Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

it's really not all that hard...i used to drink the stuff like...well, like it was water. about six months ago, though, i got on a diet that forbid any form of the stuff(diet or otherwise), and i more or less immediately lost like ten pounds...ever since then, i haven't kept it in my house...water, juice, coffee, beer, wine...there's enough alternatives that i really have no need of the stuff. Every so often i'll have a soda at work--but we have these really tasty Blue Sky organic sodas, and i bust my ass at work, so i feel like it's OK then.

About 4 times a year I might have some diet pop, but it always tastes very chemical-y to me. Otherwise, I don't drink soda. I make my own with seltzer and fruit juice. Yum!

I love soda of all kinds and love carbonation! I used to drink 3-4 a day, diet Mountain Dew Red was a favorite. Also love coffee and caffeine.

Now that I'm an old lady with osteoporosis (and I'm NOT blaming soda for that, the evidence is still far from conclusive), my doc suggested cutting out sodas, especially the ones with phosphoric acid. Again, nothing's been proven but as she said, what could it hurt? I like the carbonation as much as the taste, so switching to fizzy mineral water was easy. More expensive, but easy enough.

A couple of months ago lorelei76 posted about her new SodaStream, and I bought one immediately. It's great! Small footprint, no cords, super simple to operate! Now I can make any flavor of soda I want. The SodaStream flavors aren't very good, but it's easy enough to find something you like at the store or just use pieces of fruit in it, or even cucumbers. (Thanks for the great suggestion, lorelei76!!)

Anyway, everything in moderation. I also love red wine, but if I drink a bottle every day, well, it's not going to be good. I hate to see perfectly good foods vilified because a segment of the population overindulges in it. As many have pointed out, foods that used to be considered treats are now daily fare.

Does anyone here remember way back when drinking a soda in the morning was considered a very strange thing to do? Now it's as normal as coffee. I can't say that I haven't done it - diet Mountain Dew Red, remember?

I don't drink soda unless I'm mixing it with booze. During the week I only drink water or iced tea with no sugar. That's pretty much the only thing I drink other than beer on the weekends. It's not often I drink alcohol, but when I do, it's normally rum and coke, Jameson and coke, vodka and whatever is available.

I will admit that once on a while I'll have a Coke as a treat.

Hi my name is Pavlov.......... and I drink soda.

Sounds like I should be gathering with other soda drinkers in an undisclosed location and wondering, just how hungry are the lions at the coliseum?

I love the "In my house we have been off soda now for a couple of years, and now we are more popular and our kids are smarter" comments... To them I say this... GET OFF YOUR HIGH HORSES PEOPLE. As with everything in life, moderation is the key. Sure I'm not as handsome as some, but I would bet that had more to do with genetics than with the ocassional can of moxie.

If on the other hand you are one of those folks drinking a 108 oz. belt buster fountain soda every 10 minutes... good luck with the diabetes, and don't forget a side of fries with that.

I used to be addicted to Pepsi but haven't had one in awhile. We got rid of soda in our house a few years back. My husband began to drink seltzer and that is all he drinks at home except for iced coffee.

I do have one once in awhile - mainly Jones Soda and also Diet Coke with Lime (only 1-12 pack lasts me a really long time and I buy one about 2x a year). Otherwise I drink Crystal Light - most of the flavors mixed with water OR I make all kinds of different iced teas for myself. Also during the summer I buy a 12 pack of Cheerwine, a cherry soda that is only sold in North Carolina - when we are there I buy a 12 pack to bring home. I drink one can a week until it is all gone. That is treat for me though.

@mdashkin--
i 2nd'ed your comments above--alcohol definitely needs a soda friend sometimes.

I first wrote about Cassell's in the L.A. Times Sunday Magazine, West, callling it "best in city." I wrote two more pieces, one in Oui, still posted on the wall, and in Rolling Stone (of all places). I spent a lot of time with Al Cassell, and know a thing or two about the history of the place. He started it after WW2 on Wilshire, across from the wonderful building then known as Bullock's Wilshire (now home to Southwestern Law School). When the landlord made it impossible for him to stay, he moved to the SE corner of 6th and Berendo. It was as bare-bones an operation as it is today in terms of decor: Al said that after his experience with that landlord, he would never invest in furnishings: all he prized was his double broiler (and his food). It was then known as Cassell's Patio, because Al made a deal with the apartment building next door to set up tables on a little patio on the apartment building's south side.

