Useless Conversation

[Bunk]

I'm pretty sure I've never had lobster.

We aren't all made out of money you damn corporate fat cats!

You can actually get companies to send crates of live Atlantic Lobster directly to you by plane. My family's done it a couple times, all the way to the west coast. Then you just throw a party and charge $20 a pop to pay for it.

[schild]

I'm pretty sure I've never had lobster.

We aren't all made out of money you damn corporate fat cats!

This entire post explains why you are literally you.

[Signe]

When I was a kid we didn't have any lobsters and everything was miles and miles away and it was cold and snowy and uphill and no one had any shoes.

[Sky]

We wore lobsters for shoes.

[Ingmar]

I'm pretty sure I've never had lobster.

We aren't all made out of money you damn corporate fat cats!

You can actually get companies to send crates of live Atlantic Lobster directly to you by plane. My family's done it a couple times, all the way to the west coast. Then you just throw a party and charge $20 a pop to pay for it.

I don't know why people bother with this given dungeness crab is local and better.

[Samwise]

A few weeks ago I went out to the municipal pier and pulled crabs out of the bay (rock crabs, like dungeness but slightly smaller) and then brought them home and ate them.  All things considered I think it's well worth it to go to a grocery store and pay someone else to do all that work, but the fact that it's possible to live off the land (or ocean, whatever) that way in the middle of a major city by murdering your own food is pretty cool.

[Ingmar]

Cleaning crabs is definitely a pain in the ass yeah.

[Samwise]

I was actually surprised how easy it was to do the basic cooking and cleaning (removing the guts and gills so you're left with just meat and shell, i.e. half crabs like you'd get at a crab feed).  But turning that into something like crab salad is a ridiculous amount of work on top of having spent the whole afternoon stalking and capturing them.

[Nevermore]

When I was a kid, one summer in Rhode Island we dug up our own quahogs, steamed 'em up and ate 'em.  With butter.  Delicious and way easier than dealing with crabs.

[Signe]

When I was little my Aunt Rose would make spaghetti and crabs for my birthday every year.  Yum.  And Zuppa Inglese for dessert.  Yum Yum. 

I'm having overwhelming nostalgia now. 

[Yegolev]

I'm not sure how this happened, but I'm following Alan Crosby on Instagram.

[Signe]

Another foot of snow here.  And ice.  It started as rain, turned to freezing rain and sleet, then a ton of snow and more ice in the AM.  We also have a new thing named "frozen fog".  I was so excited I went outside to see.  I was expecting a frozen wall of fog that I would have to smash through but it was just air.  I was disappointed.   

You should see the giant-icicle fruit my nephew picked from his house-tree!

[Xanthippe]

A few weeks ago I went out to the municipal pier and pulled crabs out of the bay (rock crabs, like dungeness but slightly smaller) and then brought them home and ate them.  All things considered I think it's well worth it to go to a grocery store and pay someone else to do all that work, but the fact that it's possible to live off the land (or ocean, whatever) that way in the middle of a major city by murdering your own food is pretty cool.

Pretty easy to capture ducks and geese (although not quietly) at the city park, too.

I've always wondered why cities struggle with too many ducks and geese when the solution is so easy. Eat them.

[IainC]

My university had a program for foreign admittance that was specifically aimed at Chinese students. One year they had to send around a sternly worded notice that the ducks on the river running through the campus were not to be eaten.

[Nevermore]

It's a lot easier to boil up crabs and clams than it is to kill and butcher a duck or goose, though.

[RhyssaFireheart]

But if people had to do the work themselves, that would be showing/reminding them of where their food actually comes from, instead of just getting a package at the local grocery store.

[Paelos]

But if people had to do the work themselves, that would be showing/reminding them of where their food actually comes from, instead of just getting a package at the local grocery store.

I got an accounting degree so I wouldn't have to slaughter my own cow every time I wanted a steak. You know, because that's like how society works and shit.

I mean love cooking with local stuff as much as the next cook, but the farm to table hippy-dippy shit makes me roll my eyes sometimes. It's often used as an excuse to charge more when the reverse is true if you go straight to farmers. It costs you less.

[Maven]

I just fell for a viral attempt in my e-mail. Fake Belly e-mail came in offering free deals. I usually catch phishers based on the e-mail address, but GMail's app on Android doesn't show the e-mail by default.

Thankfully I don't THINK anything was stolen because it was on my cellphone?

[Trippy]

On Android? You are probably fucked.

[Signe]

If I had to kill my own food, I wouldn't even be able to eat bugs.  :(  I'm pathetic. 

[Sky]

It's often used as an excuse to charge more when the reverse is true if you go straight to farmers. It costs you less.

You're paying more to overcome the economy of scale megafarming has introduced. I gladly pay the local hippies extra to happily grow my awesome food and raise yummy animals. A happy medium you might look for is menonite/amish outlets. Good fresh food but a bit better economy of scale than small farming.

[Paelos]

It's often used as an excuse to charge more when the reverse is true if you go straight to farmers. It costs you less.

You're paying more to overcome the economy of scale megafarming has introduced. I gladly pay the local hippies extra to happily grow my awesome food and raise yummy animals. A happy medium you might look for is menonite/amish outlets. Good fresh food but a bit better economy of scale than small farming.

