Recently spoke to a white person about regenerative farming, carbon and so on, and they had convinced themselves that local farming is a moot point because transport is a very small part of the carbon equation. While that is true, food is also heritage and culture — I guess one way to think about it is that "terroir" is not just about flavour, but about knowledge and idiosyncrasies that are passed down through the cultural acts around food — farming, eating, cooking... What this all means is that I dislike char siu made sous vide with iberico pork. 😂 #foodstr

No-one told me that being "in my mom era" as a Capricorn meant fighting against the injustices that arise because of maternity leave, or other childbirth-related issues, but here we are.

Bitcoin is the real "green finance".

Society to mothers: Parent like you don't have a job; Work like you don't have a kid. #momstr

Bill Gates already owns most of America's farmland. Now he wants to control the world's seed supply too. Stay vigilant. Shop small. Don't let the philanthrocapitalists win. #foodstr #farmstr

The char siu at The Chairman just gets better and better. The outside is so perfectly caramelised, it's actually crunchy. #foodstr #HongKong

Specialty #coffee fiends, especially if you're in #Vancouver, you need to know Moving Coffee. Some of the rarest beans out there and roasted by a consummate professional and true artisan. He's not a bitcoiner yet, but if enough of you go and chat with him, he might become one! #foodstr

#foodstr #hongkong - tarte tatin at The Baker and The Bottleman's upstairs bistro. Pastry offcuts from the bakery downstairs are used as the base. Love a #zerowaste dessert.

Geoduck congee at The Chairman, Hong Kong. Super smooth, not a grain in sight, unlike any other congee you've ever had before. This stuff is next level. (And if you've never had congee - it's rice porridge, simply rice boiled in copious amounts of water until it breaks down - considered comfort food to most Cantonese people). #foodstr

So apparently it's Mother's Day in some parts of the world (including Hong Kong) tomorrow. As a new mother, I couldn't give a sh*t. If you really want to show your appreciation for the mothers and mother figures in your life, do these things, and not just for one day a year: - support paid and government subsidised maternity and paternity leave of at least 14 weeks, including for self-employed people. - de-stigmatise motherhood in the workplace. That's everything from allowing breaks and spaces for pumping, to supporting flexible schedules, to not treating pregnant women like they're a ticking timebomb - be aware of, encourage, and campaign for support in different stages of motherhood, be it lactation consulting in the early days, to mental health, to childcare etc. - do not expect mothers to be able to "control" their children for your convenience/pleasure - improve baby changing rooms. My goodness I've been in some awful ones - stop giving mothers "suggestions" on how to raise their children, unless they're asking, and ESPECIALLY if they're a stranger you're passing by on the street! - do not call it "babysitting" when fathers are talking care of their OWN children - we don't need flowers, we need sleep, childcare etc. (see above), and people to hold the bloody door open when we're coming through with a pram Thanks for listening/reading. That'd be a nice gift too.

5am thought: Why do strangers think it's okay to talk to you when you're out in public with a dog or a baby? I'm here to say that it's not, and I sure as hell don't need your opinion on how to rear my animal/human, kthxbai.

Tried out Parisian chef David Toutain's new Hong Kong opening, Feuille. Mighty good, vegetable-led fare — so much research gone into local ingredients and foodways and an in-built nose to tail /root to shoots philosophy. I just hope the food stays this good after he goes back to Paris. #foodstr

Deep-fried eggplant monaka. Like ice cream monaka but piping hot and double the crunch. At the revamped Ronin, Hong Kong.

It's 5am in Hong Kong, which means it's time for a 5am thought. Been wanting to write this for a while: I see a lot of #foodstr notes (or just food-related notes) about seeking out health/healthy foods. Firstly, nutrition is actually one of the most inaccurate sciences there is. That's because of ethics around running double blind experiments on human subjects — you can't trap a bunch of humans in a room and feed them nothing but tallow for a year and see what happens. A lot of nutritional "facts" are from animal studies (but rats still don't react 100% like humans), observational studies that by definition can't demonstrate cause and effect, or just "educated" guesses that reflect certain biases, be it just time, culture, or vested interest of any particular institution. That the foundation of contemporary nutrition science is based on the idea of the calorie should tell you enough about how much to trust this "science". (In case you need a refresher: a calorie is the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water 1° Celsius — anyone in the right mind knows that our bodies are not an "electric kettle for food". Also, for institutional biases about food, look no further than the American Heart Association's recommendation to avoid red meat. Read Nina Teicholz's The Big Fat Surprise (or find her ep on Joe Rogan) for more exposés of nutritional FUD) So now that we've established that most nutritional knowledge is BS, the next question is, how do we know what's good (for our bodies) to eat? There are very few clear answers — after reading a ton of literature that says fats/carbs are good, another ton that say fats/carbs are bad, the only conclusion I can make is that oft-quoted phrase from Michael Pollan is the closest thing to clear, reliable nutritional advice I can find: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. By "food", he means real, whole, unprocessed food. Secondly, consider how the food is grown/raised. Crops grown in nutrient and microorganism-dense soil will be, in turn, nutrient dense. Crops from monoculture farms, or any farm reliant on synthetic input and synthetic "pest" control will naturally have less nutrients. Most contemporary farming now relies on synthetic input. That's why "organic" and now even "regenerative" farming, or ideas like permaculture have made a comeback, albeit in relatively niche circles compared to industrial foods. The side effect of the industrialisation of food is the release of excess carbon in the atmosphere ie. climate change. Yes, modern farming causes climate change. Soil is a living ecosystem (just think about all the worms and fungi that live in good, healthy soil that looks like chocolate cake) — it stores carbon. Soil that has a lot of synthetic inputs kill off the microorganisms and becomes dry dust (that's how dustbowls form) with no life, hence no carbon stores. So: healthy soil, healthy food, healthy earth. How have we ended up with so much industrial food that it's causing obesity rates to skyrocket and life expectancies to go down in first world countries like the US? It's simple: an economy/government that has allowed centralised players in the food industry. If there's any platform to talk about how centralisation = bad, it's Nostr, so I'm sure I don't need to explain much further. Which brings me to the why I, a person who's dedicated their entire adult life to food media, is on Nostr. So, fellow #foodstr plebs, this is why you need to find people who are growing/raising food right. The regenerative label is the new kid on the block but don't go by labels, ask questions, demand transparency. It's how we begin to dismantle the institution that is Big Food. Sovereignty in money, media and food — that's pura vida, folks. Pura f**king vida.

5am thoughts on #foodwriting: I'm ok for you to gatekeep Chinese food if your song list at karaoke is over 50% Chinese. #foodstr