Posts filed under 'Brains'
Earlier today, eg sent me a link and suggested it was an idea I could use with the cats. It’s just a fabulous idea, and I am all for it. It seems a bit much work to completely rewrite the entire proposal, however, so for a start, just go here and insert cat wherever it says sheep.
Our situations are very similar. The sheepherders are keeping the hills of Abruzzo in traditional ways. The cats and I are keeping the hills of Umbria in traditional ways. The sheepherders are under financial pressure and need help. We are under financial pressure and could use help. Now it is true that they have many hundreds or perhaps thousands of sheep you can adopt, and I have a varying population of cats that number around seven give or take a litter, they also need more money because they are tending to a larger land mass than we are.
Our initiative, “Adopt a sheep and defend nature”, is meant to invert this serious trend, and propose naturalists, environmentalists, and gourmets, the distance adoption of a sheep, that in exchange of maintenance and rearing expenses, will yield its fruits (lambs, milk, cheese, ricotta, wool, manure) as well as protection of the portion of land it defends together with the rest of the flock. Stock farms taking part in the initiative guarantee their products, including biological products, with quality marks, and among other things offer agritourist accommodation. Therefore the person adopting the sheep will be able to stay at the chosen stock farm and periodically follow the farm activities: grazing, lambing, milking, sharing, and transhumance. All this in full respect of the animals’ needs and habits, as dictated by the regulations of biological production.
Besides the fact that neither I nor Wordpress knows what transhumance means, and that I would be hard put to hire rooms out to all the adopters should they decide to come, I think we can do a bit better than they on some issues. It’s a bit obscure, but the upshot is they are going to sell the products of your sheep to anyone, not send it to you. I am not sure what most of you would do with a year’s worth of wool, milk, lambs, grazing and manure, anyway. I can promise you, on the other hand, that if you adopt a cat I will happily send you anything it produces in a year that I can find. I will make adopters a reservation with Alberta if they want to be near their adopted cat, or somewhere in town with 4 stars if they just want to swing by and pick up their cat’s year’s production.
The advantages of the initiative “Adopt a sheep and defend nature” to the user are the following: a saving of over 12% of the market value of the products obtained, products that are certainly genuine, the option of using products derived exclusively from the adopted sheep (at the discretion of the user), since the adoption is nominal apart from the cheese products that need the milk of a number of sheep, which would still be guaranteed by being reared following the same criteria.
So, it appears that you will be given a 12% discount when you buy your sheep’s products. The cats products will be yours absolutely free!
With an annual contribution of € 190,00 we will be able to count on a capital that will help us by anticipating the shelter and feeding expenses and encourage us in carrying on our activity.
I assure you, that with the exception of Other Guy, who seems to rack up vet bills like E Taylor collected gems, your annual €190 contribution will make life much nicer for the cats and for Umbria. The photo above is where your cat hangs out and where you can meet your cat or shear your cat. The chaise longue on the left is wearing its cat cushion and is accompanied by its anti-cancer umbrella. The table under the gazebo is strewn with embroidered cloths the cats have mounded for lounging. Two sides of the cat habitat are edged with catnip, so you can convince your cat to nip and then try to climb the concrete telephone pole behind. There is ample space to romp with your cat or even get down with him or her and roll around the habitat’s terracing. I think that beats the sheep crib, even if we don’t have lambs.
Special concessions, discounts or promotions for all the events and shows related to pastoral life will be reserved to those who join: the shearing festival in April - May; the transhumance festival at the end of May - beginning of June; the guide to the flocks at the summer mountain pastures on foot or on horseback in mid June; guided excursions in high altitude pastures in July - September; thematic evenings on production, pastoral activity, and taste laboratories, according to a calendar that will be updated every six months.
If it seems really important, we can institute a shearing festival in the spring. The transhumance festival is a bit more difficult, but we will consult a bigger dictionary and see what we can do. All the cats but Gloria do love to go hiking, but they prefer lower ground, not the mountains, and a quarter to a third of a kilometer is as far as they go. We can, however, go that distance and back again any number of times. Thematic evenings are pretty much dedicated to food — theirs — but they share very cheerfully, even with the hedgehog. Tastings should be no problem at all.
We do not yet have a prepared contract to sign, but it will be our pleasure to email you one on request. After all, the cats don’t have numbers, but names. Other Guy, Bear, Gloria, Nonna, Tom, Mamma and Tilda. I’ve talked it over with them and they seem extremely eager to have new patrons and to get home visits!
