Monday, May 9, 2011

Lust in translation


Click for bigger.

Kitten encounters terrifying entity


YouTube link.

Via The Daily What.

Cat gets the last drop of milk


YouTube link.

Mariachi Cabos perform Pink Floyd's 'The Wall'


YouTube link.

Legless Chinese man has planted 3,000 trees in 10 years

A retired veteran who lost both his legs has spent 10 years planting more than 3,000 trees on the sides of north China's remote mountains. Sixty two-year-old Ma Sanxiao is a former soldier. He lost both of his legs due to sepsis, a disease where blood is overwhelmed by bacteria. He had one leg amputated in 1984, the other in 2004.



But that has not stopped him from planting more than 3,000 trees on nearby mountains in Jingxing county in Hebei Province during the past 10 years. Ma gets before 5 a.m. every day, puts on his prosthetic limbs, climbs the mountains and plants trees.

It takes Ma more than 40 minutes to climb just hundreds of metres of mountain. Because he's not "climbing", he's "crawling". Ma said that after the first amputation, he was distressed. He sold everything valuable at home and ran into heavy debt.

Apologies for the ad.

DailyMotion link.

He then began to plant trees in 2001 on the barren mountains nearby, hoping to earn money by selling the trees. Later his situation improved as the pensions for retired veterans increased. Ma decided never to sell the trees and just let them improve the ecological environment. "I plant more trees to make the mountains greener. As you see, the straight lines of trees are just like green soldiers of the nature," he said.

Unstoppable possum survives being shot five times

A reward is being offered for any information after a possum was found trapped and shot five times. The Humane Society of the United States and The Humane Society Wildlife Land Trust are offering $500 to anyone with information. The opossum was found in Waterloo, Iowa.

When the officers approached the cage where she was trapped they thought she was dead. She was only playing dead, but really was hurt. "To trap an animal in a live trap and shoot it repeatedly in our opinion it's cruel," said Terese Evans, Black Hawk Wildlife Rehabilitation Project Director.



The opossum was shot four times in the face and once in the shoulder, all while she was trapped in the cage. "She is lucky, she is very lucky," said Evans. The opossum is recovering at Terese Evans home.

"My hope for her is she gets released back into the wild and raise her young and be left undisturbed to do what she does best and that's eat dead things, eat slugs and bugs, and moles and shrews, and all that they do," Evans says. The opossum has one bullet left behind her right ear, but she should be back in the wild in the next few weeks.

With news video.

Cat rescued from pipe

North Middleton Township emergency crews got a call for a stuck cat and when they couldn't get him free, they took the cat and the pipe to the local veterinarian. "Things stuck in pipes, but its been a while since we've had anything like that!" exclaimed Dr. Justin Eckenrode of Carlisle Small Animal Veterinary Clinic.



The cat had its head stuck in an 8 foot pipe. A township employee cut a section of the pipe away and then it was time for the Carlisle Small Animal Veterinary Clinic's turn to see if they could save the rest of the cat's nine lives.

Curtis Barnett, Doctor of Veterinarian Medicine with the clinic noted that the head was compromised, so they were worried about breathing. After a little sedation, it was time to try to try some lubrication, but it didn't work either. Time to break out the tool box.


YouTube link.

The metal was too thick to pull the cat out, so they decided to call the township employee back and ask them to bring the saw back. Les, the North Middleton Township employee who made the first cuts, came back to the clinic, this time to finish the job. Then it was time for a check up for the cat, and pats on the back for everyone involved.

Man mourns for mother's stolen ashes

A bizarre crime in Colorado has a homeless man reeling and searching for answers. He says thieves broke into his car and stole his most valuable possession: His mother’s ashes. “Her soul is in heaven, but her ashes are still very important,” Wesley Rodgers said.



It was supposed to be her final resting place, but now the bag with her ashes is gone. “I think they probably thought - ‘cause they were in a sack in the container - they probably thought they were drugs,” Rodgers said.

Rodgers said thieves also took a Canon video camera after breaking his car window with a rock. He’s filed a police report and is checking pawn shops for the camera, but he doesn’t expect to see the ashes again. “I hope some people say a prayer for me and my mother,” he said. “Her name was Norma Hanson Rodgers.”



