The Language of Food

Picture by @docentjoyce
We drink a lot of tea in San Francisco—I guess you should expect no less for a city originally named Yerba Buena, after a local wild herb in the mint family (Satureja douglasii, shown to the right) used as an herbal tea.
One local tradition is yum cha, 'drink tea' in Cantonese, the Chinese name for a mid-morning spent lingering over pots of tea with friends or family. Yum cha is invariably accompanied by dim sum: steamed shrimp dumplings, Malaysian-style steamed spice...

The political season is well upon us and that means a lot of politicians talking about strugglin' and rollin' up our sleeves, especially when speaking to working class audiences. Since the pioneering work of sociolinguists like Bill Labov, linguists...

The San Francisco midsummer fog was late in coming this year, which means Janet and I got a fantastic view of the July 4th fireworks (legal and not-strictly-legal) from the top of Bernal Hill. Hot days are rare in San Francisco, so random strangers have...

It's a beautiful spring day here in San Francisco. The wild garlic is blooming, the top of Bernal Hill is covered in fennel, and everyone is celebrating spring. The stores are full of marshmallow peeps for Easter, Janet's family just swept her grandparents...