Dear music,

I'm sorry. I'm sorry I haven't been paying as much attention to you as I should. I just needed a break and I hope you can understand. You have to admit though, you hadn't really done much to keep things exciting lately with your somewhat predictable phrasing, recycled rhythms, and cliched lyrics. Maybe this break was just what we both needed as we had both become complacent in our relationship. It's made me work harder to discover all that you offer as well as revisit old gifts that I've loved and neglected. I promise to cut back on my NPR listening when I'm in the car and baseball broadcasts at the office. I promise to listen because just hearing you isn't enough. I promise to drop all pretenses and just get lost in you. I promise to be more forgiving and to give you a second chance when the first listen doesn't grab me. I promise all this because I miss you. I miss the feeling of playing a new album that is so enthralling that I can do nothing but just sit and stare at the wall.

So what would I like to see in return? I'd love to see you continue to grow and not get caught up in the hype. I'd like to see you try new things and push the boundaries. Also, I'd like the people that play you (DJs, musicians, etc.) to remember it's about you and not them.

a sad day in the world of music...

Reggae legend Desmond Dekker died from a heart attack in his home in Britain at the age of 64.

Read the NYTimes article (via Reuters).

slow news day at the NY Times...

Seriously, it must have been a slow news day for this article to be run on the front page of the New York Times.

And if It's a Boy, Will It Be Lleh?

It's an article about how the 70th most popular name for baby girls in 2005 is Nevaeh. Do you know where that name comes from? You guessed it, it's Heaven spelled backwards. When I saw the title I thought it was pretty funny how the Times was mocking these folks. But then I got a little scared when I realized that maybe they weren't mocking at all. Gawker doesn't seem to think very highly of the author, so maybe it was an inadvertent dig, but it was entertaining to me.

But seriously, do people really need to start making up names by just turning words of things backwards. Will people who really love wine start naming their kids Tonip? We all know how loyal Packers fans are so will there be a bunch of kids in Wisconsin called Srekcap? Gosh, I sure hope not.

organic? local? both?

I'm sure many of you have become very aware of the organic movement as of late. Not to be outdone, Wal-Mart has even gotten in on the act. Buying organic has never been cheap so we'll have to see what happens to prices as they enter the market. Like most people I would love to be able to eat organic but doing so requires money and some planning. I've noticed that with organic fruits and vegetables they don't tend to last as long so you really have to buy what you are planning on eating in the next couple of days. There's nothing worse than seeing that expensive, albeit delicious, produce rotting in your refrigerator after a few days.

One thing that I hadn't thought about when it comes to organic foods is that not all organic is equal. Michael Pollan brought this up yesterday on Weekday, here on KUOW in Seattle. He discussed many topics such as the difference between eating organic local foods and organic foods that have to be transported here by planes, trains, ships, giant trucks, etc. Like many people I always thought of eating organic as an issue of doing something that is good for me, and it is. But in addition to that there is the idea of organic farming is also important for the environment.

With industrial farming, the soil ends up being stripped of nutrients over time making them unusable for growing anything. Granted, this can take decades but why would you want to do something that would take away valuable land for growing food to feed an ever increasing population. So by practicing sustainable farming they are able to keep the soil fertile so it can feed us for generations. The question here is, when large companies like Wal-Mart start pushing organic and need larger supplies of this type of food there will be large farms using industrial farming techniques to grow organic food. So in the end, is this organic food really that good for us and our environment?

In addition to the industrialization of organic food, there's the idea of eating locally. How good is that organic tomato you're eating if it's had to be shipped all the way from South America? In addition to it not being picked when it's ready to eat because it has to travel, the fuel that is being used to transport it to you has to be considered. Granted, some sort of transport has to happen with all foods but wouldn't it be better if all that was was just a three hour drive from the other side of the state? Of course, in order to do this people will have to change how they eat. These days everyone is used to having things like tomatoes all year, but if you only ate locally then that wouldn't be possible. There'd probably be high incidences of scurvy in some parts of the country where citrus isn't native so there would have to be some exceptions. I know I probably wouldn't be able to grow mangos here in Seattle, but eating locally when I can will have to be a conscious decision I make when shopping.

