Looks like Robert Hass, a poet I adore, has a new book coming out:The Apple Trees at Olema: New and Selected Poems The Paris Review has four of them online here. While Poetry Magazine has put up September Notebook: Stories
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Just about Halloween I had a stupid stupid accident and killed my laptop. I made the error of putting my unprotected laptop in a messenger bag with a re-corked bottle of wine before driving down to the cabin for the night. As I walked in the door I noticed wine dripping from the bag. The bottle had tipped over and opened and had absolutely SOAKED my laptop. And then I made the fatal error. I tried to turn it on. Nothing. And then I came to my senses and remembered that electricity and wetness inside a laptop is a bad…
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My new column at Bookslut, After Julie/Julia: The New Generation of Food Blog-to-Books, is up: I take on The Foodie Handbook: The (Almost) Definitive Guide to Gastronomy, Jam Today: A Diary of Cooking With What You’ve Got and The Art of Eating In: How I Learned to Stop Spending and Love the Stove.
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In farming news, I was heartened by this editorial by Tom Vlisak, Secretary of Agriculture about his plans for revitalizing rural America. There’s still more in there for Big Ag than I really like, especially the biofuels stuff (we still haven’t figured out a way to make a biofuel that doesn’t require more fuel to grow, harvest, ship and process than it generates), but this point cheered me up: Third, link local farm production to local consumption. Investments in local processing and storage facilities will allow for large scale consumers in rural communities to buy locally produced goods from smaller…
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I know I’ve blogged a million times about no-knead bread, but this one was so beautiful I just had to post a photo. I started with about a cup and a half of leftover mashed potatoes. Then I added 3 cups of flour, a 1/2 teaspoon of yeast (I’m at the bottom of the jar and it’s not very lively anymore), a tablespoon of salt, and mixed it until the mashed potatoes were all incorporated. Then I added 1.5 cups sourdough starter and 1 cup of warm water. It was a little wet, so I added half a cup of…
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It’s Sunday, which means the intertubes are full of book reviews. Here are a few links to things I’m thinking about or wanting to read. Patti Smith: Just Kids: I’ve been really riveted by the press for this one. I love Patti Smith — she’s so absolutely who she is and she’s so relentlessly followed her dreams. This Fresh Air interview is incredibly touching The Guardian UK review And a Guardian UK interview A slightly snarky review from the New York Times Amy Bloom, one of my all-time favorite writers has a new collection of short stories: Where the God…
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We’ve been cleaning out the freezers to make room for some incoming elk and lamb, and we found several packages of “soup bones.” They were far too meaty for the dogs, so I made a batch of stock. First I roasted them all off in a hot oven with three or four onions cut in half, and half a dozen carrots until everything was nicely carmelized. I was thrilled to discover the tail in the treasure trove as well (when it’s wrapped in butcher paper, it’s sometimes a surprise when you unwrap it). After everything browned up, I put it…
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I haven’t read No Logo yet, but like Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy, it’s going on my list of interlibrary loan requests. I found this a couple of days ago, and in light of the forthcoming State of the Union, toward which I wish I was feeling less jaded, it’s an interesting take on what’s been frustrating some of us on the progressive side of the political spectrum. Enough with the task forces, and the pronouncements, and all of that. Just DO Something. Like ram health care through. I was thinking last night while…
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Elizabeth Gilbert is interviewed at Jacket Copy, the LA Times book blog, where among a number of interesting things, she has this to say: You said before that it’s a youthful impulse to think of oneself as exceptional. You’ve traveled a lot — is that also an American trait? Very. Very very very very. That’s something I’m seeing more and more, being married to somebody who is South American versus North American. He marvels at it. And he thinks, as many people do, it’s the best, and most shocking, thing about Americans. That sense of exceptionalism, and the honest and…
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Your Tuesday round up of interesting bits and pieces I’ve been finding online: Why Big Ag Won’t Feed the World – The Atlantic Food Channel Why are libertarian right wingers defending a dysfunctional, state-engineered food system? | Grist Destroying Sustainability along with Inventory (This one really stings. Not only did my publisher “pulp” the paperback copies of Place Last Seen when it went out of print, they screwed up my order and damaged the copies so badly that they never even sent them. I have one copy of my own paperback. Sigh.) Saving Michigan With a New Green Industrial Revolution…