Category: culture

Whimiscal Beer, I Am In

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If hops are of the cannabis family, then we have to assume that beer used to be brewed with THC on a consistent basis for thousands of years.  That is not a shocking assumption to be made.  Like hops, pot is easy to grow, its kinda like a weed.

Contemporarily, home brewers experiment with this idea, but this is too small.  Dry hopping THC into beer does not need to be relegated to your closet fermentation.  It needs to storm the market, be a thing.  A trend packaged and all dolled up, pushed about the young and adventurous, to be popular and the largest party hit.  The people will love it.

Colorado, where are you on this project?  You better hurray up and dominate the market, else America’s high five is going to steal it from you.

Hop Ya Later

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Americans do not have the best taste, but they certainly have the best influence on worldly culture.

I am not sure how the west coast hop craze has overtaken the palate of the so called sophisticated beer aficionados, but the why does not matter.  What matters here is how this dominant influence of dry and dominating, one dimensional flavor has quickly and subtly changed the beers that I know and love.  Sounds like a terrible date, why would you want to put that description on your tongue.  You would never even give that guy a first chance.  <shivers>

They have gotten more hoppy.  All of them.  Craft beers, old standbys, well-know favorites, new creations. All of them.  All beer has changed in style like the latest fashion trend.  All of the good, well rounded, malty with a touch of hoppy, benevolent ESBs from the English country side, the hefty bastard from Scotland, has drifted towards the side of the west coast.  It’s not that my tongue has been burned by consumption of hops over the years, that is not how it works.  My tongue is not burned, honestly beer has become more bitter. It is leaning away from the malty goodness, out of partiality, and into the kingdom of the west.

Give me the balance.  Give me the complex.  Give me something that continues to grow as you sip beer after beer.  Like a lays potato chip, nobody has just one.  Let the flavors linger and get to know one another, let’s explore a whole palate of what the beerscape has to offer.

You have watered down the beer taste you assholes.  Stop ruining my life, you American hipsters.

Autumn’s Magical Tug

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There’s something about September, something special in those precious final moments that desperately cling to the lure of summer’s dream.  The last night-cap after an adventure filled night, the last bite of gooey dessert, one more tight hug goodbye, a stolen kiss in the moonlight, the smell of the sunset, that last glance over your shoulder as you leave the room sending sparks in your eyes.  It’s a sense of longing, but having just one more second to enjoy the sense of serenity. Of fulfillment. Of peace.

There is a magical something about that late September feeling.  That anticipation of change, yet the reluctance to let go of summer’s charm.

This change in balance is about losing the force of the summer sun but gaining the crisp of fall.  It’s like the cracking of the delicate crème brulee, biting into a crisp wafer, snapping open that perfect apple.  The last puff of summer’s flame is the satisfaction of breaking something perfectly layered,  like crushing the layers in a buttery croissant, biting into a nutty baklava, breaking open a flaky turnover, crumbling a cookie, breaking a brittle.

These last few days are that particularly perfect standstill in the tug between the changing seasons.  Only rarely do we have this troubled serenity, like that moment of twilight when the sun has subsided, but Mr. Moon is still missing.

Why Eating in America Sucks #5

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Recycling is a concept.  It does not actually exist. Yes there are those blue bins dotting down the alleys, but is the trash even sorted in this great large city?  I have my doubts.  Remember when you were supposed to put your recycling in a blue bag, tie it up, and throw it in with the rest of your trash?  Yeah, that happened.  That was the city’s solution to the recycling problem for years.  Yeah right like somebody actually sorted the trash and picked out those gross blue bags.  This is why I have my doubts that the new recycling program with those fancy blue bins are actually getting the job done.

Unfortunately the full and disturbing extent of the issue does not stop here.  With the alleys full of blue dots, at least we are pretending to care.  Not in food service.  Here, we don’t even pretend to try to recycle.  There is only one bin, and let me tell you it is black.

Not even cardboard boxes are recycled.  It is truly sick.

Even the places that say they do, it’s about a 50/50 shot.   Don’t be fooled, recycling is not happening.

Yes, this is part where you are supposed to get angry.

The Poor Man’s Slow Hustle #3

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I feel free again, already, knowing that my week will not be dominated by the demands of the man.

Relaxed, like I can breath.  That pressure bubble of time has lifted, and I can think about doing things for myself again.  I can continue to answer my endless list of questions, I can make long lists written in pencil and actually cross out completed missions.

Time can slow down again, and time can relax into a flexible scheme instead of a tightly run plan.

I am no longer fully dominated by work, saving that precious feeling of freedom solely for myself, locked in my own mind just to make sure that I give myself enough attention.

