Support Your Local Library

This blog goes out to my sister Marty, staunch advocate of libraries and a librarian herself.


We have rediscovered the library; I hope it's not too late. After years of needlessly buying books (shows you what too much disposable income can lead to), we've once again started to make real use of the local library.  While we've always had library cards, we've often neglected to use them in favor of needlessly buying more crap. And while I enjoy the comfort of a well-stocked bookshelf, I must say that such individual hoarding is selfish and unsustainable. 


We need to collectively rediscover this and other such community resources if we are to survive as a species. More co-ops, more collectives, more intentional communities, more sharing in general. Do we each need our own garden implements and tools? Can't we have one neighborhood car we share? And think of the potential pool of cheap labor if we made proper shared use of our local day cares and elementary schools.

One benefit of going to the library, in addition to the shared access to books, music, and video, is the chance to get a little exercise. This is the Renfrew Branch, about 1.2 clicks from our place (a ten minute walk for me).

The humble library card. I guess we can credit the success of consumerism for endangering our once vital library systems. Thank-you corporate world order.

When we moved, we gave away hundreds of books. While we're still saddled with a few, they're mostly reference and how-to books—resources we could share with our future intentional community members.

And why does one need one's own copy of Brave New World, especially when one is living in it?

Tea Eggs Yes, Tea Baggers No

This is your basic tea egg, nicely crenelated and ready for peeling and eating after three days soaking in the fridge. This recipe is easy and quite flexible, with many variations; it's hard to go wrong. 


This recipe is for eight to twelve eggs.


Ingredients:


8-12 eggs
1/2 to 1 cup soy sauce
a few star anise (5 or 6)
one or two sticks of cinnamon
4-6 bags of pu er tea. Regular black tea will also work.

Boil the eggs for five minutes or so.

Remove eggs to a cool bath. When cooled off, tap them with the back of a spoon. This will allow for the marbling of the eggs when steeped in the tea.

These are your basic steeping ingredients: star anise, cinnamon stick, pu er (erh) tea, and soy sauce.

Using the previously boiled water, add all the ingredients along with the cracked eggs. Bring to a simmer and steep for two hours.

When cool, put in a container in the fridge for three days.

When ready to eat, peel and enjoy the beautifully marbled tea egg and all it's anisey, pu er-y goodness.

The Sky's the Limit

Been away from the Loonies Blog as I've been busy. Yeah, that's right, busy. I've decided to dust off my Senator Sky Damon web site (this is the old not-ready-for-prime-time site). I purchased some server space, and hope to update the Senator on the new and fun things going on in the "land of the free."


In the mean time, and significant to the star anise at the left, I've been hankerin' for some tea eggs (not for tea baggers). I've also been dropping' my g's and ot'er letters as I've been re-readin' Steinbeck's magnificent Grapes of Wrath—relevant as hell in this corporate world of the .1 percent and the rest of us schlubs and proles.


Tune in tomorrow or Monday for the actual tea egg recipe.

I was in the Banana Grove Market the other day. It's this great little market stuffed with all you really need, with lots of reasonably-priced, local, and often as not organic produce.

Whilst shopping for some produce, I happened on a packet of star anise. This reminded me of the great tea eggs my friend Vicki Goldsmith used to make. I emailed Vicki and got her recipe and felt a sudden urge to drop everything, head to Chinatown, and assemble the ingredients.

Of course, the main ingredient is tea. So, my first stop was Ten Ren Tea and Ginseng Co.

In the West, the recipes generally call for black tea. Black tea isn't a favorite of the Chinese, however. I figured green tea would be too weak of flavor, and settled on pu er, which isn't really green and isn't really black, but it's a strong and distinctive flavor.

Another ingredient I needed was cinnamon stick. This wasn't called for in Vicki's recipe, but I thought it would be a good addition, and it's in many tea egg recipes. This little shop sells any sort of herb one might want, some medicinal, some fer cookin'.

This "little" bag of cinnamon (or 桂皮 gui pi) was only $2.98. I added the pen for perspective.

Next to Gibo Health Foods is the Gold Stone bakery.

They have the best Dan Ta (蛋塔 literally egg pagoda）or egg-custard tart I've ever had, anywhere, even Hong Kong.

Fortified with dan ta, I was able to make it home on my own power.