Mornings and Fridays

I don't have much interest in the middle spectrum of life. The nature of the soul interests me and so does what's for breakfast. Everything else is a distraction.

Not meaning to beat the dead horse, but I've mentioned before that we were really spoiled for food in the Adirondacks, so finding suitable substitutes for our provender has been paramount. Dogwood Bakery provided me with coffee and granola every morning, as well as pizza every Friday. We found a replacement for the pizza at Sitara India, where we now order our Friday treat (the Adirondacks does not spoil one with a surfeit of ethnic cuisine...)

Sitara is very affordable and very delicious. The staff is friendly and the take-out service takes awhile. Give yourself 45 minutes. Sometimes, they say 25 or 35 minutes. Call ahead. Give yourself 45 minutes. No matter what, it's worth it. For about twenty bucks, you can feed two adults dinner and lunch the next day.

The other thing I've been trying to track down is my morning bowl of granola. Mass-produced granola invariably has two problems - it tastes funny and it costs too much. It's often very sweet, flavored like fake vanilla, it comes in crusty conglomerates of semi-chewed oats and rice puffs and tastes pumpkin-y or contains any of a number of weird combination of blobs and spices. Granola is what I eat most of the time because I don't feel like cooking oatmeal. When I cook oatmeal it contains: oats, raisins, salt, water. I like my granola about the same - though with less water and maybe some nuts and seeds.

I found a couple of decent bulk-bin granolas around Ogden in one place or another - notably, Smith's has a microscopic-but-satisfying selection of bulk granola.

But last night, shopping at Macey's (because the power had gone out at the Smith's) I found this:

It was on the top shelf in the cereal aisle about 1/3 of the way down on the right if you're facing the front of Macey's. It was 8.99 for three pounds. Clinton's Fruit and Nut Granola contains "Rolled oats, Yellow D Brown Sugar, Soy Bean Oil, Raisins, Cashews, Wheat Bran, Wheat Germ, Unsweetened Coconut, Sesame Seeds, Sea Salt, Vanilla."

It's made down the road from here in Bountiful, UT, and it hits the spot. Get you some.

Grocery Champs

Smith's it is! For general grocery-ness, plus stocking bison and nitrite-free bacon, Smith's wins the where-I-go-shopping-mostly prize. I've never been to a town that has such a wide range of regional and home-grown grocery stores - it's never really mattered much - but Ogden sports an especially healthy grocery ecology (with minor demerits for hard-to-find hippie food).

If you want an amazing bulk-bin experience, shop the Winco: it sports bulk quinoa in multiple colors! If you need 14 pounds of generic chocolate chips, malt flour, or a sock-full of pancake mix, Winco is the spot. Macey's does well in the family grocery category - especially for price, but they're closed on Sunday. I usually have no idea whether I will shop Saturday or Sunday for the week, so Macey's takes a hit from Heisenberg.

I recently learned of a sheep dairy in the area that also sends lambs to a butcher shop in Morgan. After I replace the timing belt in the suburban assault vehicle, I'll check that out.

Panorama of the Ogden Botanical Gardens

A 360-degree panorama taken at Ogden Botanical Garden. Tried to cut out the jogger, which interrupts the flow. We were all deeply embarrassed.

Sorting it out: Garbage and Recycling

Apparently, I live in South Ogden City. What its purpose is, I have no idea. My address says "Ogden." South Ogden City is like a notch cut into the bottom of Ogden, and Ogden surrounds it on three sides.

I've been trying to grasp the baroque minutiae of getting rid of my trash, etc. I have three of those flap-lid curbside containers in my driveway. I rent, and I think my landlord foots the bill for the trash. There is a blue container, a green one, and a brown one. The blue one is apparently for recycling, the green one (confusingly) for trash, and the brown one seems to be for yard waste and/or compost.

Here is a link to what Ogden (not South Ogden City) offers by way of explaining the system:

General info:

http://www.ogdencity.com/en/community/public_services/garbage_recycling_services.aspx

Detailed recycling info (note the playful Comic Sans font): 

http://www.ogdencity.com/en/sitecore/content/Global/Content/DocumentLinks/Community/GarbageRecycling/RecyclingDosandDonts.aspx

Neither of those mentions that, in my neighborhood, Monday seems to be trash day. I learned that by watching the neighbors. Another hitch: the blue bin indicates that the lid should open toward the curb, but the other two bins indicate that the lid should face the street. I put all the bins facing the street. Everyone else seems to as well.

Recycling is only picked up every other week. Here is a link to that schedule: 

http://www0.wm.com/documents/colorado/recyclecalendar2012_utah_openmarket.pdf

My best interpretation of the chart is that, if you have an even-numbered address, you use the green weeks to recycle, and if you are odd, you use the yellow weeks. I put my recycling out for the first time last week, and it wasn't picked up. Wrong week.

Having operated a relatively-well-ventilated tumbler composter for several years and fighting to keep it from getting slimy and stinky, I can't imagine what would happen if you actually put food waste into the 100 gallon brown container for awhile...there's no way to oxygenate it. Unless you make an effort to mix in yard waste and grass clippings regularly, that brown bin will become unbelievably gross. I shudder to imagine. Composting is easy to set up. If you're inclined, do that instead.

My recommendation for Ogden, South Ogden City, and Waste Management is the following:

Centralize you information. Residents need a one-stop website that explains EVERYTHING. The information above comes from multiple locations on two different sites and leaves out a lot. South Ogden City is nearly mum on the subject. None of the sites explains that both Ogden and South Ogden City have Waste Management handling the trash in basically an identical way. I have no information on when the brown bin is emptied. One more reason to be afraid...

The garbage can should be gray. Garbage has a grayness about it. It's inert material headed for the dustbin of history. Black would also work. Brown works well for yard waste. Good call. All the bins should be labelled to face the same way at the curb.

This is very colorful:

http://www0.wm.com/documents/colorado/colorado_utah_service_calendar_2012.pdf

...but what does it mean?!

If I learn any more about disposing of waste in Ogden, Utah, dear reader, you'll be the first to know! If you have any information, please, please, add it to the comments.