Tinypliny's Journal

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06/02/2011 14:41 #54403

Guercio and Sons, Buffalo, NY
Category: grocery

Now have a website!!! You know you want to click through:

They have most of their formerly mysterious wholesale catalogue online:

I know for a fact it's not for restaurants alone. You can get fresh cases of salads and chocolate or whatever you like from them if you can consume that much. I have, in the past, eaten their mesclun salads with every meal for a whole month till I finished the case. :-)

And they carry the whole range of Ecce Panis Artisan breads:

Now, if only they would take online orders and allow me to pay with credit, I don't have to trek all the way to Grant Street for my Guercio fix. :)

tinypliny - 06/03/11 10:16
Stress is eating away at my life... I think that is the secret reason for all my allergies because I don't think I have ever been allergic to a single thing all these decades I have been in various places and countries.

tinypliny - 06/03/11 10:07
I agree. I actually loved going to Guercio's before Pricerite came to town. Then I saw how much more time I saved that I could spend cooking or doing other things so my visits to Guercio's reduced drastically. It's really quite awesome to trek all the way back and forth and carry tasty stuff back when the weather is nice and you don't have pressing commitments but it's entirely different story when you are stressed out and treks seem like a waste of time. :/

paul - 06/03/11 01:31
Isn't treking somewhere to get something you want part of the whole experience? I mean I love shopping online but there is something exiting and tangible about a visit to a store you love.

06/01/2011 19:14 #54399

Pots and Pans: nth iteration
Category: eating in

I have been learning a lot about stainless steel cookware these past few days. The best guide to pots and pans on the whole internet is arguably this page:

Apparently, when you are buying stainless steel pots and pans, it better to get tri-ply construction for the entire pan (bottom as well as walls) instead of an encapsulated bottom alone. Food is more likely to burn or cook non-uniformly where the encapsulation ends.

According to most cooking pan guides I read through, a complete copper tri-ply with stainless steel is the best type of cooking pan construction but is quite impractical for people on a budget. It is almost like buying a pan made fully out of one of the "precious" metals. The next best thing is aluminium tri-ply construction.

Riveted handles are better. So are pots and pans made of 18/10 (Chromium/Nickel) stainless steel.

Looks like

satisfies pretty much all of those criteria... and doesn't break the budget.

tinypliny - 06/01/11 19:47
Oh man, there is always a catch! Back in the day they cooked in stone pots over the fire and their food turned out delicious. Maybe I can get one of those rocks from the Niagara Gorge and have people who are frustrated whack sundry stuff over it till it gets to a shape of a pot? I can then just attach a crowbar as a handle and et voilÃ ! $450 fry pan!

libertad - 06/01/11 19:39
I wouldn't get it cause of the handle, otherwise it looks pretty good. It looks so awkward to handle because it has no grip, I confirmed it after reading this review:

"This is a good quality pan and is heavy and sturdy. My only complaint is that the silicone sleeve isn't long enough over the handle. My hand has to hold the metal part also, to balance the heavy pan, and it is not comfortable at all. The handle is very thin and rough to the touch. Otherwise, the pan cooks food very quickly and cleans up well."

It might be worth spending some extra money if you can find something similar with a handle of more substance.

06/01/2011 16:43 #54397

e:matthew, did you see this?
Category: the odes

You would like "Young Victoria" very much. :-)

I agree with all the praise heaped on that poster. And I love that royal purple. An awesome colour, in general.

tinypliny - 06/07/11 16:10
Did you ever see North & South (e:matthew)? It is another of my favourites. Fantastic adaptation of Gaskell's novella.

tinypliny - 06/06/11 14:46
This is rather new, yes. Around 2009. but I LOVED the music and the cinematography. It was quite and utterly gorgeous, just as the poster says.

matthew - 06/06/11 13:36
I think I saw this. I've seen so many period dramas that they all blur together. Lol. This is a rather new one, right?

06/01/2011 11:35 #54395

Stretching Everyday
Category: dance

I now think stretching is the key to being fit. Every element of ballet and yoga that make me feel awesome about myself involve stretching in some form. I think this post summarizes the value of stretching:

Also has this nifty basic stretches diagram:

What if you used every small timespan of just twiddling your thumbs to stretch a muscle instead? How many stretches could you accumulate in a day? How much fitness would you gain? What if you stretched whenever you remembered to throughout the week, throughout the month, pretty much whenever it was feasible? Would it make a difference to your body?

