market research: olive oil

For research for my recent olive oil primer story for amNY I went straight to the source: Steve Jenkins of Fairway Market, a self-professed “idiot savant who’s whacked out about olive oil.” His knowledge is the kind that is cultivated over time, driven by passion — and let me tell you, the man loves his olive oil.

We talked for just over 30 minutes and exchanged approximately 3,870 words, of which about 120 made it onto the page. Here are another couple hundred of my favorites: 

On good olive oil: “Really good ones are gonna have a medium brilliance and cheerfulness about them. So much personality.” 

On taste: “Everybody’s different. So maybe you want an olive oil that’s really gentle and has got some citrus-y notes and some herb to it. On the other hand, if you’re like me you’ve got to bombard your senses, you want something that’s really robust and has got some bitterness to it, black pepper to it, that’s maybe going to make your tongue tickle or make you want to cough when you taste it.

notes from the aisle: going greek

tzatziki prep

A few weeks ago I holed up in a friend’s kitchen for an evening and made like Martha Stewart, taste-testing a handful of common supermarket brands of Greek yogurt (or “Greek style” yogurt, as the underwhelming Trader Joe’s version claims), in the full range of milkfat available: regular, 2% and 0%.

Lo and behold, Fage, which all other brands are attempting to emulate, is rightfully still the standard-bearer. My stream-of-consciousness tasting notes for Fage Total (blog exclusive!) read as follows: “smooth, thick you can almost taste it frozen, icy; YUM. Melt in your mouth, richness, tang a final note. Vague guilty pleasure feeling of eating sour cream out of the container, but thicker! Better!”

The complete findings, along with a short interview with a local nutritionist and a pair of recipes, are out tomorrow in amNewYork: “Explore Another ‘Culture’: Go Greek.”

One Mixtape at a Time …

I’ve been off the radar for many reasons, some better than others. One recent fruit of my labor is a profile of International Mixtape Project. If you’ve never heard of it, puh-lease click on that link. The short story is that once a month you receive a mixtape (mix CD) in the mail from wherever, and once a month you have to send a mixtape (mix CD) of your own making winging its way through the U.S. Postal Service. Best case scenario, music that will change your life. Worst case scenario, great mail. My profile of the project (disclosure: I am a member) is for a new online magazine called The New Agenda. To check out my story, download the “whole issue” and I’m on pages 7-9. Or grab the PDF here: 0908_newagenda_impprofile.

the best thing i’ve ever written. so far.

The Institute For Figuring Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef, with urchins by Christine Wertheim and sea slug by Marianne Midelburg. Photo © The Institute For Figuring (by Alyssa Gorelick)

 

A simple question, the pulling at a loose string, plus the faith of one excellent editor, has resulted in One Live Stitch, a globetrotting piece out this month in the Brooklyn Rail that explores the evolution of crochet — or, more precisely, how such scientific and mathematic principles as evolution, taxonomy and hyperbolic geometry have recently inspired crochet works. Do you see the photos adjacent?

a thread starfish in the field. Photo © Anita Bruce.

This stuff is amazing.Read the story via the link above or grab the PDF here: 0908_bkrail_onelivestitch.

Judith Supine

okay it’s not that I haven’t been busy. Here’s a link to my profile of Judith Supine, the NYC-based street artist whose universe I want to live in: Judith Supine, Brooklyn Rail (December 2007/January 2008).
By the by, this image is courtesy of Supine’s flickr site.

my 50K love affair (it’s a piece of art, people)

So the man burned early under a bright (red) eclipsed moon. Dust storms and barreling winds couldn’t keep the double rainbows away. I was in awe, and inspired, by the Burning Man community this year. And, in particular, with one Brooklyite’s (+ team) amazing-fantastic sculpture, about which I will continue to harp about to anyone who will listen: “If I do not see that thing permanently installed in its own atrium in a modern art museum in 20, 40 years, then there is something wrong with our curatorial system, and how we determine what is art.” This gorgeous, shining, hulk of a piece is called Big Rig Jig, and it is one of the finest modern sculptural works I have ever seen — period. I interviewed Mike Ross, and SF Weekly loved it so much they picked it up for their art blog: Burning Man’s ‘Big Rig Jig’ Artist Nails It on 1st Try — A Q&A.
And by the way, this 360/vertical panorama plus from the Las Vegas Sun is absolutely worth playing around with. Do the hokey pokey and turn yourself about — glance up, see an enormous couplea trucks — that’s what it’s all about. Ding!