Borrowed Quotes...

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.

~ Joseph Addison ~

Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life.
~ Mortimer J. Adler ~

Beware of the man of one book.
~ Thomas Aquinas ~

The failure to read good books both enfeebles the vision
and strengthens our most fatal tendency--
the belief that the here and now is all there is.
~ Allan Bloom ~

A wonderful thing about a book, in contrast to a computer screen,
is that you can take it to bed with you.
~ Daniel J. Boorstin ~

Readers may be divided into four classes:
1.) Sponges, who absorb all that they read and return it in
nearly the same state, only a little dirtied.
2.) Sand-glasses, who retain nothing and are content to get
through a book for the sake of getting through the time.
3.) Strain-bags, who retain merely the dregs of what they read.
4.) Mogul diamonds, equally rare and valuable, who profit by
what they read, and enable others to profit by it also.
~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge ~

The greatest gift is the passion for reading.
It is cheap, it consoles, it distracts, it excites,
it gives you knowledge of the world and experience of a wide kind.
It is a moral illumination.
~ Elizabeth Hardwick ~

In a very real sense, people who have read good literature
have lived more than people who cannot or will not read.
It is not true that we have only one life to lead; if we can read,
we can live as many more lives and as many kinds of lives as we wish.
~ S. I. Hayakawa ~

[borrowed from Mental multivitamin]

I'm still posting...

here, too.

Gore Vidal on the J-word

On the subject of George W. Bush : Gore Vidal simply sublimates the I-word and goes directly for the J-word...

Book of Jonah ~ 32:001:012

And he said unto them, Take me up, and cast me forth into the
sea; so shall the sea be calm unto you: for I know that for my
sake this great tempest is upon you.

You simply must read Gore Vidal's meditation on George W. Bush as a modern-day Jonah... if only because such literate writing on public affairs is so rare these days.

Although I receive Truthdig.com in my email regularly, I actually found Vidal's piece via The Huffington Post, which pointed to the original on Truthdig.com... which Robert Scheer founded soon after he was precipitously and inexplicably fired-- after thirty years!-- from the LA Times. Okay, okay, well, maybe not so inexplicably. Apparently, Scheer's publisher hated almost every word that he wrote, i.e., the ones about Bush's lies.

But, don't just read Vidal's piece; check out the rest of the links on Truthdig.com, which has been thoughtfully designed for both substance and style.

And-- the LA Times's loss (or really major goof) is our gain.

"Jonah Cast Forth By the Whale" by Gustave Dore (d. 1883) Courtesy of Wikipedia

cross-posted at http://blogs.salon.com/0004000/2006/01/25.html#a415

For now, I'm not giving up the butterscotch, after all...

...but I'll still try to forego the rootbeer, since it probably does more to put on both weight and inches.

It occurred to me awhile ago that there might be something in either the butterscotch or the rootbeer that I actually needed. (After all, I really craved them.)

However, when you read their lists of ingredients, you have to ask what could that be? I even thought, though I had not mentioned it to anyone, that maybe there was something about their taste or flavor that actually enhanced (my) digestion... something related to satisfaction. A rationalization?

Perhaps, but then I read something last night in the Fall 2005 issue of Gastronomica about the inter-related histories of both MSG and Umami, and was inspired to do a little searching on my own, which I did today...

While looking through other magazines last night at Border's, I came across some recipes for braised short ribs. They will be on next week's shopping list.

"The Fifth Taste Emerges...

...from the Brine" (read this story from the NYTimes)

Umami -- without wheat or dairy-- is an experience that has become a bit more elusive for me than in years past. Parmesan cheese, for example, has umami, but I can't eat that. Sometime late last spring, I started eating butterscotch candy like there was no tomorrow. The combination of salty and sweet and the roundness and mellowness of the flavor. [sigh] It provided a taste sensation that I wasn't getting from rootbeer, which I had started drinking in earnest earlier that year. (Main Street brand, carried by Giant Food Stores, is my favorite, because it has the creamiest foam, and is available in a pony size.)

Well, I haven't had any rootbeer this week, and only two pieces of butterscotch; the only reason I even ate those is that one of my co-workers had filled up her candy dish with my favorite version (non-dairy) in those square cellophane packets that pop open without having to be untwisted.

I've decided I really have to cut down, or better yet, eliminate them from my diet. Both the butterscotch and the rootbeer. Not only did my blood pressure go up quite a bit (not really a problem, since it was awfully low before), but I gained a signficant number of pounds around my middle, meaning a size or two. I really can't justify buying all new clothes (beyond the two new pairs of pants I bought last month in desperation), when I have perfectly good clothes that I can almost wear, and sometimes still do, with a sweater hiding the length of zipper that remains unzipped. [sigh... sigh...]

So, now a new search for sources of umami and taste satisfaction must begin...