Norma died in 2004. “My mother and I lived together the last 25 years,” he said. To lose her for the second time was heartbreaking, especially on Mother’s Day weekend. “Anyone who takes someone’s ashes, they’ll have to answer to someone someday,” he said.

With news video.

Two-headed baby girl born in China

Surgeons in China say a baby girl born with two heads cannot be separated. Bao Qiaoying, 25, gave birth to the two-headed baby at Suining, southwest China's Sichuan Province. Doctors at Suining Central Hospital said it was extremely rare to see a baby with two heads, and it was the first such case in China.



Bao was living in Guangdong Province as a migrant worker when she became pregnant. Her first scan found the baby to be normal. She then went back to her home in Suining with her husband, Liao Guojun, to prepare for the birth of their first child. A second scan also suggested the baby was normal but after a third scan last week, doctors told her "the foetus has two heads, and one body".

"My husband and I immediately went to the central hospital for another checkup and colour Doppler imaging confirmed my baby has two heads but one body," said Bao. Reluctantly, the couple decided to abort the foetus but Bao went into labour shortly after arriving at Suining Central Hospital for the termination.



"It would have been too dangerous to go ahead with the abortion with the mother in labour so we advised them to give birth to the baby," said Doctor Zhang Libin. Doctors delivered the baby by caesarean section. Tests showed the little girl also has two spines and one and a half hearts, while other organs are shared. "We couldn't do a separation surgery on the baby. They must live together," added Doctor Zhang.

There's a news video here.

Armed man steals toy gun after breaking into home

An armed robber broke into a man's house on Thursday, pepper sprayed him and stole a toy gun before fleeing.

Pasadena police Lt. Chris Russ said the robber, who was armed with a handgun, entered the home in the 100 block of North Meredith Avenue at about 11:20 p.m. and sprayed the victim, before taking his Airsoft gun, which shoots plastic BBs.



The man called police, who searched with a police dog but were unable to find the robber.

The suspect is described as a Latino about 5-feet-10-inches to 6 feet tall, 275 to 300 pounds with dark, bushy hair and a trimmed moustache and goatee.

Scrabble adds innit, thang and grrl to official guide

"That's definitely a word, innit?" could soon be the cry of many a Scrabble player battling their way to victory. New slang terms, including "innit", "thang" and "grrl", have been added to the official list of words that can be used in the popular board game.

Technology-related words such as "webzine", "darknet" and "Facebook" have also made the Collins Official Scrabble Words book, compiled by staff in Glasgow. And while international players will welcome the addition of 3,000 extra words to the list, traditionalists may be left dropping their tile rack in horror.



The publishers say it is the "most comprehensive Scrabble wordlist ever produced". There are terms from Indian cookery, including "keema", "alu" and "gobi", alongside the slang "blingy" - meaning shiny. Others permitted include words for various kinds of drug such as tik, gak and tina.

Robert Groves, editor of Collins English Dictionaries and editor of the latest word list for Scrabble users, said: "The latest edition adds nearly 3,000 new words to the existing quarter of a million available to Scrabble players. These additions are an eclectic mix of new technological jargon, overseas English, recent colloquialisms, street slang, and a few phrases that had not made it on to the list until now."

Spy row over sacked sleeping workers

Steel-making giant Tata has been accused of "MI5-style surveillance" after sacking 13 workers it caught sleeping at work. The men were captured on secret cameras sleeping through parts of their shift in mess room areas on the Port Talbot site. The Community union has criticised the use of secret cameras, saying the firm has employed "Big Brother tactics".

Last winter, a series of tiny cameras were installed in light fittings, smoke alarms and other fixtures. In December, 17 riggers involved were shown the evidence and 13 were dismissed. Community's national officer Roy Rickhuss said the union was "extremely disappointed at the turn of events. Whoever made this decision - and they told us the decision was made in London ... to go down the route of covert cameras just did not understand, had no idea or concept of the industrial relations that had been built up over a number of years in that plant," he said.



The issue was first brought to Tata's attention by a whistleblower. Tata Steel spokesman Robert Dangerfield said the whistleblower's allegation of a "systemic malpractice - sleeping on the job - in one part of the plant had to be investigated and its veracity checked. This is the real world of a potentially hazardous workplace with workers scattered over a plant covering 12 square miles - not a science fiction fantasy like Big Brother," he said.