June 10th, 2008
I started thinking the other day about fashion and clothes. I have a lot of fun when the runway shows are on and I love to talk about them and post pictures from them and surmise what will have the legs to reach the market that is us, more or less. It suddenly hit me that the “us” of whom I speak is no longer me. That “us” was a working professional with a need to look on top of things and as attractive as possible. The expense could be justified by that image thing and I had just enough of a social life, too, to make it a pleasure to think out pretty clothes and spoil myself a little. And I was a lot younger. It stymies me to realize that some of the nicest looks are denied to women my age. Just when we need to disguise our bottoms we are told that full skirts make us look like mutton dressed as lamb. Someone made fun of me for wearing a stitched down pleated skirt three years ago. It didn’t stop me wearing one, because they make too much sense and certainly don’t have to be worn schoolgirlishly, but it did make me start paying attention to that issue a bit more.
One thing and another, it all adds up to the idea that runway clothes can only be fun, like going to Chick Flicks. You go for fun, and you have no expectation that you will advance humanity or your understanding of it a bit. I like to see what can be pulled from the pool of insane creativity and used in a sane wardrobe. But it looks to me as if no one does that any more.
There are a few people who have websites in which they show what they design, adapt and sew to wear. There are others that shoot photos of street style in cities around the world. There are a few who report on wardrobe building, trends, fad avoidance, bargains… and I enjoy all of these ventures. One I love that is rarely updated is written/drawn by a fashionista rabbit who shows herself wearing her choice of runway fashion. I asked for permission to link to her, but didn’t get it, so you’ll just have to hunt if interested.
The real ground floor to this subject, however, is this: if you can’t buy it you can’t have it. That means that it isn’t runway fashion that is ruling us, but prèt a porter fashion. Many of us won’t spend the money for even that, and unless we are very creative we will have to settle for the bits that filter down a year or two later into what the British call high street fashion, or the kind of fashion you find in Main Street shops and department stores.
So I have been pulling together what it takes to see what there is in prèt a porter. By ten last night my eyes were swimming with images of what’s in the boutiques this spring for 2008. I wanted to get up and start cutting and sewing, but then I remembered I am really not very good at that and besides I can’t fit myself, only someone else. Another thing was the awful feeling that I might be a bit too old to get away with it. I need to go somewhere where there a lot of chic ladies of a certain age and see just how straitlaced I must be. I know I can wear big hats and big sunglasses, but it doesn’t seem enough.
The other discouraging thing is what women themselves tell me about what they really wear. There seems to be some idea that comfort can only be achieved in clothes designed for active sport. IT IS NOT TRUE. Comfort can be achieved with clothes that have form, with underwear in full complement, and with shoes that are made of leather and are not padded. Trust me on this.
Still, I hear from women that they “live in” yoga pants, sweats, running suits and balloon shoes. I despair. I despair of a population willing to all look that much alike. I despair of any group of over six people willing to wear baggy and odd-colored sets of things. That’s what basketball players wear, but they get paid a lot to do it. My own daughter tells me that no one wears anything but jeans at her techie workplace. She loves gorgeous clothes, but I know if they don’t go with jeans, she will never wear them, no matter how sincere her passion.
As to sex and romance, well, I won’t go there because I am told I don’t know what modern young men want, and that would be true. If they would tell me, I might believe them, but they always tell me they are looking for the right mind and soul. It was my belief that in “When Harry Met Sally” he ran away frightened after their first romantic interlude, it was not because he felt proprietorship and coupledom so scary, but because she wore those little white socks in bed. That is scary, that she could leap directly to bedsocks in one night. I suspect it would take me a lifetime.
So I am hoping that there are at least some of you who still have your latent princess within and still think that comfort is nice but beauty is equal. As I rip into the marketplace, once a week I will show you a look one can actually buy, now, this year, in 2008.
February 23rd, 2008
Gianna sent these to me this morning.
February 22nd, 2008
I was reading style.com, the online part of Vogue, and I read that the absolute best way to get rid of dull, winter skin was to use a supersonic skin brush by Sonicare, the toothbrush makers.
“Hmmm,” said I to me, “I have been wondering what to do with those brushes that just don’t brush teeth very well anymore. They are expensive, hard to get here and they look like they’d be good for something. Maybe this is it?” The something I had thought they might be good for was, I admit, cleaning minerals off metal or polishing silver.
But I figured, having just changed brushes again, why not try it? So I did. I unscrewed the new toothbrush and screwed in the worn and too soft one and used it with mild soap to clean my face.
Let me say here that the brush they sell is round and much wider and must do a better job, but it also costs $199!
