Saturday, May 11, 2002
choglit!?!
the focus group people at coke have a lot to answer for with this one. a cocoa-flavored beverage made with soy milk? and what an ugly, ugly name. . .
not that love bus brew is so great either. those late and aged hippies kesey and owsley should be weeping tears of sorrow. . .and what's the ginseng gonna do there for ya anyway?
the whole category is misbegotten, in my humble opinion. tell all, dear readers: when exactly was the last time you -- or anybody you know? -- had a yoo-hoo? (now owned, i believe, by cadbury-schweppes.) despite its divine origin?
posted by fortune | 6:57 PM | top | link to this | | email this: |
Friday, May 10, 2002
since i still run into people who tell me that "yoga is for wimps," i have written about all the tough guys who do yoga. . .
but some not-so-tough guys do yoga for the benefits of concentration and co-ordination. in this camp clearly falls the new world snooker champion, the charming but clearly somewhat goofy brit, peter ebdon.
he studied latin and greek before embarking on his career as a professional billiards player. and he's so devoted to the calm yoga gives him that he took a yoga class just before the championship final.
apparently concentration is key in snooker. ebdon attributed his success to his devotion to the "psychological side of the game," while his defeated opponent, stephen hendry, admitted that he lost due to the fact that "my concentration wasn’t there. . ." it's interesting to note that hendry has been champion 7 times previously!
i often talk about the physical side of yoga, but it's clear we shouldn't give short shrift to the mental benefits. . .laugh if you like, but that yogic snooker championship offered a fat purse of GBP 260,000 or US$ 379,724!
posted by fortune | 5:34 PM | top | link to this | | email this: |
Thursday, May 09, 2002
thanks for all the email about the recent chocolate news. . .
but i just don't have enough information yet to give an opinion. the group that is suing chocolate manufacturers claim chocolate naturally contains a dangerous amount of lead. that chocolate may naturally contain lead could be true; plants absorb all kinds of mineral from the soil. the news stories i've seen are just too vague on the details. does a chocolate bar contain more naturally occuring lead than, say, a carrot? is the lead actually natural in chocolate, or does it come from chemical fertilizers or pesticides? and how much of that natural lead makes its way from bean to bar? and of that final amount, what percentage is it of recommended safety levels?
i just haven't found enough answers. . .i'll have to report more after research. . .
what did catch my eye today was this article on fat in the diet. what's this got to do with chocolate?
". . . a type called stearic acid, which, like olive oil, raises the 'good' HDL cholesterol in the blood."
bingo. stearic acid, that heart-healthy fatty acid found in cocoa butter. and because of it, i can say with a straight face to all my readers -- help your heart, eat your 1.4 oz. of premium chocolate every day!
look for a brand that is all cocoa butter. many chocolate makers substitute some lecithin for chocolate's natural cocoa butter, selling off some of the butter to luxury cosmetics makers for a good price. but we want as much of that stearic acid as possible, so i might suggest eating lecithin-free chocolate like bernard castelain, slitti, or cluizel.
posted by fortune | 5:22 PM | top | link to this | | email this: |
Wednesday, May 08, 2002
you know, i really oughta make some ciabatta this weekend. . .
can you believe in all this time i have yet to post my ciabatta recipe? hmm. . .we'll see if i get around to it. .
i have long wanted to take the tour of guittard chocolate near san francisco. and ms. bridge told me several times how great scharffenberger himself is. now here's a person who gets to walk through both guittard and scharffenberger and pretty much wastes the opportunity! but it's a decent read despite it all. . .
posted by fortune | 5:58 PM | top | link to this | | email this: |
Tuesday, May 07, 2002
can you believe that bread, coffee, chocolate, yoga is a year old today? 
i certainly wouldn't have started it without encouragement and i definitely wouldn't have kept it up without your email. so a big thanks to you, dear readers! about 30,000 hits last month and going strong. . .
i was intrigued to read about the british conceptual artist who redid the entire whitechapel for his show: installing a new coffeeshop and offering yoga classes in the exhibition space during gallery hours!
what do you think situationist / conceptualist yoga would look like? a heap of bricks with $100 bills lacquered on them piled in the shape of downward facing dog? dump your own anarchic ideas into the comment link below. . .
this liam gillick guys sounds interesting. . .if you're into that kinda artsy thing.
posted by fortune | 5:15 PM | top | link to this | | email this: |
Monday, May 06, 2002
remember punk yogi j. brown?
i finally got tired of running all over the net trying to keep up with his schedule, so i just quickly threw together a dead-simple page here. now those of you who've been reading about him, intrigued by his unique voice and yogic outlook, can catch up with him yourself.
go for it! now.
posted by fortune | 8:40 PM | top | link to this | | email this: |
Sunday, May 05, 2002
bread: the staff of life, the stuff of laziness. . .
i'm in love with this charming tradition, where a little english village pastor tosses bread from the steeple to the people below. it's in accordance with an early 19th century bequest to distribute bread to the poor during the annual festival. . .
naturally i'm not so thrilled at sara lee's latest marketing innovation, for those to lazy to lift a knife -- crustless bread. as if most supermarket thin-sliced bread had any real crust to begin with? the american food industry continues to infantilize children and adults alike. doughy, chewless products that can be gummed and swallowed, without real nutrition or taste. . . what is this mass? bread it ain't.
i suspect their next big idea will be a pudding-like concoction of this gelatinous, spongy stuff all cubed up, soaked in flavored irradiated milk, maybe mixed with a jammy-type substance. you could eat it with spoon or squeeze it from a tube. it wouldn't be a solid, and it wouldn't be a liquid. something between a snack and a beverage. all it needs is a neon package and a cartoon character. . .clearly i need to approach some mega-conglomerate with this idea now!
real bread, dear readers! please, bake and eat your own real bread. . .
posted by fortune | 1:04 PM | top | link to this | | email this: |