"No employer could ignore allegations of such malpractice." Mr Dangerfield added that the surveillance was the only practical way to gather objective evidence to establish the scope of the problem. "This was not carried out with any sort of relish - everyone at Port Talbot was bitterly disappointed to uncover the malpractice after we had all worked so hard to successfully change everyone's work culture and attitude."

Lifeguard who got stuck under changing room partition guilty of spying on naked woman

A teenage lifeguard had to be rescued by firemen when he got stuck under the partition of a changing cubicle after allegedly peeping at a naked woman inside, a court heard. Steven Dickson, 19, was working at the Cockermouth pool last October when he peered under a dividing wall into the cubicle where the married brunette was getting changed. When she shouted that she had seen him he tried to escape by squeezing underneath another partition.

But he got stuck so fast the fire brigade had to be called. And when they arrived to free him he was in such a state they feared he might be having a heart attack. Dickson, of Main Street, Dearham, near Maryport, pleaded not guilty at Carlisle Crown Court to a charge of voyeurism, which alleged that he observed the woman’s “private act” of getting changed for the purposes of his own sexual gratification.



He says he was merely investigating what he thought was a fault in one of the cubicles, and panicked when the woman shouted at him. In evidence, the woman told the jury she was standing naked on her swimsuit, looking for her underwear in her bag, when she noticed Dickson looking at her from below the partition.

“I could just see his face and a lot of hair,” she said. She said she ran out, wearing only a towel, to tell people what had happened, but by then Dickson had disappeared. He had fled and got stuck under a different partition in the changing room. Dickson was found guilty after a three-day trial. He was remanded on bail for reports and will be sentenced on June 29.

Grandmother, 37, banned from seeing grandson for being drunk in charge of him

A grandmother aged 37 who admitted being drunk in charge of her baby grandson has been banned from seeing him for 10 years. Christine Crowley, who Plymouth Crown Court heard had been present at the boy's birth and had seen him every day of his life until the incident, is no longer allowed to see him without the consent of his father and Plymouth City Council.

The court heard that Crowley was in the process of being tried for child cruelty when she offered to plead guilty to being drunk in charge of a child. Prosecutor Sally Daulton said that around 10pm on March 17 last year, two police officers saw Crowley struggling with a push-chair, rocking it violently backward and forward to try to get it up a pavement while shouting and swearing and smelling strongly of drink.



She staggered away and the officers found the six month-old boy very quiet and almost dazed. He was freezing cold, very wet and had cigarette ash on his head, and in the buggy, whose elastic restraining strap was very tight, was Crowley's glass with beer in it. They found her banging and kicking on a door and shouting for her daughter. Judge Miranda Robertshaw told Crowley, of Alcester Close, Devonport: "You were thoroughly drunk and wholly neglectful of this vulnerable baby, placing his safety at risk; you prioritised your own desire for drink."

The judge said that a short jail sentence would see Crowley spend just days inside, leaving her free to carry on her drunken behaviour, putting young children at risk. Instead, she imposed a 20-day jail sentence suspended for 12 months with 12 months' supervision by the Probation Service, also ordering her to attend an alcohol programme. Judge Robertshaw also imposed a 10-year restraining order prohibiting direct contact with the boy without consent of his father and Plymouth City Council.

Crème Brulée - You can do it!


Note:  I've been nominated for Babble's 100 Top Food Blogs!  I have ONE more votes to get into the top 100.  If you like what I've done here, would you follow the side link to Babble and vote for me?  I am on page #3 "Snippets of Thyme"



Isn't everyone always intimidated by the thought of making crème brulée at home?  When I see this on a restaurant menu, there is no doubt what my dessert order will be.  The first tap tap of the spoon on that sugary coating makes me feel like a little girl  anticipating the first peek inside a wrapped gift.  Or, better yet, perhaps its like the final wallop that breaks open the pinata and all the treats reveal themselves;  the sprinkling to the ground of such goodness bringing endless delight.  My, my, my but my mind does wander... see what the dessert does to me?




Cream, vanilla seeds and pod, releasing their heady aroma in my kitchen
Let me begin by unraveling this dreamy journey and perhaps some of you out there will delight yourselves and some lucky guests with this creamy, luscious, sensational dessert.


