According to the Wall Street Journal, Chinese hot pot chain Hai Di Lao (pay wall) is planning to expand into the U.S. Owner Zhang Yong started Hai Di Lao in Sichuan in 1994 and opened his first international branch in Singapore last year. As someone who has recently spent over a month in Chengdu, Sichuan and ate the hot, mouth-numbing local specialty there more times than I can remember, I hope his particular brand of hot pot will find a niche in the U.S. I think they'll have to work on their menus and educate Westerners on how hot pot works if they're going to be successful. It is scheduled to open this September in the ritzy Los Angeles neighborhood of Arcadia.
I just ran a 5k charity race this morning wearing semi-generic cotton blend socks, and they didn't give me any trouble, but in case they did, the WSJ was kind enough to enlighten us on the booming high-end sock industry in the U.S. Apparently the "Thread Architects" and R&D shops at these companies are turning out socks that fit like a glove, resist "trail grime", and can withstand three weeks of wear without washing, and only run $25 a pair(!). The socks on my feet cost about $2.50, but I do need to wash them every time, so maybe it's worth it.
Luckily I didn't eat hot pot right before the run, or else my socks may have been the least of my worries.
Speaking of food... regarding Paleo Dieters, you know, the folks who have apparently confused personal health with evolutionary success as an excuse to eat nothing but steak, a semi-recent conference of archaeologists and other assorted smart people made some good clarifications on what humans can eat: "You want to know what the ideal human diet consists of? Everything. Humans can and will eat everything, and we are remarkably successful not in spite of this fact, but because of it. Our adaptability is the hallmark of the human species. We’re not called omnivores for nothing." Read this guy's post, it's good. Good like a bagel.
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