy!). Check it out!

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Speaking of bands, while I was engaged in a horrible Halloween depression spiral, my sweetheart was in Louisville mixing THIS. Wow.
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Profanity-laced hilarity courtesy of McSweeney’s.

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The new Bloodroot calendar is out! In the two years since Bloodroot published the gorgeous cookbook set that I was honored to have had a hand in creating, they have been publishing a calendar with new recipes. The calendar is super gorgeous and filled with 99% vegan recipes straight out of my mentor Selma’s head–snap it up!

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I’m happy one of the Brooklyn Jonathans (Safran Foer, Ames, and Letham) wrote a book about why you should be vegan or whatevs, and I’m happy that famous blonde actresses are writing vegan cookbooks, all of that is well and good. But these books are written for non-vegans—why people have to keep pointing them out to me I have no idea.

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Speaking of another of the Bklyn Jonathans, Ames wrote that new show Bored to Death and though I haven’t seen it I completely loved & agreed with Nancy Franklin’s recent New Yorker review (I basically agree with everything Nancy Franklin has ever said though.). Particularly this part:

Chick lit—the range of fiction by women about contemporary city life, friendships, sex, jobs, climbing out of the wreckage of youthful dreams—gets a lot less respect than the male equivalent, which people tend to approach as if it were automatically more artful, more written. Women write “thinly veiled accounts”; men write “romans à clef.” Women writers may have a room of their own, but men who thrash around in front of the mirror and record their every failure, humiliation, moue, and excretion for an audience’s consumption still own the house, even if all they do in it is lie on the couch—and then write about it.
The work of Jonathan Ames, who created the new HBO series “Bored to Death,” lies in this vein of self-fascination and self-conscious inertia.

My god, YES. I suffered through a Jonathan Ames audiobook (which I refuse to Google to figure out the title, as I am unwilling to spend one more second of my life on Jonathan Ames) once, and every second was pure torture.

On the other hand, everyone says this new series is good. Oh, the pain.

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And a few work-related miscellanies:

Heya Baltimorites (?)! Check out Brunie’s Bakery, a cute small-batch vegan bakery in your fair city. Recently their head baker emailed me to say that she was making the wedding cake for the woman who ordered the aforementioned wedding truffles from last week and she just sampled and adored a few truffles. How nice is that? I love it when things like that happen. Vegans can be a crazy bunch, but overall we are such decent, sweet, friendly people, no?

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(All that follows is NSFW!)

So, this erotic chocolate shop in Belgium wants to sell ye olde vulvaz, and I hope we can make it happen. How hilarious does it look? My favorite product so far is the “Candy Gay String.” And while I find these deeply, deeply horrifying….I must say they are pretty well done! And they remind me all over again to be annoyed that no one (Beloved TCHO! Are you listening?) makes high-quality vegan (coco milk!!!) milk chocolate and white chocolate. Oh, and I have this mold! I once made it for my sweetheart filled with peppermint patty filling and presented it to him right before he left on a tour. It was too much sugar (a solid inch or so of peppermint patty filling, I’m not sure quite what I was thinking) and he couldn’t eat it in front of anyone and I fear a lot of it went to waste. But it was adorable!