Now, on to the addition of the beloved vanilla bean.  Remember my article about Canino's Market here in Houston? Well, I am still basking in my vanilla bean bonanza find. Buckets I tell you...of vanilla beans.  It was a beautiful sight that made my heart go pitter-patter.   My husband need not worry about my having a love affair with another man.  However, I certainly have developed an affair with this most exotic flower stamen - the vanilla bean!







This dessert is amazingly simple and elegant.  Undoubtedly it is high in calories but for special occasions, it can be...just that...special!  One wonderful tidbit about making creme brulee is that it can be made ahead.  The custard filling can easily be cooked in the oven, each in their own ramekin and then refrigerated  several days ahead of time.




Just before serving, sprinkle each pot de creme with sugar, torch the tops (right there in front of your guests!!), garnish (or keep it simple) and serve.  At first, I was going try these out under the broiler.  After googling this, though, it didn't seem like that always works well.




So, I sent Patrick off to Lowe's.  If you know my husband (mechanical engineer), you must imagine how he trotted off in full anticipation of a gadget purchase.  He came back giddily carrying our new..."torch".




I knew there was no hope at all that I would be giving the crème brulées their crowning moment of glory. He was completely taking over from here on out.   "Take a picture of the torch flame" he suggested with that adorable twinkle in his eyes.  Here it is... "zee flame"...










Have you ever smelled burnt sugar? 
I tell you...
If the smell could be bottled and sold!  It doesn't take much (burnt sugar) to move my senses.  No wonder I have tearful moments when I wander through farmer's markets and am overwhelmed by the beauty of it all.   
Now I have to go off and find out who were the first people to burn sugar over the top.  Is there a pay scale for  professional "googlers" like me?  Remember, we learned that vanilla seeds are the insides of the stamen of a flower and fluffy bread might have had a start with "beer water"?   I'm going to take a wild guess that burning sugar came from "zee french".  Love those french...




The "torch" used for burning the tops of the brulées can be easily purchased at any hardware store.  We paid $13. (Another note from Patrick:  the torch can be found...in the plumbing section). I know, not very classy info. to include alongside this decadent dessert.








I must confess.  There was no elegant dinner party at our house where these crème brulées were served.  Like everyone else I have chatted with, we are all too afraid to attempt these little pots of luxury... in front of other people.  




Yes, we just sat around our kitchen table, the four of us, in complete rapture, in complete bliss, and savored every bite.  The recipe makes 6 brulées.  Do you follow?  That means there were 2...leftover.
One got tucked into Patrick's (a.k.a. torch man's) lunch the following day.  He told me he whipped his ramekin out during lunch and made a big "to-do" about "just having a simple little leftover" from home.


What happened to the second leftover, you might be musing?  As the writer of this blog...some snippets of info. just won't be revealed...even over thyme... (insert low chortle here...)





Crème Brulée:
(serves 6)


Ingredients
  • 1 quart heavy cream
  • 1 vanilla bean, split and scraped
  • 1 cup vanilla sugar, divided
  • 6 large egg yolks
  • 2 quarts hot water

Directions

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.
Place the cream, vanilla bean and its pulp into a medium saucepan set over medium-high heat and bring to a boil. (Snippet's Note:  lean over the pan and breath deeply)
Remove from the heat, cover and allow to sit for 15 minutes. 
Remove the vanilla bean and reserve for another use.
In a medium bowl, whisk together 1/2 cup sugar and the egg yolks until well blended and it just starts to lighten in color. 
Add the cream a little at a time, stirring continually. 
Pour the liquid into 6 (7 to 8-ounce) ramekins. 
Place the ramekins into a large cake pan or roasting pan. Pour enough hot water into the pan to come halfway up the sides of the ramekins. 
Bake just until the creme brulee is set, but still trembling in the center, approximately 40 to 45 minutes. (Mine needed closer to 45 minutes)  Remove the ramekins from the roasting pan and refrigerate for at least 2 hours and up to 3 days.
Remove the creme brulee from the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes prior to browning the sugar on top. 
Divide the remaining 1/2 cup vanilla sugar equally among the 6 dishes and spread evenly on top. Using a torch, melt the sugar and form a crispy top. 
Allow the creme brulee to sit for at least 5 minutes before serving.

