Author: zora

Guidebooks–Good or Evil?

I’ve been home so long, and gotten all domesticated and out of the loop, you probably forgot I’m a guidebook author. I think I did for a little while.

But I just read a post on Killing Batteries, a blog by a fellow LP author, Leif Pettersen: Don’t leave home without your Lonely Planet.

He’s addressing the trend among bad-ass backpackers to chuck the guidebook and tramp around on instinct alone. And usually be arrogant, more-authentic-than-thou assholes about it in the process.

As much as I’d like to keep myself in business, I’ve got to say that you can get by without a guidebook if you’ve got enough travel experience.

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Thanks, Robert Rodriguez!

A little while ago, someone tipped me off to Robert Rodriguez’s cooking videos–they’re extras on a couple of his DVDs. I like the guy’s style anyway–and it’s great when he applies it to food.

One video is for breakfast tacos, and the other is for puerco pibil–aka cochinita pibil, a real Yucatecan standard of pork slow-roasted with achiote paste in banana leaves. It’s what I would’ve cooked at one of my cooking classes in Mexico this spring, if I’d been cooking a pig instead of a fish.

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“Black man!”

This post will get filed under Why Astoria Is the Greatest Place on Earth…but sometimes it’s not.

It’s not a big secret that even though Astoria is one of the most diverse neighborhoods in the city, there’s also a strong undercurrent of racism, specifically against African-Americans. The logic seems to be: Brown-skinned people are bearable, because they work hard. Black-skinned people are bad, because they probably come from not-far-away Queensbridge, and will rob you.

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Obamanos!

I did a super-quickie trip to ABQ this weekend, which happened to coincide with an Obama rally. Crowd estimates were about 45,000, and I think I walked past every one of those people just trying to find the end of the line to stand in. After about 10 minutes at the end of the 1.2-mile-long line (not kidding! See Google map), we decided to hoof it back up to the field, and try to listen from across the street. At a certain point, everyone there on the outskirts just politely rushed the field.

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World’s Largest Malt Ball

Ever since I read that there’s such a thing as malt-flavored soy milk (specifically, Lower Sugar Vitasoy Malted), I’ve been hankering for it. It doesn’t seem to exist in the US, alas.

So I thought I’d just make myself some plain old malted real milk.

Easier said than done:

<I>Lasts through a whole movie!</i>
Lasts through a whole movie!

My malt powder had totally glommed together in its container–it had been a very humid summer.

I did actually try gnawing on the giant malt ball…but it wasn’t very satisfying. Now I’m back to scanning the shelves for this Vitasoy product.

Great Neighbors!

There is a massive disturbance on my block. I had my windows closed, but I could still hear people yelling “FUCK that SHIT!” I thought there was some sort of domestic freakout.

I opened my windows, and it turns out the guy who’s swearing the loudest is trying to convince his neighbors to vote for Obama.

His argument to the McCain-voting woman repeatedly comes around to something along the lines of, “Come back and talk to me when you’re rich, my love–until then, you’re FUCKED!”

Excellent. Can we add that to the little talking-points list that MoveOn.org is circulating?

(Incidentally, I think this is why most New Yorkers are afraid of Queens. There are real, live Republicans here!)