Archive for January, 2008

So my Aunt Molly called last night after the results were in — we follow politics together, and we’d had a long talk last weekend when I called to thank her for the box of funny lovely old family pieces she’d sent me for Christmas (several years ago, she got my grandmother to start...
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I’m dreaming of pigs these days — over the holidays, a friend and I got talking about starting a pig business. We’d see if we can get my butter-and-egg lady to raise them for us (she raises great pigs) and then we’d do charcuterie — prosciutto, guanciale, lard (leaf lard! from good pigs!), sausages...
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I haven’t figured out how to embed a YouTube video on my page yet (must go learn that) but check out this clip of Barack Obama’s victory speech in Iowa last night. It’s long, but it’s worth watching the whole thing. I think either Hillary or Edwards would be perfectly good presidents, and certainly...
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The New York Times ran a piece in it’s travel section over the holidays about Georges-Louis Leclerc, the Comte de Buffon. Buffon was, along with Linnaeus, one of the great early botanists and naturalists. Among other things, Buffon built the Jardins des Plantes — that enormous garden on the banks of the Seine. I’d...
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In the NY Times Magazine’s 2007 roundup, the food page did a tribute to Peg Bracken — and they ran the Braised-Chicken-and-Artichoke Casserole. This was one of the first party dishes I ever made — I was fifteen or sixteen and my mother was very fond of the I Hate to Cook CookBook. I...
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