I think it works. I think I look brighter and areas that were troubled with one lack-of-sun thing or another are responding. So if you have a Sonicare toothbrush, try it! Do NOT press hard, very lightly is the only way it works supersonically. Don’t mix it up with the one for your teeth because soap tastes bad. It will make your nose tickle almost to an unbearable level.
Read this tip anywhere else!
February 6th, 2008
Lat January I wrote a post about Iris Murdoch after reading a biography of her life as philosopher and writer. I immediately ordered every one of her novels thatr I could find at a price I could pay, and in September eg kindly carted them across the Atlantic to me.
Time passed and I didn’t read them. I genuinely thought that I would need a great deal of calm and fortitude to tackle these books by one who has been proclaimed the Dostoevsky of the 20th century. I remember Dostoevsky.
After more than two months I was faced with either beginning Murdoch or reading some violent modern books that are more noir than “Noir.” I picked up the first book of fiction she ever wrote: Under the Net. I started to read it.
It’s funny! It’s charming, the characters are as flawed as they must be and I found myself both thinking about the underlying principles of what must versus what may be lived while laughing my head off. There’s even a great dog in it. The narrator is a wastrel writer who works hardest at finding people to take care of him. It tells of a short-term adventure at a crisis period when all his balls are in the air and he constantly has to choose to do the decent thing or the convenient thing. The details of 1950s London are wonderful.
Thus armed, I picked up the next in my series, The Nice and the Good.
This is the book I needed a steady head for. Its style is more old fashioned, and because she is trying to tell us much more about good and truth and how they fit into life, there are a dozen plot lines going ahead at all times. It was, at times, heavy going. Some of the evil depicted seemed just silly to me from a viewpoint decades later, but the impulse to seek it, tolerate it, brush it off is still shocking. I think it is a book to read more than once. I found myself too taken up with the psychology of the characters and wanting to send them all to a good shrink to really understand how the theme of the nice versus the good was being played out. And it certainly was being played out, with an ending scene that is both terrifying and settling. In a way I feel the book should end there, but each character gets a final recap scene for those of you who insist on knowing what happened afterwards.
The underlying thread in both these books is that many of us value looking like we are good more than we value good. We omit, we elide, we follow rules in order to show ourselves to be good, and it makes us at best nice. It is only when we allow truth and memory and love to hurt us that we can do one good thing. And then, perhaps one more. The struggle, it seems, is daily. Murdoch makes a point that it is possible that justice is more just when offered by one person struggling for good than by adherence to the law.
Interestingly, Murdoch’s men are much more real than her women. The women seem more like expressions of ideals, each one embodying a type more than feeling like flesh and blood. In each of the two books I have read so far, the protagonist is a man, and in the first one, Under the Net, women can barely be said to exist. There are, handily, equal numbers of men and women in >
The Nice and the Good. There are also children, and really remarkable children at that. They were enormously important.
I will read these books again, because they are worth it. I will buy more of the twenty-six novels she wrote, too.
These pictured are all used and reprints. I bought them at amazon.com because the prices were better than amazon.uk, and they had all been translated into American English. That was disconcerting at times. Both vendors have used book dealers, but the postage from the UK is very high, and when ordering from secondary vendors, you can’t beef up the order to spread the postage out over more books. I struggle to get books, perhaps, more than I struggle to be good. Have to work on that.
November 19th, 2007
There’s a really good scale and a really good sale on for US residents at ekitchens.
They are selling at least one high quality scale that tares and switches from metric to ounces. The good price is even better when you enter the word FALL into the checkout coupon area– 5% off in addition.
You need a scale.
November 4th, 2007
Look here to read an account of a cooking job as executed by a couple who write a blog I read everyday. You will never read accounts of cookery so completely and generously open about the new ideas they develop and the new ways with food they have.
Their blog is deceptively titled Ideas in Food. You and I have ideas in food. Alex and Aki dedicate the larger part of their lives to making food into forms and flavors that rival nature in their diversity.
We know that I am never going to cook like that. Just the investment in equipment would be insuperable. Working alone couldn’t be that yeasty and productive. Occasionally, when they fool around with something Italian, I find myself talking to the computer. But I read it and I’m fascinated. It was therefore irresistible to read the account of a meal they were hired to create for a small group of foodies. Read it. You will be astounded.
November 2nd, 2007
This is a meme requested from Jessica who is still In Search of Dessert but is also prodding people who write and looking for a venue for a not-so-secret upcoming affair. Jessica and her toyboy Jon were here making ravioli with me a few months ago, if you recall. I did not write a word while they were here, and I even refrained from embarrassing Jon with appreciative whistles. Actually, I can’t whistle.