There's extra and then there's EXTRA. The restaurants I'm talking about also have a lot of the built-in food snob jackassery I can't stand. Example: Miller Union in Atlanta. http://www.millerunion.com/site/

I want to punch those people. They'll charge $28 for a pork chop, hopping john, and chow-chow. That's insane. That's fucking low country southern as it gets where people who were dirt poor made that kind of food. There's no amount of cooking or ingredient purchases that makes such a thing acceptable. But people with too much money will line up for "farm to table" sustainable plates. Ugh.

Just cook it yourself.

[Merusk]

Aaaand we're back to, "poor people food becomes expensive when it's hip."

[Signe]

I live right next door to Amish country and lots of non-Amish farms, too.  I always look forward to the produce stalls and farmer's markets opening up.  We have a fairly large farmers market right down the road.  My sister also pays for one of those farm things where you go once a week and pick out whatever is ready.  She gets fresh unpasturised milk and fresh eggs from there.  I try not to buy from Amish people, though.  I have a problem with them.  

I had to look up hopping john and chow chow.   Ham hocks or salted pork?  CHEAP MEAT!  Black-eyed peas, bean, veggies, cabbage, vinegar and common spices for pickling, nothing in that food is even remotely expensive.  I reckon you could get all the ingredients and make a big enough vat of hopping john and chow-chow to feed your family, neighbours and a gang of homeless people for about a tenner.

[tazelbain]

>I have a problem with them.
Signe picks fights with the Amish. Confirmed.

[Trippy]

It's often used as an excuse to charge more when the reverse is true if you go straight to farmers. It costs you less.

You're paying more to overcome the economy of scale megafarming has introduced. I gladly pay the local hippies extra to happily grow my awesome food and raise yummy animals. A happy medium you might look for is menonite/amish outlets. Good fresh food but a bit better economy of scale than small farming.

There's extra and then there's EXTRA. The restaurants I'm talking about also have a lot of the built-in food snob jackassery I can't stand. Example: Miller Union in Atlanta. http://www.millerunion.com/site/

I want to punch those people. They'll charge $28 for a pork chop, hopping john, and chow-chow. That's insane. That's fucking low country southern as it gets where people who were dirt poor made that kind of food. There's no amount of cooking or ingredient purchases that makes such a thing acceptable. But people with too much money will line up for "farm to table" sustainable plates. Ugh.

Just cook it yourself.

That pricing is pretty much the norm at all the hipster places here in SF so I'm not surprised especially if that place is located in an expensive part of Atlanta.

[Paelos]

It doesn't shock me. I still want to give them a sustainable source of knuckles

[Rendakor]

I just fell for a viral attempt in my e-mail. Fake Belly e-mail came in offering free deals. I usually catch phishers based on the e-mail address, but GMail's app on Android doesn't show the e-mail by default.

Thankfully I don't THINK anything was stolen because it was on my cellphone?

Your cell could potentially have all kinds of personal info on it; CC tied to Google Play Store for purchasing is probably your biggest concern. If you have one attached, I'd cancel that ASAP.

[Engels]

I'm now curious about why Signe has a problem with the Amish.

Also, we have a hipster 'southern cafe' here in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood (read Castro in SF) that does a biscuit, eggs and bacon sandwich for 9 bucks here. Granted, their biscuits -are- actually amazing, but ya, Americana food is so rarely decently made round these here parts that when it is it's overpriced.

[Signe]

People say Ah-Mish.  Don't.  Say A-Mish.  They hate that.  They hate when you stare at them and take pictures, too, so do that a lot.  I once pissed off a giant A-Mish man by staring at him and pointing and saying A-Mish really loud.  I was only 18 so I could still run fast just in case.  I used to drive to Lancaster at least once or twice a week to annoy them.  I don't like them at all.  Nothing about them is right.  They're all wrong.  And creepy, too.  I don't bother them anymore but they still bother me.

[WayAbvPar]

You'd probably think it bites living in an Amish paradise.

[Signe]

You'd probably think it bites living in an Amish paradise.

I love that.   

[Salamok]

$25 for 1 beef rib!  It's like the craft food hipsters are getting back at us for making fun of hipsters.  Damn them and their delicious meats, I want to hate them but I just can't!

[Khaldun]

The A-mish definitely do not like having pictures taken of them. I'm not sure I blame them entirely--it wouldn't be much fun having people looking at you all the time like you're doing a historical re-enactment for their benefit. Also they really do not want to interact with any of us non-Amish except to sell us farm stuff. Do not try to make small talk with any of them. The Mennonites are a bit more cheerful and outgoing, though.

What surprised me is how fucking boring the layout of their farms often is. I drive the backroads between Chester County and Lancaster sometimes looking for interesting rural set-ups for photographs and honestly most of the Amish farms are cookie-cutter in appearance. They do use donkeys and horses for a lot of stuff that is mechanized on other farms, but otherwise their farms look like small industrial dairy farms just like anywhere else. I don't think they would be good neighbors if you were a non-Amish farmer, in any event.

[Ironwood]

But Banshee teaches us that a lot of the daughters would be hot and Witness teaches us that the mothers may in fact be Kelly McGillis.

So, it's a tough one.