Friday, September 12, 2008

Articles of Note from the pages of Apres-Transatlantic jetting insomnia

  • The New York Times has a piece on pre-fab sheds & we all know Miss Whistle loves her shed.
  • J thinks this is the scariest story out there, the one the politicians aren't talking about, the one that could lead us to a Great Depression. (Lehman Bros, NYT)
  • This is a lovely story about the new intimacy that Facebook and Twitter brings. Chris Willman brought my attention to it (on FB of course) and excerpted this quote:
    "This is the paradox of ambient awareness. Each little update — each individual bit of social information — is insignificant on its own, even supremely mundane. But taken together, over time, the little snippets coalesce into a surprisingly sophisticated portrait of your friends’ and family members’ lives, like thousands of dots making a pointillist painting. This was never before possible, because in the real world, no friend would bother to call you up and detail the sandwiches she was eating. The ambient information becomes like 'a type of E.S.P.,' as Haley described it to me, an invisible dimension floating over everyday life." (NYT)
  • And of course, every so often, Uncle Carlos knows how to make a splash, this time with his purchase of 11% of the NYT. (The Independent)
  • How to make homemade mozarella using raw milk, of course, which will no doubt irritate our friends at Haphazard Gourmet central. (The Times)
  • The finalists in a competition to find England's finest parsonages, including The Old Rectory in Farnborough, a former house of poet Sir John Betjeman. (Country Life)
  • A review of the Francis Bacon retrospective at the Tate Britain (Telegraph) and from the Wall Street Journal.
  • The shortlist for the Booker Prize does not include Salman Rushdie, which will come as a blow to my friend June, his biggest fan. (FT)
  • The Pope visits Paris. Even though we saw the preparations, I am sorry we didn't stay long enough to witness this (Le Monde) and here in English (BBC)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Vis The Cheese: Raw milk per se isn't bad, dairy practices are. Unfortunately cows in 2008 around the globe are rawther infested with intestinal bacteria that will kill humans, and you're risking your health if you drink milk from the ass of a cow you have no personal relationship with. Why are cows filled with bacteria--Global warming? Superbugs traveling rapidly? Grain feeding? No one knows for certain. If one ingests the wrong pathogen from unpasteurized milk, one gets sick, end of story. If you're a child ingesting this, you might die. An adult might not get kidney failure; more likely the hurls & squirts. That being said, making cheese is a series of chemical reactions. Raw milk is suggested for this recipe because it is reactive in a way that pasteurized milk (which has been heated)is not. But then the recipe instructs various heating steps; by the end you've pasteurized the cheese. I'd eat it! But I'd like to meet the cow, too. Great reading list, btw. Francis Bacon is my fave artist named after food. xxx Miss H