READING on LOCATION

Reading on Location is a country-by-country guide to the regions and cities made famous by both well-known and cult books. I talked about this title to Noelle McCarthy this afternoon on Radio NZ  National.


From the quintessential English city of Bath, featured in Jane Austen’s Persuasion to the South India of Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things and the Amazon of Mario Vargas Llosa’s La Casa Verde, this book is aimed at those who want to learn more about a potential destination, follow in the footsteps of a favourite character from a novel and get to know a destination through the eyes of a celebrated author.

New Zealand authors featured include Maurice Gee, Alan Duff, Patricia Grace, Keri Hulme, Janet Frame, Fiona Kidman, Witi Ihimaera, Katherine Mansfield, Ngaio Marsh, Frank Sargeson, C.K.Stead, Jenny Patrick, and Kevin Ireland. Lloyd Jones' Mister Pip is the title listed for Papua New Guinea.

Whether it’s visiting a restaurant featured in American Psycho or experiencing an event such as the running with the bulls in Pamplona through the eyes of Ernest Hemingway, Reading on Location will allow readers and travellers to get the most from their trips. I found the book  delightful and absolutely fascinating and I warmly recommend it to all booklovers.
Here are a few further examples of titles and places featured:-
Ivory Coast - The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver and A Bend in the River by V.S.Naipaul, Kenya - The Constant Gardener by John Le Carre and Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen, Edinburgh - Greyfriars Bobby, 44 Scotland Street, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Trainspotting and of course a piece on Rebus's Edinburgh.

About the Authors:
Luisa Moncada is a London-based editor and writer, who has contributed to several volumes on children's literature, science fiction and crime fiction.
She has also published essays on gender, literature, culture and history in such books as Contemporary Poets, African American Biography, Contemporary Dramatists, Film and Filmmakers and the World and its Peoples, among others. She is the editor of New Holland’s Poems and Readings for Funerals and Memorials.
Scala Quin is an editor. She has contributed to magazines and books, writing about children’s literature, science fiction, crime fiction and popular culture.

Publisher - New Holland - NZ rrp $24.99
Huia Publishers eagerly await Pikihuia results

This year entries for short stories written in Māori has more than tripled since the last Pikihuia competition in 2009. With an overall increase of entries from the last Pikihuia Awards for Māori Writers, Huia Publishers eagerly await the judges’ selection of this year’s finalists for the Best Short Story written in Māori, Best Short Story written in English, Best Novel Extract, Best Short Film Script and Best Short Story written by a Secondary School Student. Finalists will be contacted in early June and find out if they have a chance of winning up to $2000 in prize money. 

The competition was open for three and half months from 1 January 2011, yet it was only in the last three days before the closing date that most of the entries arrived at Huia Publishers. Pikihuia Awards coordinator Dominika White commented, ‘It gets a little nerve-racking leading up to the closing date, but I shouldn’t be surprised that the majority of the entries arrive in the last week – it happens every time.’ However, Dominika was pleasantly surprised to see that more writers had attempted short film scripts, ‘I think having the script format available on the HUIA website has definitely been encouraging for first-time script writers.’

This year’s judges are Erima Henare, the Board Chair and Commissioner of Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori, who is judging the Best Short Story written in Māori; actor and director for theatre, television and the big screen Katie Wolfe, who is judging the Best Short Film Script written in English; Booker prize winner Keri Hulme, who is judging the Best Novel Extract written in English; and editor and researcher of Māori and Pacific literature Reina Whaitiri, who is judging the Best Short Story written in English.

With all of the stories read, Reina is now in the process of deciding who will go on to be Pikihuia finalists: ‘There is no common theme but nearly all have incorporated, in various ways, their Māori heritage. Most draw on Māori mythology, culture, history and our experiences in the modern world. Some are positive in making connections with their culture and some not, but generally there is an honesty and sincerity about the stories which is appealing. I am truly impressed though at how many people are writing and how many submitted their work.’