So, I am supposed to think of five strengths I have as a writer. Hmmmm. Well.
1. I write. Even if I don’t publish anything here, I write. I have been doing it for most of my life intermittently and this go-round has endured for 34 years. I first attended and then ran fiction writers groups in Washington, DC for many years and I learned to be a damned good editor. Writing is in itself a very important strength, because if you just think about titles and plot lines as you drive, you are just a good fantasist.
2. I spel reely god.
3. I self edit in every possible way. In that I include reading stories I wrote years ago and binning them. Sentimental? Bin it. Florid? Bin it. Confusing? Take it apart, put it back together until it makes mental-map sense. Before computers I once took an entire book apart in pages all over my bedroom and then put it back together. Computers are a Godsend. I used to edit to the point where I was the only one who could understand what I wrote, but I seem to have recovered from that. Writing about cooking has helped. No one but me will ever know that I go back to posts here and edit them, even though the very essence of a blog is that people really only look at new stuff.
4. I have a fairly good vocabulary which I use also when speaking, and it comes naturally to me because I was reared that way. It bothers me that Italians say about food only that it is good, really good or exquisite. Similarly, there’s more to say about people than that they are beautiful or nice (or ugly or not nice) which is pretty much what one hears here. If there isn’t a word, I will make one up but admit that I did.
5. I care about other writers. I encourage them and don’t offer criticism unless asked. I seek them out. I buy their books. I link to them. It is a winning move for me, because they make me think beyond my small world into worlds that are far away, or richer, poorer, older, younger than mine. I want every one of them to be successful. They sometimes connect me to things that can make me more successful.
Number five is embarrassing, because having said that I like writers and read their stuff, Jessica and Sognatrice have already named ten of them! So I will name three. They are Dermott in an attempt to shame him into writing more, Corey Amaro who is extremely charming, and Cee Cee, who puts me right into her life which is entirely different from any life I have ever lived.
October 1st, 2007
Net a Porter is a site that could be more practical for the non-rich than the latest copy of Vogue. Agree with the choices or not, an attempt is made to present things real people can actually wear. Varying levels of courage may be required. Prices are baldly stated.
For me, however, it is a lesson in practicality. My budget doesn’t stretch to €1000 skirts. When I clicked to see all the skirts, most not €1000, certainly, my thought was, “If I want almost anything on that page I could make it or get someone else to make it.” Most skirts are the easiest article of clothing to make. Not, unfortunately, stitched down pleated skirts, which are the one skirt flattering in the correct length to almost everyone and still offering complete freedom of movement. But all the rest are easy. You choose the fabric, the style, the length and it takes from one to three hours to get it onto your body.
And yet, very few of us bother. Why is that? A good seamstress can even relocate darts and seams to take pounds off or to accommodate our peculiarities, whereas even for €1000 an off-the-rack skirt isn’t designed to do that for anyone but the fitting model. Who is perfect.
Most people have never even thought of hiring a dressmaker to make anything other than a prom dress or a wedding dress. Many people have sewing machines gathering dust unless there’s a household repair to be done. Unlike this woman, most people don’t even think about creating inspired fashion for themselves, but if they love clothes instead save up their pennies to buy a longed-for item or wait for the shops at a mall to knock it off.
And yet, once upon a time, women couldn’t wear what they couldn’t make. I don’t want to go back to those days! I do wonder why we can’t do a little more, though, just as we do in the kitchen. Only a privileged few can eat at The French Laundry but many can buy the cookbook and make some of the food.
This is all wondering out loud. I do have one message for the day. If you don’t think your legs are slim enough, don’t wear the now-stylish opaque black tights, but instead wear black tights with whatever level of transparency suits you. Opaque tights make tree trunks of legs, translucent tights cast shapely shadows. Really.
September 16th, 2007
Are you confused yet? Tomorrow I am going to Tuscany to teach cooking to a group of travelers. They will learn to make pasta, of course, and then they will learn to make a Pugliese dish with it that has become popular all over Italy. That would be because it is really good.
Because the pasta lesson takes some real time, the other courses will be quicker recipes. My friend, Graeme, will work with me so he can learn how to teach. He already knows how to cook, as many Australian men cook, really, really well. I’m hoping for some really good photos for my website, because usually I am way too busy to be photographing lessons. You have to watch these learners to see when they’re having a problem!
If there’s any sentiment for it, I can post the recipes we learn here. They aren’t my recipes, like the rest of the recipes here, but traditional foods made the traditional way. What about it?
August 27th, 2007
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