How the Watermelon Became a Symbol of Palestinian Solidarity | San Francisco could get 90% of its homeless off the streets with the country’s fiercest housing speculation tax, but landlords are already fighting it tooth and nail | Here’s How Much Chris Christie Is Worth | It’s Time to Admit That Iceberg Is a Superior Lettuce

View online | Unsubscribe (one-click). For inquiries/unsubscribe issues, Contact Us

� � � � � � How the Watermelon Became a Symbol of Palestinian Solidarity - TIME    The mighty watermelon—whether held in hand, depicted in art, or posted online as an emoji—is a powerful symbol for Palestinians. The fruit has once again cropped up on countless social media posts, in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war begun by a surprise Hamas attack that left 1,400 people dead in Israel. At least 3,785 people have died in Gaza since Israel began launching airstrikes ahead of an expected ground offensive. But how did this refreshing fruit emerge as a stealthy symbol for Palestinian solidarity? Here's what you need to know.   Continued here � � � � � � Don't like ads? Go ad-free with TradeBriefs Premium San Francisco could get 90% of its homeless off the streets with the country's fiercest housing speculation tax, but landlords are already fighting it tooth and nail - Fortune    Most cities have homeless problems and lots of vacant housing units, but everything is magnified in San Francisco. Last year, there were 7,700 people living in shelters or on the street in the city by the bay, according to city figures. Meanwhile, there were more than 60,000 vacant units at the end of 2021, according to a policy analysis from last fall, although that figure included newly built apartments and those awaiting sale. Enter the vacant home tax. This week, San Francisco formalized a voter-approved law, also known as Proposition M, to crack down on owners of multifamily units that let them sit vacant. The law, which goes into effect in January, could push as many as 7,000 units on the market, according to city estimates—that would be literally 90% of the city’s homeless getting housed, based on the above data. Problem solved? This could be a big deal for a city of less than a million that has become the face of modern fears of a 1970s-style “doom loop” given its endemic homelessness, ever-present cost-of-living crisis, and famously dysfunctional housing market. But real-estate interests are already fighting the law in state court, claiming their right to not rent their property is enshrined in the Constitution.  Continued here � � � � � � Here's How Much Chris Christie Is Worth - Forbes    Already a millionaire when he last left office, Chris Christie is one of the wealthiest people running for president this year. Plenty of politicians make big money after leaving office: Just ask Nikki Haley, Mike Pence or Joe Biden, who all tapped into tried-and-true moneymaking methods for political figures — writing books, giving speeches, doing consulting or sitting on boards. But of all the people running for president today, nobody has played the game better than Chris Christie. The former New Jersey governor and his wife, Mary Pat, reported $1 million to $2 million in assets when Christie left office in 2018, plus a $1.3 million house in Morris County, New Jersey. Today, the couple is worth $15 million, according to Forbes' estimates, meaning their net worth has roughly quadrupled. The Christies now have two homes in the Garden State, worth roughly $6 million total, plus a sizable portfolio of investments, a large pension from Christie's law firm and two smaller ones from his time in government. How'd they build such a big fortune in such a short period of time? By doing what Haley, Pence and Biden did, but on a bigger scale. Christie, a lifelong public servant who was among the poorest 2015 presidential hopefuls, is now one of the richest people vying for the Oval Office in 2024. Continued here � � � � � � It's Time to Admit That Iceberg Is a Superior Lettuce - The New Yorker    One of a variety of cabbage-like lettuces called crisphead, iceberg is distinguished by thick interior leaves that are forced, as they grow, into fractal labyrinths, which fold over and back on themselves until they are a self-supporting mass. It was developed by W. Atlee Burpee & Company in the late eighteen-hundreds, and for the next three quarters of a century was the undisputed queen of American salad greens. (The common story of its name—that it refers to the beds of ice in which the lettuce was shipped in the twenties and thirties—is pure American horseshit, a myth likely originating with Bruce Church, a Depression-era farmer and formidable salesman who founded what is now Fresh Express, one of the country’s largest lettuce distributors.) Despite falling out of favor beginning in the nineteen-seventies, as other alternatives were successfully marketed as both more nutritional and less banal, it has remained America’s most-consumed lettuce, withstanding hearty challenges from arugula, mesclun mix, and—most formidably—romaine and kale, which have largely supplanted it as the greens of choice for homemade salads. (Even if romaine, the Caesar standby, has been felled this year by an outbreak of E. coli.) Iceberg’s structural rigidity means that its crunch can be preserved under even the most extreme conditions, such as beneath a spackle of guacamole inside a taco shell, or within the steamy, ketchupy confines of a hamburger bun. A wedge is a brash used-car salesman of a salad, a primal dish—a rare thing for a plate of raw greens to be. I’ll order one at any opportunity, especially with a tart buttermilk dressing, crumbles of Maytag blue, chewy bacon lardons, and dice-size cubes of firm, ripe tomato (enough already with the fussy halved cherry tomatoes skidding around a slippery plate). But iceberg’s textural vigor and subtle flavor deserve broader applications. The lettuce can be sliced into dramatic circular coasters, lightly oiled, and grilled to a char; it can be chiffonaded into noodle-like ribbons and wilted in broth; it can be braised in butter, like endives or leeks, as the Japanese chef Shinsuke Nakatani has done at his namesake restaurant in Paris; it can be torn into bite-size pieces and stir-fried with scallions and garlic—a Cantonese classic often served for Chinese New Year. Lately, my favorite thing to do with iceberg is pickle it. Most of the greens we’re accustomed to eating raw are bred for softness and delicacy, which means that pickling can go horribly wrong; last year, at a beloved Brooklyn restaurant, I ordered a special of “pickled baby gems” that arrived looking, and tasting, like yesterday’s salad after a night in the fridge, a drab mess of wilt and slime and faded vinaigrette. There’s no such risk with the pale-green heart of an iceberg: that gloriously rigid geometry is made for a brine bath; as with cucumbers, onions, or pole beans, a day or two of pickling magically crisps things up even more, and adds a ravishingly salty bite. Use pickled iceberg anywhere you’d employ pickled onions or cucumbers: on sandwiches, burgers, hot dogs, and tacos, adding a bracing jolt of vinegar to a summer salad, or piled up alongside grilled meats. Continued here

�

�

�

� � �

You are receiving this mailer as a TradeBriefs subscriber. We fight fake/biased news through human curation & independent editorials. Your support of ads like these makes it possible. Alternatively, get TradeBriefs Premium (ad-free) for only $2/month If you still wish to unsubscribe, you can unsubscribe from all our emails here Our address is 309 Town Center 1, Andheri Kurla Road, Andheri East, Mumbai 400059 - 437932464