Austin Shiner
Austin Shiner
Recent Stories
SHINER: Gay night in Singapore
"You know that Sunday night is gay night, right?"
Aquaculture 2.0
Earthworms are the future of seafood. Not yet, but they will be.
Shiner loves the veg
Vegetarians are not evil. There. I said it. Just last year I argued otherwise in the Yale Herald, dismissing vegetarianism as the childish product of poor self-control, faddism and cultural ignorance.
Carnal pleasures
This is a story about hand gestures and veal.
Fish smart, eat happy now
Beasts built of muscle and cunning, some weighing thousands of pounds, cleave the water. Huge nets, giant floating cages, enclose the animals in the open ocean. Fattened on mackerel and herring for years, the life of a farmed bluefin tuna seems cushy — until it’s flash frozen and shipped to Tokyo for auction.
Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea
I need a culinary babysitter. You do, too. We need to be guided, scorned for misbehavior, and most importantly, we need to be told what to eat.
The New Haven tea party
Lightness. Weightlessness. Every bowl, tea scoop and scroll is gravity-resistant, resting contentedly against elegant tatami mats, fine-grained wood planks and cream-colored walls.
See below for big cheese
I anthropomorphize my cheese. L’Explorateur, the French triple crème that, in the words of my father, is everything Saint Andre strives to be, is fittingly adventurous, bold and assertive, a dashing, daring, type-A personality overachiever with the acerbic bravado of the stereotyped Frenchmen who make it.
The Britshow continues
The only thing reminiscent of a “Circus” in Britney’s sixth studio album is her low, husky, almost lion-like growl. Unless your vision of a circus includes lascivious Britney strutting her “six-inch heels” and scanty “lace and leather” garb intoning: “all eyes on me / in the center of the ring.” In that case, this is Britney’s Barnum and Bailey’s. Bitch.