Sunday, July 26, 2009

Music Monday, Pteridophyta Edition

Reader, you may recall that internet radio station Pandora introduced me to Iron and Wine. Since loving Boy with a Coin, I bought the album The Shepherd's Dog and am now grooving on the lovely Resurrection Fern.

Though I couldn't dig up the band video on interwebs, here's the song paired with some enterprising You Tube user's photos:



On a weekend hike ran into a number of ferns, here's one for your nature lovin'pleasure:



On a completely unrelated note, I was torn after reading this article about the insane amounts of sodium in some of Denny's most popular offerings, subject of a new lawsuit in New Jersey. One on hand, don't we all know by now that most restaurant fare is packed with sodium and fat, let alone Denny's whose very specialty is cured breakfast meats? On the other hand, this is so beyond the pale, with some entrees having nearly four times the amount of sodium an adult should have in one day. But what next? Warning notices at the county fair? The deep fried Snickers you are about to eat is battered DEATH.

But labeling does work, at least, it works for me, if "work"= total buzz kill. Peet's recently started offering nutrition information and after studiously ignoring it for weeks I learned that my favorite breakfast treat, the Cream Currant Scone, has 480 calories. I conveniently blanked out the grams of fat. Needless to say, it's one thing to know theoretically that something probably isn't good for you and another thing entirely to see just how bad it is in black ad white. I haven't had once since. Too bad the fat-free oatmeal apricot hockey pucks don't look more appealing.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

DAMNit...the pumpkin ginger muffin that reads 'reduced fat' has sucked me in for MONTHS now, months i tell you...several mornings a week i enjoy its crumbly crunchy top...and now, because of you PC i know it to have 460 calories!! that's like 1/3 of my daily intake (give or take)...i mean i might as well be eating spoonfulls of ganache!

thanks for opening my eyes...yeah thanks a heap.

but the fern is nice.

Professional Critic said...

Spoonfulls of ganache! Mmmmm.

Sorry to burst your Peet's bubble. That is a damn good muffin. But as a harm reductionist I'm sure you can find way to keep the muffin in your life while mitigating its caloric heft.

Unknown said...

hmmmm that is true about being a harm reductionist and all...i guess since i often skip lunch the muffin could serve as breakfast and late morning snack...OR i could just eat it every other day...or chew it and then spit it out...but that seems wasteful and disorderly....i'll work on that and get back to you!