Look at Valentine the pig — it’s not photoshopped, there was this story in the Daily Mail earlier in the week about this adorable Glouchestershire Old Spot pig who came out covered in hearts. The farmer who bred here has been breeding Old Spots for 25 years, and is pleased to see that the breed’s come back from near-extinction. My own pig project is on hold for the moment. All my partners in pig raising/curing are tied up with other projects, as am I, and so for now I’ll just have to settle for whatever non-CAFO pork I can manage…
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Here’s the poor post-op dog. There are so many staples in that leg that it looks like he’s got a zipper — he’s not really putting weight on it yet although he’s toe-touching a lot. He also seems to think that when in motion, it’s important to go everywhere as fast as he can on his three legs — I think he’s trying to outrun the leg that hurts — but it keeps following him around. He’s in pretty good spirits — bored, and occasionally making a run for it, or doing something he shouldn’t like jumping on the couch…
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Sorry for the spotty posting this week — Owen-the-dog had ACL surgery on Wednesday. He’s fine. Home on the couch next to me, but in considerable pain and will have to be on-leash or in a crate for the next few weeks. And my Dad had surgery in the Czech Republic, where he lives. He’s had an odd cyst behind his ear for decades, and the doctors decided that it was time to take it out. It was in a dodgy spot with a lot of nerves, and he was nervous he’d wind up drooling for the rest of his…
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We’ve finally got some snow, and unlike last weekend when it was below zero the whole time, the temps aren’t too bad (although the 40 mph winds are kind of a drag) — but although I’m ashamed to say that it’s the end of January and the first time I’ve made it out on skis, I did make it out for a quick ski this morning — I’m woefully out of shape, but we had fun — took Raymond-the-dog (Owen needs knee surgery, no deep snow romping for him) and off we went. It’s sunny, there was sweating and breathing…
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The SF Chronicle business section profiled the owner of a small French bakery last week, and I was particularly struck by this quote: “I don’t depend on anyone else. I don’t depend on bankers. I don’t extend myself financially. I have the good things in life. I don’t need much more.” As he slides the St. Honore cake into the case, he says, “Let’s face it. I’m a dinosaur. I do most everything from scratch. “I don’t hire other people to do what I can do. I’d rather do it myself.” I think in many ways this is the appeal…
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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 sending us things now, rather than waiting until after she dies). So anyhow, Molly and I have both been very excited about Obama, but she was a little cranky at both Obama and Edwards for their behavior at the debates last week. Smug, she said. They…
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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 — or as my friend said in an email: “We’ll smoke’em, dry’em, stuff’em, hang’em, and sell’em.” Our original plan was to get some investors and just go for it, but I think approaching it like a grown up 4H project might make more sense. Get a…
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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 never been there until my last trip to Paris when I stayed down in the 5th arrondissement — it was my last day in Paris and the sun was shining and I was getting a little lonely for green spaces and nature, so I went off…
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It’s been a weekend of cooking cooking cooking … with a couple of small breaks for tree trimming and kids’ recitals … So if you’re on my Christmas list — stop reading now. Go away. Come back after your box arrives. For the rest of you — here’s the weekend: I made truffles for my grandmother. I made chocolate hazelnut cookies, pfeffernussen (I can’t find the recipe online — but it was a good one — with grated lemon rind and some candied citron and orange and ginger — they came out chewy and delicious, not powdery and terrible like…
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The least interesting part of Doris Lessing’s Nobel Prize speech has been getting a lot of attention this week — the part where she claims that the speed by which the internet has been developed has led to a sort of mesmerism by screen, and has subsequently caused a serious devaluation of the book and of reading and of education and expertise. I don’t think she’s entirely wrong, nor do I think the online reaction, that this is the part of her speech where she sounds most like a cranky old woman, is invalid either. But that was not the…