Category Archives: NY Times

Butter or Margarine?

December 18, 2008christmas, food, NY TimesKirsetin

All those many years ago when I first met my girlfriend Janet, she was already a bona fide baker. I was still more of a baker-in-the-making. These days, I bake a mean apple pie, but back then I was still one of those people who used margarine in my cookies. Not to worry. Janet set me straight on the finer points of using butter and, not wanting to produce inferior cookies, I ponied up the cash and starting baking with the real stuff.

Fast forward almost ten years and I read Michael Pollen’s In Defense of Food, which convinced me, thoroughly, of the horrors of margarine. Although I’m generally not one to hop on anybody’s bandwagon, his arguments rang true to me and I jumped aboard. While I admit to still buying diet pepsi (I know!), and the occasional goldfish, it’s more because 1) I’m weak and 2) I’m weak. I still think he’s right.

So yesterday, when I read Julia Moskin’s column in the NY Times, singing the praises of butter in cookies, I expected some sort of nod to Pollen. But no. The article is clearly a baking aficionado’s perspective; not even close to a health nut’s reasoning. It’s all about how your cookies won’t hold their shape if you dare use margarine, or even, heaven forbid, if you use butter that’s been incorrectly melted or creamed. As if! Please know that if you ever deign to eat my cookies, I have probably melted the butter incorrectly. There’s also a really good chance I didn’t cream it long enough, either. However, you can still consider yourself lucky that you’re only getting fatter because I used butter and not dying because I used margarine. I mean, that’s a pretty big gift right there. Please don’t expect the shape of my cookies to be just so or to receive them in a fancy bag with a ribbon on top. I am busy people. I could be handing out Oreos (speaking of non-food).

Nonetheless, I laughed out loud at the comment of Robin Olsen, who runs cookie-exchange.com and is quoted at the end of Moskin’s piece. Olsen’s thoughts: “I can tell a margarine cookie as soon as I bite into it. And then I put it right down.”

Well just tell it like it is, Ms. Olsen! I love that. But I won’t send you any cookies. Too risky.

As for the rest of you, I hope you enjoy whatever it is you’re baking this Christmas!

If voting gives you a headache, do it anyway. Just use caution when you select your drug of choice.

November 4, 2008NY Times, politicsKirsetin

We pause for this commercial interuption.

Edit of the day: Cakewrecks hilarious post

My favorite part is Jen’s comment: “What are you guys talking about? Our education system is fine. Really.”

Okay, enough editing. Here’s the original post:

The Obvious Today:

Get out there and vote! Stand inside, stand outside, join the queue, take a snack for yourself, take a snack for your toddler, do whatever you have to do. Just get on over to the polls. I can’t wait!

The Less Obvious, But Very Scary and Worth Pursuing Post-Election:

The NY Times reported yesterday that “Over the past six years, the F.D.A. has managed to inspect annually an average of just 15 of the 714 Chinese drug plants that export to the United States. At its present pace, the F.D.A. would need more than 50 years to visit all of these Chinese plants. By contrast, the F.D.A. inspects domestic drug plants every 2.7 years.”

Now we all know that melamine has been found in formula manufactured in China. We’re afraid to buy potentially tainted toys made there. But we’re importing uninspected drugs by the bazillions. (Okay, that’s not the official number, but it’s close.) Does this make sense?

The upside is that because China and other countries can manufacture drugs so inexpensively, millions of people around the world have access to drugs they wouldn’t be able to afford otherwise. However, warns Gardiner Harris in his NY Times article, “without proper regulation, some of those drugs could be either ineffective or dangerous. A 2006 study found that more than half of anti-malarial drugs sold in Southeast Asia contained no active ingredients. The World Health Organization has estimated that as much as 10 percent of pharmaceuticals sold worldwide are counterfeit or contaminated. In some poor countries, the share is more than 30 percent.”

As far as I’m concerned, any percent of contaminated or counterfeit drugs is unacceptable. If Target can figure out what I bought last week without a receipt, and the Apple Store can function without cash registers, then the FDA ought to be able to get its act together, too. Why on earth are we paying taxes out the wazoo to a government that can’t use our dollars efficiently? We work hard for that money. Shouldn’t they work hard to appropriate it properly?

I’m a fan of my good friend Nyquil and his close cousin, Advil, and I hope to not have to give either up on days when my body is desperate for relief. Shouldn’t I be able to take them without fear?

This makes me a little nervous, friends. What about you?

Bright Lights, Big City, and Me

September 26, 2008balance, life, nostalgia, NY TimesKirsetin

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been drawn to the bright lights of the big city. When I was a young girl, and again during college, my family lived outside of Washington DC, and when we drove by at night, with all of those big buildings and homes and restaurants full of lights and life, well, it didn’t get much better than that. There was an honest-to-goodness physical pull towards the city, I could feel it to my core, and knew that one day, not too far away, that life would be mine. I couldn’t wait.

After college I lived in Connecticut for a bit, then headed to San Francisco, which, to this day, remains my favorite domicile. Everything I expected, I found, and more: interesting job, great suits (this was back in the day), shopping galore, too many restaurants to count, and endless blocks of beautiful houses and parks surrounded by that glorious bay. It was the land of enchantment, and I loved it.

I loved my husband more, though, and when his job took him to Seattle, I transferred there. Seattle’s culture is a world away from San Francisco’s, and it took me awhile to settle in. People stared at my fancy suits – and wondered why I didn’t just buy a sturdy Patagonia fleece. After awhile, I started to wonder, too. When it began to drizzle and I wanted to snuggle up with a blanket and a movie, they were all headed out for a bike ride. What’s a little rain, sweetie? Over time I came to love this place, hardiness and all, although I can’t claim to have become significantly more hardy myself. I’m still not a fan of camping or biking in the rain. You’ll find me inside on those days, thank you very much, with my hot tea or a glass of red wine, depending on the time of day, and enjoying the comforts of my warm, dry home.

Alas, Seattle wasn’t to be long-term either. Despite my longing for and loving of the big-city life, God is having himself a big old laugh at my expense. First, Wisconsin. Now, Michigan. People, I like it here, but this is no big city.

And then I read THIS, and I thank God that I am not caught up in that mess. We are busy, of course. My kids play sports and take piano and have homework every night but Friday. (Thank you, teachers, for that last part. Thank you, thank you, thank you.) Sometimes our pace feels frantic, but dear Lord, even though I think I’m a pretty high-energy person, who can live like this? Is that life? I realize, of course, that this family doesn’t represent every family in the big city. (I also realize that Long Island isn’t the city, but you get the idea.) There are tons of you out there doing big city family life really well. I’m just not so sure that I could do it well—I’m not so sure that I wouldn’t be caught right up in this maelstrom, making sure my kids were getting this lesson and that tutor and every other possible advantage I could give them if those were the pressures around me. I am a bit competitive, you know.

And so, even though driving past farmland gives me an actual shiver, because there is no part of me that is ever going to be hardy enough to survive ACTUAL farming, I have to wonder if those people don’t have it going on. I have to wonder if, in the end, their life is richer.

But then I realize that not only do they not have the Mad Dash, they also don’t have a Target.

So, nope, we’re not movin’ there. I guess we’ll stick with the compromise out here in suburbia, and hope that God doesn’t laugh too hard when he finds out I’m still planning to move to the city. As soon as they all graduate.