 The finalists will be publicised on the Huia Publishers website and Facebook page at the end of June. Winners will be announced at the Pikihuia Awards for Māori Writers awards ceremony on 27 August 2011 at Te Papa in Wellington. The featured artwork for the Pikihuia Awards for Māori Writers 2011 was designed by Wiremu Barriball. His artwork will also feature on this year’s book cover. Books will be launched at the awards ceremony.

Leading children's author turns to crime !

Plugged
Eoin Colfer
Published May 10, 2011 by Headline - NZ $36.99 RRP

From the bestselling author of the ‘Artemis Fowl’ children’s titles comes a menacing adult crime debut. I haven't read this yet, (actually I had a swift read of the first two chapters, a rivetting start), but today is publication date and I reckon an author of this calibre switching to crime fiction is a big plus for all of us out here who love the genre so I am giving the title a mention ahead of  my reading.

Eoin Colfer (pronounced Owen) qualified as a primary school teacher and taught in Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Italy. His first book, Benny and Omar was published in 1998, based on his experiences in Tunisia; it has since been translated into several languages. In 2001 the first book in the Artemis Fowl series was published and Eoin was able to resi gn from teaching and concentrate exclusively on writing.

The much-loved ‘Artemis Fowl’ novels have sold over 1.5 million copies. Artemis Fowl was shortlisted for the Whitbread Children’s Book of the Year and won the W.H. Smith Children’s Book of the Year Award.

The Tuesday Poem


Christchurch Poet David Gregory is at Tuesday Poem this week
Selected by editor, James Norcliffe, David Gregory's poem Push begins:

He has found the green door at last,
in a faded, jaded street.
And, slightly askew, it reflects
the slant of his memories.
And Norcliffe's introduction to the poem says: "Doors and childhood are presiding themes of David’s work, so in many ways Push can be seen as an archetypal poem. The “green door” of the opening line references, of course, the famous fifties song. "
More at Tuesday Poem. And in the sidebar you'll find a host of other poems written by Tuesday Poets from NZ, the US, the UK and Australia, or selected by them. From a classic by Yeats to a tribute to her mother by Aucklander Elizabeth Welsh, the poems are wide-ranging, stimulating, provocative, moving. Worth a look.

Stanley Tucci Cast in The Hunger Games

By Jason Boog on Galley Cat, May 9, 2011

Stanley Tucci will play Caesar Flickerman in the upcoming adaptation of Suzanne CollinsThe Hunger Games.

Dreams of His Mother

Stacy Schiff , The Daily Beast

Stacy Schiff is the author of Vera (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov), which won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for biography; Saint-Exupéry: A Biography, which was a finalist for the 1995 Pulitzer Prize; and A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America. Her latest book, Cleopatra: A Life, comes out from Little, Brown in November.

If you want to understand what shaped Barack Obama, don’t look to his father’s disappearance. Stacy Schiff says it was his unconventional mother who made him.

In 1960, before the Civil Rights Act, before the women’s movement, a smart, white 17-year-old arrived at college to find herself pregnant within a matter of weeks. The startling part was not that she dropped out of school at the end of the semester. Or that the father of the child she was carrying was from a different continent and of another color. Nor was it startling that she married him, at a time when doing so qualified as a felony in nearly half of America. Or that she divorced her husband shortly thereafter. The startling part was her conviction—as the child grew into a man—that her son was so gifted "that he can do anything he ever wants in the world, even be president of the United States." And that she was right.

"If nothing else," President Obama’s mother reminded him, "I gave you an interesting life." She made one for herself as well, unconventional and itinerant, wholly unfamiliar by the standards of the day, rich in false starts, inconveniences, and accomplishments. The only child of a Kansas couple, she had a nomadic childhood, moving seven times in 12 years, to wind up at a Seattle-area high school. As Janny Scott makes clear in her incisive biography, A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mother, the grandparents of whom he writes so affectionately had known their share of drama as well. His maternal grandfather, Obama notes, was "always running away from the familiar."
On one of his earliest excursions he ran away with his bride; Obama’s grandparents married in secret, while his grandmother was still a high-school student. Ralph Dunham was a charmer, a scribbler, and a dreamer. His wife was hardheaded and practical. For much of the marriage, Madelyn Dunham outearned her husband. In 1942 they named their daughter and only child Stanley, which may have been asking for trouble. The girl whom President Obama would describe later as "a bookish, sensitive child growing up in small towns" was much protected, especially by her father. He deemed her too young still to accept an offer for early admission to the University of Chicago. She wound up instead at the University of Hawaii, pregnant. Surely there is a parenting lesson in there somewhere.