The best strawberries I had ever tasted were ones that I had picked myself at a strawberry farm here in Washington state a few years back. I never knew what a real strawberry tasted like because I had always bought them prepackaged at the supermarket. These however were ripened naturally in the fields and I was rewarded with sweet and juicy berries. I think that is the biggest selling point for buying locally. Farmers can harvest what is in season and ready to be eaten instead of picking items early for shipping and letting them ripen in giant storage facilities.

Luckily in Seattle we have amazing farmers' markets all over the city, from the famous Pike Place Market to all the neighborhood markets starting to spring up this time of year. In addition to that, there are a number of CSAs here in Seattle, such as the Pike Place Market CSA, Boistfort Valley Farm CSA, and the Full Circle Farm CSA. For those of you unfamiliar with CSAs, CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture. For some you pay a certain amount of money upfront and during a period of time (usually summer through early fall) you'll receive fresh produce delivered weekly to one of many delivery locations. Others you pay per delivery but it is still delivered weekly and sometimes you can get a discount if you pay for a certain number ahead of time. What's great about this is you get what is fresh at that time and if you pay in advance, the money helps to give the farmers some working capital for the year. It's a win win all around.

I had been thinking about joining a CSA for a while but always thought it was too expensive. But the other day I was breaking down the cost and it wasn't really that much more than what I spend every week. Plus, not knowing what I'll get will force me to be more creative with my cooking. That could be a good thing, or a bad thing.

So what have I taken from all of this? The first thing is I'm going to try to eat more organic food. The second is, when eating organic I'm going to try to eat locally. And the third is that there is definitely a tie between what we eat and the world around us. What's the point in eating organically if we just end up killing the planet anyway?

Having said all this, I'm going to go see how the strawberries I planted last spring are doing.

things i've learned from tracking traffic

As I sit here listening to my all the voicemails that have accumulated in my voicemail box over the months since my phone doesn't work, I'm going to write about some of the things I've learned since implementing tracking on my blog. Okay, there's a weird message on my voicemail asking if I believe all religious holidays should be banished from schools. The next message says "Press 1 for male, press 2 for female."

Moving on. I've discovered that my blog is currently being linked to from some random trampoline site because I mocked trampoline being an Olympic sport some time back. I've also discovered that a lot of people are looking for a picture of Charlotte Martin.

It looks like asian fit sunglasses is a bigger issue than I had originally thought. Since I posted not too long ago about Oakley making asian fit sunglasses my blog has gotten a good amount of traffic from those folks looking for those glasses. I even updated my blog post to include a link to a list of their sunglasses. Who knew? Well, considering how many asian people there are in the world I guess I should have known.

The final thing I've learned is that people really want to know what celebrity they look like. I get a bunch of hits every day for that post alone. I wonder how many of them end up leaving that site disappointed when they find out they look more like Paul Giamatti than George Clooney. No offense Paul!

me want cookie

I love warm chocolate chip cookies right from the oven. The melted chocolate chips along with the moist cookie that almost melts in your mouth is a little bit of heaven and calls out for a cold cup of milk. Now imagine you were allergic to wheat and weren't allowed to experience that anymore. It's sad isn't it? Well, luckily I'm not allergic to wheat. Unfortunately Kristen is, so we haven't been able to bake chocolate chip cookies in a while. I mean, I guess I could but it wouldn't be very nice of me to torture her like that and I'd really prefer not to sleep on the couch.

Last night, Kristen wasn't feeling very well so she went to bed early. While she attempted to sleep, I put on some Sondre Lerche and set out to attempt a wheat/gluten free chocolate chip cookie that actually tasted like one. We've played around with making gluten free stuff before, with mixed results. Kristen made some scones that tasted pretty good but they just crumbled too easily. She also attempted to make pasta with brown rice flour, and lets just say we won't be doing that again. Last weekend I made some pancakes using gluten free flour and it turned out really well. So with those couple of successes I thought I should be able to do this.