I am going to find out!! Mid-year resolution #1!

libertad - 06/02/11 06:49
She is a trainer that specializes in motivational interviewing, she is doing the stretching as a side thing.

heidi - 06/01/11 22:29
Unlimited summer yoga passes now to Aug. 31 $70!!! :::link::: I already got mine. I am committing myself to one yoga class each week during bar review. Wednesdays are most likely but there's one Tuesday nights that looks like it might be an okay alternative.

tinypliny - 06/01/11 20:04
They have a PhD for physical trainers? Why am I not doing such a cool PhD programme?!

libertad - 06/01/11 19:52
It was just me and someone else from my office with the PHD trainer they hired, it really did seem helpful to do that this morning. We did it in the short period of time when we get there and when the phone lines open. She is hoping to do this twice a week with a couple people each time.

tinypliny - 06/01/11 18:52
Unfortunately, no :( I have too much on my mind... I don't think I can afford the 1.5 hour today. I am promising myself that I will go regularly from next week till the end of summer...

paul - 06/01/11 18:36
Speaking of stretching - are you going tonight?

tinypliny - 06/01/11 17:40
That is funny, (e:libertad)! Was it for your office alone or for the whole institute?

tinypliny - 06/01/11 17:40
Well.. stretching is exercise. The best form there is! :)

metalpeter - 06/01/11 17:37
A couple of those stretches look a lot like a couple exercises....

libertad - 06/01/11 14:40
That's funny you wrote this today. Today at the start of my work day we went outside and did stretches and simple yoga poses. They are testing allowing us to do this a couple of times a week. We shall see how long that lasts. It was a really nice surprise this morning.

06/01/2011 11:20 #54394

Using e:strip to its potential...
Category: e:strip

If (e:strip) is not about stalking people from my 3rd grade or shouting in clipped sentences, then what is it about for me? I just came to a conclusion that I don't use it enough or rather, I have set some artificial limits for what I want to write here. I was telling (e:Paul) that (e:strip) is like the Fedora of online technology. Why not make it the Fedora of my thoughts and life as well?

I think writing for an audience tempers all of my posts here. What if I didn't write for an audience and wrote exclusively for myself? I am going to try that experiment starting today. I want to be able to write whatever I am thinking about, whenever I am thinking about it here and include links and references in context to those thoughts along with my posts.

(e:Paul) already publishes most of his life on his journal. I think that is the true meaning of (e:strip) - to be able to come online and just document what is going on in your conscious and subconscious mind and not really worry about why you are driven to put it online. The alternate meaning of (e:strip) is to be able to electronically strip the clouds, the salt scales and the tartar away from your core thoughts and just put them here for reference and sometimes, increased clarity.

Of course, I will not put work-related writing here... That is reserved for my citation manager. :)

tinypliny - 06/13/11 08:05
I have decided not to worry about the non-existent audience anymore. It makes me breathe easier and just write. But now that I have made that decision, my brain is on a massive freeze and I have nothing to write about except work, which, I don't write about here! What a thing! I am hoping things will get better when I resume dancing and yoga (both of which are at an indeterminate break right now to complete dissertation and other work).

uncutsaniflush - 06/13/11 00:52
I've been wrestling and rasslin' with the very same questions as you. And I've not come up with a workable solution for me.

I tried doing the "my personal I" especially about my employment at RGIS in another place :::link::: but that didn't work either.

I think I am always too concerned about my audience for my own good.

And I am too concerned about quality (even though I'm not exactly sure what that means) to be immediate and improvisatory.

Sometimes blogging feels like segfault because I'm addressing something that isn't there.

tinypliny - 06/01/11 17:35
Heh - yes, I tried the writing stream of consciousness title that (e:paul) suggested and totally could not hit the publish button because the post was so angst-ridden and totally uncool. When I say "everything", I guess I mean random everythings and boring everythings that I often forget if I don't record them... :)

metalpeter - 06/01/11 17:32
That Being said Don't forget though that unless it is in private mode there will or may be a reader , this is more in terms of what you are willing to have out on the net......