The Garden’s Song

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I am sorry, but I cannot hear you over the siren of the cicadas.  It’s like a beat getting funky in your head phones, the right side on, then the left.  Not at the same time, usually, both sides, but they respond to each other’s echo, playing a game with their percussion melody.  The loud siren fades out, only to come back stronger again.  The symphony of their song overtakes the neighborhood, leaving a dent of solitude when they lull into silence.

The magical Garden

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The banana peppers are hanging out like two chartreuse hammocks.  Lazily they sway in the wind, unaware of the battle cries of the cicadas raging on all around.

The collard greens are building a metropolis with their towering height and visual domination.  Collards always seemed so calm to me, but they certainly are focused on supremacy and upward mobility.

The kale is crazy with curls, filling in vacant spaces between the monstrous collard greens, mimicking a city block.

The squash vines are threating to lace over even the neighbors yard, to twine each living thing together like a raft lost on the oceans waves.

The ruby red gems of the tomato plants are quickly stolen by the garden robbers, with traces of their juicy insides strewn about the yard.  Red pieces of dead soldiers dot the green grass.

The herbs are like a buzz cut covering their wooden container beds.

Dichotomy at a Stop Sign

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I work in a very strange spot, where old industry meets new technology.  It’s at a crossroad that sounds more like a metaphor than a real spot, an unassuming corner that brings old school Chicago together with business for the new millennia.

You cannot even squeeze a tiny bicycle down Fulton Market street during the early morning to late afternoon.  The street is packed with tall men in long white coats, running to and fro, bringing stacks of brown boxes to idling trucks and muscular forklifts.  The street is littered with men and machines, anxiously filling orders and ready to scurry at a moments notice.  It is a public street, but there is no room for cars, pedestrians, let alone bikes.  Enter at your own risk, you will be the frog leaping, the chicken wondering if it can cross the road.

The meat-packing district of Chicago is an industry staple, and this intersection is where it was born.  This trade formed the identity of this Midwestern metropolis, molded it into the meat-centric, gastro-destination of the nation.

IMG_0145At the end of this meat-packing row, at the corner by a stop sign, sits a small restaurant, serving up Brazilian influenced and locally inspired food.  It’s quaint, it’s unpretentious, it strives to make good and simple food day in and day out.  It is innocently unaware of the power struggle raging on outside, blissfully happy in the crossfire between the old world and the new regime.

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After the stop sign, past the meat empire, sits the new google building.  This will be the hub for the technological overlord that will be the new master of Chicagoans, representing the new direction in industry.  These modern offices will shape Chicago in many ways that are just as meaningful as the meat-packing legacy, but oh so completely different. This is not the physical labor of men in uniforms, trucks almost running you over in their physical hurry.  Here, the work is conceptual, all the running around will be done with fingertips instead of fork lifts.

The restaurant is the twilight of these two worlds, and I am caught in the transition.

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The Poor Man’s Slow Hustle #2

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The red line speeds its way through the tunnel, creating a machine roar that echoes through the bustling city.  The train’s loud cries are a part of daily life, it is the sound of progress, of facilitating hard work, getting it done as that saying once went (years ago when the red neck movement was hip)

The train is affordable, reliable, and sometimes very speedy.  Except of course, once the red line passes the Addison stop, all of this modern progress and hype is simply thrown out the window. Once it passes that last stop of dignity, the train simply gives up on life.  It moves slower then a grandma towards a sale at target.  The hustle in the step is so quickly forgotten, and the monetary unfortunate are left to the fumes that the train has left to unjet us home.  It moves so slow that it is just a little bit faster than walking.

The wealthy people who live further north of the select downtown and midtown stops, they take the purple line.  That train was invented for rich people.  The purple lines runs right next to all the stops north of addition, but will never ever stop at any of them.

In this slow desert of transport, I sit impatiently waiting for the most unambitious train to heave me home.

The Charming Train Car

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Third time is a charmed chance for a mundane train ride to work.  I hardly take the train with the option of riding Turnip, but I have been lucky enough to have experienced an acapella song from two young aspiring singers 3 times.  Of all the passing trains, of the long line of train cars strung together for the journey across town and back, of all the varying times in the late morning, these two musicians have chosen my ride 3 times now.

They introduced themselves, sing an oldie but goodie song, filling in the beat with snapping fingers and the thump of a tapping foot.  These two young men look nothing like the part they are singing.  They don’t dress the part, they don’t look like a typical musician, and they don’t demand anything.  They have a cd, 4 songs for $5.  They give a short spiel about themselves, and then sing a song.

Three times on the short green line train ride for the 3 quick stops, they have serenaded me, started my day out brilliantly, delighted me with their talent, their inspiration to sing in front of strangers, and to passively ask for money to in order to pursue their dreams.  They have a great song, I hope they keep on singing, and I hope they keep on finding me on my short green line journey to brighten my day with their muse.