Earlier in the day I found a recipe from Epicurious for chocolate chip cookies that called for the use of a brown rice flour mix that included tapioca flour and potato starch. Using this as my template I stopped at the grocery store to stock up on various flours and xantham gum, none of which was very cheap. So, while Sondre crooned in the background I went about making my brown rice flour mix, creaming my butter and sugar, and combining all of my dry ingredients. As I assembled the ingredients into a cookie dough, there was noticeable difference between cookie dough with wheat flour and this wheat free/gluten free dough. It had an elastic quality to it, as opposed to regular dough that is a little stiffer. Because of the dough consistency I decided to give them a little more room on the cookie sheet when I baked them, expecting them to spread out a bit more. They browned much quicker than I expected them to but I remembered reading that tapioca flour helps promote browning.

When I normally bake cookies, I tend to pull them out before they're completely baked through. The main reason for this is because they continue to cook after you pull them out so if you leave them in the oven until they're completely done, they'll be overcooked by the time you get to eat one. Using this same method, I pulled them out while they were still a little blonde and moist in the center. Seeing they hadn't spread as much as I thought they might, I put the next sheet, crammed with cookies, in the oven.

By this time Kristen had gotten up to see what I was doing. After letting the cookies cool a little bit, I let her give them a try. When trying to get them off the sheet, we immediately noticed that they fell apart very easily while they were still warm. But that didn't stop us from giving them a taste. I asked Kristen if she thought they tasted like real cookies and she gave me the thumbs up. After eating a second cookie she headed back to bed. The main thing I noticed about the texture was that appeared to be a little grainy, I figured it was probably due to some of the flours and starches that were used. Maybe if they had a chance to rest more the cookie would firm up and the texture would improve. Another thought was maybe I should let them bake a little longer.

I let the second batch stay in the oven a little longer. When I pulled them out I was worried I had let them bake too long as they went a little past golden. As I attempted to get them onto the cooling rack I noticed the color wasn't a good indicator of doneness as they still appeared to be very moist. It was kind of mess moving them as I had put too many cookies on the sheet this time and some of them had merged together. There was also the same problem of them being very fragile while they were still warm. Tasting one from this batch I noticed the grainy texture was much improved, but not gone entirely. The last batch was now in the oven.

I let the final 8 cookies get to the same brownness of the previous batch before pulling them out. While they cooled I went back to the first batch and noticed that they had firmed up nicely. The texture also seem to have improved. With that I set off for bed, hoping as the cookies rested over night all the issues would disappear.

This morning I was not disappointed. The cookies held up nicely and the graininess from the night before was completely gone. I would wager that most people wouldn't be able to tell these cookies were wheat and gluten free. The ones from the second and third batches were crispy at the edges and chewy in the center. All in all, I think this would be recipe we'll be making again in the future.

from the world of news

Some entertaining things from the world of news today:

Rhode Island wants statewide Wi-Fi
PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island (Reuters) -- America's smallest state is seeking to become its first to offer a wireless broadband network from border to border.

Retired teacher fights huge cable porn tab
YONKERS, N.Y. (AP) - A 62-year-old retired schoolteacher is fighting with a cable company over a hefty bill for porn and gangsta rap programming she says she never ordered.

In a Tiny Queens Apartment, 70 Cats Gone, and 28 to Go
Thirty cats in a cramped apartment in Queens may seem like a lot, but five years ago, Melanie Neer and her mother Barbaralee had 100 in there.

Mirabelli to catch Wakefield tonight vs. Yankees
The Boston Red Sox reacquired catcher Doug Mirabelli from the San Diego Padres in exchange for catcher Josh Bard, minor-league pitcher Cla Meredith. The Padres also received $100,000 in the deal, ESPN The Magazine's Buster Olney is reporting.

And of course, the headline you thought you would never see unless it was a sign of the apocalypse:

Anna Nicole Smith Wins Supreme Court Case
The former Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith was given a new chance by the Supreme Court today to try to get part of the vast fortune of her late husband, a Texas oil tycoon who was six decades her senior.