Always good advice

Seat 1A: Reflections On Italy 

Spend less time on news, the Internet, and TV and more time reading, working in the garden, and listening to music.

Spend less time rushing from place to place and more time walking or strolling.

Walk more upright and with a swing in your arm.

Wear simple clothes that fit you well and are made from quality materials.

Don't worry so much about making a fantastic meal. Make meals that are simple and fresh, and they'll turn out fantastic all by themselves.

Take time to enjoy those meals. Eat them face to face, not in front of the television, and savor the courses and the conversation. A meal is a gathering and a reward to enjoy, not a task to complete.

Enjoy your wine regardless of its cost.

Plant more flowers, and lots of herbs, in your garden.

Have a simple breakfast every day.

Walk to the local market.

Enjoy the fruits of your own city. It has museums and architecture, too.

Alan L Nelson via Rebecca Blood

Via Cookin' in the 'Cuse

Ode to a Tomato by Pablo Neruda
Translated by Margaret Sayers Peden

The street
filled with tomatoes
midday,
summer,
light is
halved
like
a
tomato,
its juice
runs
through the streets.
In December,
unabated,
the tomato
invades
the kitchen,
it enters at lunchtime,
takes
its ease
on countertops,
among glasses,
butter dishes,
blue saltcellars.
It sheds
its own light,
benign majesty.
Unfortunately, we must
murder it:
the knife
sinks
into living flesh,
red
viscera,
a cool
sun,
profound,
inexhausible,
populates the salads
of Chile,
happily, it is wed
to the clear onion,
and to celebrate the union
we
pour
oil,
essential
child of the olive,
onto its halved hemispheres,
pepper
adds
its fragrance,
salt, its magnetism;
it is the wedding
of the day,
parsley
hoists
its flag,
potatoes
bubble vigorously,
the aroma
of the roast
knocks
at the door,
it's time!
come on!
and, on
the table, at the midpoint
of summer,
the tomato,
star of earth,
recurrent
and fertile
star,
displays
its convolutions,
its canals,
its remarkable amplitude
and abundance,
no pit,
no husk,
no leaves or thorns,
the tomato offers
its gift
of fiery color
and cool completeness.

It simply doesn't get any better then when my favorite poet and my favorite foods come together. The tomato crop has been especially abundant this year--more red cherry and sungolds than I can pick and now the first of the plum tomatoes. They have adorned salads, grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches, and have served as dessert, picked straight off the vine. Soon my mind will turn to slow roasted plum tomatoes and canning some for sauce for the winter. How are you enjoying this "star of the earth"?

Andrew's birthday dinner at Daniel's Broiler.

I've posted entries on other blogging tools. You may want to see some of those posts, too.

Where we're moving to in a few weeks.

"And let it be noted that there is no more delicate matter to take in hand, nor more dangerous to conduct, nor more doubtful in its success, than to set up as the leader in the introduction of changes. For he who innovates will have for his enemies all those who are well off under the existing order of things, and only lukewarm supporters in those who might be better off under the new."

--Machiavelli

Staggering destruction. Donate here.

Las Vegas lightning storm

July 17, 2006

Welcome home, Discovery

Space shuttle Discovery and its crew of six returned to Earth through thick clouds Monday, ending an impressive mission that put NASA's space program back on a solid, safer course.

Discovery landed at Kennedy Space Center at 9:14 a.m. in only the second shuttle flight since the 2003 Columbia disaster killed seven astronauts.

"Welcome back, Discovery, and congratulations on a great mission," Mission Control told shuttle commander Steven Lindsey after Discovery rolled to a stop.

more

NASA's shuttle landing blog

Laughs for a Monday morning.

Love him, or hate him, Bill Maher's latest "New Rules" segment is pretty damned funny.

Top 10 viral videos, including the must-see "Grape Smasher" news report.

Via GorillaMask.net