Something new in my kitchen

I just bought a new crock pot. For its maiden voyage... a small beef roast (browned slightly in some olive oil) on a bed of celery, carrots, parsnips & turnips, a can of whole tomatoes with the liquid, a few cloves of garlic and some sprigs of parsley. And the ubiquitous Herbamare.

Then... about 10 hours cooking time, on low, while we were away from home...

That evening, after a small taste test and a cooling-off period, the roast and vegetables were divided more or less equally among 4 plastic containers and nestled in the freezer, most likely to be consumed for breakfast, given my preference for hearty food in the mornings. Especially on cold mornings. Like this morning.

I'm wondering if I can do something resembling risotto in it. Or rice pudding. Or polenta. You get the idea...

How Civilization is really killing us...

...a few clues (or a trail of wheat-free bread crumbs for you to follow), if you're interested. With enough of these clues, one must begin to wonder if Obesity and Diabetes (among other scourges of modern life) aren't really just Mother Nature's Revenge.

Dave Pollard's posts earlier this week on Civilization, Domestication, and Noble Savages, reminded me of a Harper's article and some books that have gradually led me to my own contrarian view of the paradox of civilization being that which has cost us the more civilized behaviors to which we aspired.

*~*~*

About two years ago, I read an article by Richard Manning, in Harper's, entitled, "The Oil We Eat." It's a bit long, but very thought-provoking, especially on whether being a vegetarian really is the most ecologically responsible choice to make... when you consider that not only do we obliterate natural habitats, indigenous plant life and grazing lands, but we expend more calories of energy in producing food crops than the crops actually provide. And then we feed most of this grain to animals, at additional expense of energy comsumption, when it might have been simpler, and better all-round (as well as more humane), if we had continued to allow the native bison, or even just domesticated livestock, to graze.

Several years before, I had read a book about eating according to your blood-type, by Peter D'Adamo: Eat Right For Your Type. Dr. D'Adamo has his detractors, as well as his followers, but from personal experience, although I could never follow his diet plan or suggestions to the letter, I must acknowledge that his basic outline for those with the "Hunter/Gatherer's" Bood Type-O works better for me. Being a lacto-ovo vegetarian definitely did not. Doesn't mean I don't still want my comfort food, though.

Somewhere in between, I read (most of) a book by Robert Lacey, The Year 1000. Lacey's book was structured on the Julius Work Calendar, and describes the regular seasonal activities and diet of the people. That Calendar was an early attempt to regulate a society's activities, rather like the wheel of the plough that it describes, something worth considering even now, when so many of us feel oppressed by our schedules. However, most relevant to this discussion is the authors' description of the skeletal remains of Englishmen of 1000 AD. Tall. Strong. Good Bones and Teeth.

*~*~*

Apparently, different blood-types evolved over time, and under different conditions. For example, Type-O blood is the oldest, followed by A (farmers), then B (nomads), then AB (modern?). As one with Type-O blood, my body is more suited to a diet of animal protein and root vegetables, nuts, berries, and nothing refined, especially not any wheat or dairy products.

And, while I was struggling to give up wheat (and dairy), I was beginning to understand that before the Romans imposed a wheat-based agriculture on what would become the British Isles, my ancient ancestors had been much taller, with good, strong bones, and yes! --good teeth.

A milennium later, it is now commonplace to hear jokes about the poor teeth of those of us with English ancestry, as well as about both the inferior diet and cuisine of present-day England. Easy for "Colonials" to make such jokes when, after just a few generations, Americans were often a head taller or more than their European counterparts, given the virgin topsoil that provided them with superior nutrition, even though it has now been depleted.

Agribusiness, pesticides, genetically-modified foods, food-borne illnesses, polluted streams, rivers and water tables... one could go on and on. And Manning does name many of the bad actors.

*~*~*

A few nights ago, I was watching an episode of Alton Brown's "Good Eats" on Oats and Oatmeal, which included the interesting tidbit that while the Brits were feeding oats to their horses, in order to improve their stock and their performance, the Scots were eating the oats themselves. However, an even more interesting tidbit was that the Romans never really did conquer the Scots when they occupied Britain. Perhaps I should have figured that out on my own, since I'm usually correct when I guess that an exceptionally tall person probably has some Scottish ancestry.

*~*~*

Only in Europe...

This story could never happen in the US, but I admit to being a little bit surprised that it happened in a Catholic country...

The Times January 03, 2006

Prove Christ exists, judge orders priest

From Richard Owen in Rome

AN ITALIAN judge has ordered a priest to appear in court this month to prove that Jesus Christ existed.

The case against Father Enrico Righi has been brought in the town of Viterbo, north of Rome, by Luigi Cascioli, a retired agronomist who once studied for the priesthood but later became a militant atheist.

Signor Cascioli, author of a book called The Fable of Christ, began legal proceedings against Father Righi three years ago after the priest denounced Signor Cascioli in the parish newsletter for questioning Christ’s historical existence.

If you want to read the rest, you'll find it here... in The Times Online.