 

Chefs’ Night Out, 2011

May 9

What can I say? Chefs are in town for the Beard Awards, last night many of them went to Chelsea Market, some of whose merchants handed out free food, and we ate, drank and were merry.

Well, there are a couple more things to say.

This year’s Chefs Night Out was much more of a James Beard Foundation-sponsored event than in previous years. As far as I could tell, Bon Appétit has stopped any sponsorship of it, which makes sense since they were holding an event on Saturday in Las Vegas. Instead, Gilt, the Food Network and the Cooking Channel were listed as sponsors, and Gilt threw the afterparty, which was also in Chelsea Market, but a different part.

Servers at the various food stations were wearing James Beard Foundation T-shirts with the word “Eat” printed vertically on them — clearly a move at more aggressive branding on the part of the foundation. Good for them, I say.

I took some pictures, which are available for your viewing pleasure at nrn.com.

Dropwords

Here in the Catican, we've all become addicted to a game on our Droid 2 called Dropwords. It's a Scrabble-y game where you find words in a table of random letters. It's loads of fun. While the dictionary of possible words is huge, it's missing some key ones.

Like these two: rewoo and rezap.

Rewoo: "Say, Mark, after your rowdy and rude behavior at the party last night, Maria is really mad at you. Looks like you're going to have to rewoo, old buddy."

Rezap: "Good Lord! The Marlokian ambassador is getting back up! You'd better rezap him before he has a chance to activate the Thrombolian Device!"

NZ Author Peter Walker – a successful first month at Thorndon’s Randell Cottage writer residency

                                             
Expatriate NZ author Peter Walker has begun his tenure as writer in residence at Randell Cottage in Thorndon, Wellington, and in one month has written nearly 15,000 words of his new novel. 

Walker works as a journalist in London, and is the author of the historical memoir The Fox Boy (Bloomsbury 2001) set in Taranaki, and a novel, The Courier’s Tale (Bloomsbury 2010), set in the court of King Henry VIII.
He is using his six months in Randell Cottage to work on a novel provisionally entitled The Watcher’s Diving, which is set in New Zealand, the US, India and Lebanon. Within a day of arriving at Randell Cottage he’d settled in at the writing desk looking out at an original rose planted by the Randell family in the late 1800s.
‘I’m going great guns. I’ve nearly finished 15,000 words already,’ says Walker.  ‘This is the joy of the place, you’re here to write and that’s the main thing. It’s so rare.’

He’s also enjoying reconnecting with Wellington. ‘It’s a small city but it’s so nifty. I love it! I remember my parents coming up from Christchurch and saying ‘it’s the city with everything’, it is.’ Walker enjoys a regular walk up the zig-zag at the end of St Mary Street where he’s living and into the city’s green belt. He says he does this every morning before he starts work and enjoys the view of the harbour.
Walker arrived in New Zealand a month before taking up his residency in early April, and took time to travel through the North Island. He began his journalism career on The Dominion newspaper in 1976 before leaving Wellington to work in Australia, and then the UK in 1986, where he worked for The Independent and Independent on Sunday, and wrote for the Financial Times and Granta.
The Randell residency hosts a NZ writer for six months over winter, and a French writer over summer. The departing French writer was poet and novelist Yann Apperry.

Modernist Cuisine is Coming to New Zealand...


 "Modernist Cuisine costs less per pound than Parmegiano Reggiano"
 - Nathan Myhrvold (Author)


"Escoffier would crap his pants."
 - Scott Heimendinger, SeattleFoodGeek.com


You have been asked, and finally we can confirm - yes, Modernist Cuisine is coming to NZ. The initial print run sold out before any stock was released outside the US, however with Taschen now confirmed as handling the International Distribution, we will be receiving stock direct from the printer in August.

We have worked with the NZ agent to try and make the book as accessible as possible, and will offer it at $925 (incl GST) - delivered within NZ (a rural delivery surcharge may apply). (rrp US$625 rrp UK£400)

In order to offer this pricing, a 50% deposit will be required to confirm your order. Once the stock arrives, the balance will be payable prior to shipping. Alternatively, you may wish to "layby" the book, and make interim payments, we can certainly set this up for you.

