No Country for Old Typewriters – A Well-Used One Heads to Auction – NYTimes.com. Christie’s, which plans to auction the machine on Friday, estimated that it would fetch between $15,000 and $20,000. Mr. McCarthy wrote an authentication letter — typed on the Olivetti, of course — that states: “It has never been serviced or cleaned other than blowing out the dust with a service station hose. … I have typed on this typewriter every book I have written including three not published. Including all drafts and correspondence I would put this at about five million words over a period of…
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Forest Kindergarten at Waldorf School in Saratoga Springs – NYTimes.com. Schools around the country have been planting gardens and planning ever more elaborate field trips in hopes of reconnecting children with nature. The forest kindergarten at the Waldorf School of Saratoga Springs is one of a handful in the United States that are taking that concept to another level: its 23 pupils, ages 3 ½ to 6, spend three hours each day outside regardless of the weather. This in a place where winter is marked by snowdrifts and temperatures that regularly dip below freezing. What a fabulous idea. Frankly, it…
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Adam Gopnik’s essay on the nature of cookbooks caught my eye in this week’s New Yorker. He covers a range of topics, but the division between cookbooks which are essentially grammatical (Ratio, How to Cook Everything) and cookbooks which are encyclopedic (Mastering the Art of French Cooking) is one that is dear to my heart. What cookbooks are for, and how we use them, or don’t use them — whether we cook from them or simply read them for pleasure is one of the subjects around which I keep circling. Here’s a quote: “However we take cookbooks— grammatically or encyclopedically,…
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Interesting piece in this morning’s Billings Gazette about Hutterite Turkeys. The “Hoots” as they’re colloquially known, cut back on turkey production this year fearing that their premium birds wouldn’t sell in the recession, but they’re finding the opposite is true, and now there’s a run on Hutterite birds: “Foodies have driven up the demand for the fresh birds, which can cost more — $1.70 a pound versus $1.29 a pound for a pre-sale frozen turkey. It doesn’t hurt that the birds have a back story, raised in rural Montana by pacifists observing 16th-century Anabaptist principles while operating some of the…
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Cormac McCarthy, who is famously reticent was interviewed by the Wall Street Journal last week. It’s a terrific interview. Here’s one of my favorite parts: “WSJ: What does your brother Dennis do? Is he a scientist? CM: He is. He has a doctorate in biology and he’s also a lawyer and a thoughtful guy and a good friend. WSJ: Brotherly conversation just turns to the apocalypse? CM: More often than we can justify.”
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Hi everyone — I’m on a bit of a blogging break still. There are changes afoot here at LivingSmall, and I’ll be back, but for now, I need a little time to rethink the blog, my schedule, etc … You can keep up with me on Facebook (just sent me a Friend invite) or on Twitter at #cmf406.
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My new Cookbook Slut column is up at Bookslut: So the recession hit home here at Cookbook Slut in late July when I was relieved of the corporate job I’ve held for the past ten years. While it wasn’t a job I loved, it was a job that came with a very sturdy paycheck, and when the last severance check arrived this month, I went into something of a panic. There it was. All the Money I Am Ever Going To Have. And so I did what I always do when confronted with financial instability …. (click here to read…
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Wow. This was a surprise to me somehow — Gourmet Magazine is closing. My first job out of college was repackaging Gourmet Magazine content into the first few volumes of Best of Gourmet and Gourmet’s Best Desserts (we also did other titles for Conde Nast). I’ll never forget going through the bound volumes of Gourmet Magazines — my task was to xerox every dessert recipe that had ever appeared, cut it out, and tape it onto a sheet of paper. These were the old days, when we did things on paper, and when type came back from teh typesetter and…
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I haven’t written about politics in a while, but this health reform debate is making me froth at the mouth. I’ve called Baucus’s office so many times that I think I’m on the “crazy lady” list. First off, the idea that we’re going to have a public mandate with no public option is insane. Why on earth should we give huge subsidies of public money to the insurance companies who have done nothing but openly rip us all off for decades? A public mandate with no public option to keep them in check is simple collusion. Thanks Max. I guess…
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I don’t know what happened to blogging this week. But then again, I don’t know how it got to be Wednesday afternoon already. In lieu of new blogging, here’s my latest CookbookSlut review over at Bookslut.