About 20 years ago, a family of butchers made Al (who was pretty tired of arriving at 5:30 to trim and grind the meat, make the mayo, etc.) what sounded like a great offer: they'd maintain standards, and expand, and he would share in profits from the new locations. Well, they started serving fries. (When I asked Al why he didn't, he said, "It isn't my picture." He saw himself as a painter.) Worse, they didn't cut him in on any revenue from the other locations (I remember one on Wilshire, in the mini-mall at Crescent Heights). Al got the place back...and sold to Koreans. They kept the standards pretty well at first...but expanded the menu to turkey burgers and veggie burgers.

There was a slide, I think, but at my most recent (albeit infrequent) visit, younger Koreans were at the register, and the quality was clearly back.

About what Al did and didn't make. Yes, mayo (!), yes lemonade (from Grade A lemons, he pointed out), yes potato salad (putting in a liberal dose of Colman's English mustard powder), yes a ketchup relish (but not ketchup itself -- that was Heinz), and yes, Roquefort salad dressing (using real Roquefort cheese).

If the "best days" seem behind Cassell's, in part that's a demographic issue: way back when, the mid-Wilshire area was filled at lunchtime with middle-class shoppers and office workers.

Is Cassell's burger the "best in the world"? Now that upscale luxe restaurants are serving up Kobe beef burgers, I guess not, although I believe that for a "commercial" burger, Cassell's is still in the money in any best burger race.

@grumpyglutton - I completely understand. To sell out your own cause for some ahem... subsidized dollars is unfortunate but not shocking. Such is the history of mankind I'm afraid.

@Mhila - I totally understand that too - there are NONE, not ONE CSA in this area. Even if you wanted to join - tough. There is an organic delivery service though, which is a step in the right direction.

@CJ McD - fight the good fight! To shoot the messenger for the message is to be willfully ignorant.

"Cost is a real issue for most people. It really should be taken seriously. If not, then the effort -- whether in respect to food or homes -- is going to be a boutique industry, irrelevant to most people for the simple reason that they can't afford it."

Yes. Cost is a real issue.

And as with any new process/product/movement, at the "beginning" of it (where we are now even though she's been promoting it for over 25 years and it until recently, has not been embraced and still meets with resistance) there are always and only a select few who can afford it; be it indoor plumbing, televisions or organic, fresh food.

But to label HER elitist because we are at the beginnings of a movement that CURRENTLY everyone cannot afford it sligtly myopic at best.

I had the pleasure of being introduced to Alice Waters when she ate in the restaurant I was working. She was very warm and appreciative of the food and menu. I enjoyed her biography and feel the need to point out that Chez Pannisse is not a corporation focused on the bottom line and making profits. As it was represented in the book, the larger focus of the restaurant is to provide good jobs, insurance for employees, and funding to programs the shareholders believe in. This is Utopian, but that is a good thing.

"If her restaurant is an expression of her ideals, then those ideals... will be seen by few people, for the simple fact that few people can afford to eat there.
To me that seems odd (but maybe that's just me)...
I mean, there are many restaurants that charge more than the majority of people can afford to pay for a meal ... you might think it would be different for a restaurant espousing her ideals, but clearly it's not.
I don't know if anyone else finds that to be surprising, but I do."
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I would find it suprising too, if it were all she does. But it's not.

From the ChezPanisse website:

"...she created the Chez Panisse Foundation to help underwrite cultural and educational programs such as the one at the Edible Schoolyard that demonstrate the transformative power of growing, cooking, and sharing food.
Among Alice's many board affiliations, she is the Founder and Director of the Chez Panisse Foundation, an International Governor of Slow Food, a Visiting Dean at the French Culinary Institute, an Honorary Trustee of the American Center for Food, Wine and the Arts in Napa, and Board Member of the San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmers Market.

Alice is author and co-author of eight books, including Chez Panisse Vegetables, Chez Panisse Cafe Cookbook, Fanny at Chez Panisse, a storybook and cookbook for children, and most recently, the encyclopedic Chez Panisse Fruit. Chez Panisse restaurant was named Best Restaurant in America by Gourmet magazine in 2001. Alice has received numerous awards, including the Bon Appetit magazine's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000 and the James Beard Humanitarian Award in 1997...."

As with any movement, you don't just talk about it, magically wave a wand and *poof*, it's done. I think you are either missing the message or think she has hurculean abilities.

She is a voice, a leader of a movement. It's up to the rest of "us", the people, the buyer's market to make it happen by our choices, actions and purchases.