For further information on this unbelievable book click here! to view a 24 page extract.

Follow this link to register your interest in ordering Modernist Cuisine - please note - if you submit credit card details, your card will not be charged till we contact you to confirm your purchase.


Best Advice

From Shelf Awareness -

"Every day when I wake up in the morning and I come to work, I have no idea what's going to happen. All the books that I think are going to sell don't work, and all the books I don't think are going to work sell a lot and win awards. That's why I love this business so much."

--Random House editor Bob Loomis when asked for career advice, as

recounted by Karen Rinaldi of Rodale Books, in a New York Times profile

of the legendary editor's retirement this year.

Rowling and Oliver make ST Rich List

09.05.11 | Katie Allen- The Bookseller

Pearson, Blackwell and Jamie Oliver are a few book trade names to make it onto the Sunday Times Rich List 2011.
Vincent Cowdray and the Pearson Family were jointly in at number 64, with the family up £165m on last year’s figure. According to the newspaper, the family stake in Pearson is worth £890m (around 10% of the group), and with assets and dividends, the family is now worth £1,015m.

In at 357 is Nigel Blackwell and family, worth £185m, down £45m on last year’s figure.

Authors in the top 1,000 include Harry Potter author J K Rowling, in at number 142. Her earnings have grown 2% or £11m on last year, to £530m. Others reaping rewards from the Potter franchise include literary agent Christopher Little, worth £45m.
Chef, author, restaurateur and campaigner Jamie Oliver’s earnings rank him at 679, up £63% or £41m on last year, to £106m.
Jeffrey Archer, (right)whose Only Time Will Tell, the first of five-part Bristol-based epic the Clifton Chronicles, is out this week from Macmillan, is at number 583, up 85%, or £55m, to a personal fortune of £120m. The newspaper reckons Archer has sold 320m novels worldwide, and has earned book deals of around £54m.
The newspaper also estimates fortunes for Barbara Taylor Bradford of £181m, Jackie Collins of £60m, Jack Higgins of £55m, Ken Follett (left)) of £50m and Terry Pratchett of £42m.
If Russian billionaire Alexander Mamut is successful in buying Waterstone's, he would become the highest ranking book trade individual on the list, with a fortune of £1.82bn. The 51-year-old is ranked 34th overall and was a new entry in this year's list.

The annual list is based on the newspaper’s estimates of the minimum wealth of Britain’s 1,000 richest people or families, with the valuations carried out at the beginning of January 2011.

Random rushes Bin Laden digital exclusive

The Bookseller - 09.05.11 | Charlotte Williams

Random House is publishing its first "instant e-book exclusive" with William Heinemann's rapid response to the death of Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden.
Beyond Bin Laden: The Future of Terror will be published tomorrow (10th May) as an e-book and audio download, both priced £2.99.
Senior editor Drummond Moir acquired UK and Commonwealth (ex Canada) rights to the collection of essays through Denise Cronin at Random House Inc.
Edited by Pulitzer Prize winner Jon Meacham, the essays look at the future of Al Qaeda, Aghanistan and Pakistan. Written by experts such as former US Army officer Andrew Exum and former US secretary of state, James A Baker III, they examine the political, military and cultural implications of the "war on terror" following Bin Laden's death.
Moir said: "It was conceived last Monday and we bought it on Friday. It's an experiment and it's very exciting." On the subject matter, Moir added: "It's huge news. The essays are very insightful, it has a huge breadth to it. [The essays] have a relevance, we thought it was important to publish it in the UK as well . . . It's an exciting project, it's timely."
He added there were currently no plans to publish in a physical edition at a later date.

Garlic prawns with lardo, roast tomatoes, and feta

I had a bunch of prawns left over from Friday night because I made prawn saganaki (not a japanese dish by the way) and didn't use them all. I was going to post that recipe but somehow I made what should have been a simple dish, super complicated by introducing a whole load of new steps. As I'm not too good at writing things down, it probably would have ended in disaster for anyone who tried to follow my "throw in a bit of this, cook it till it looks ready" instructions. Plus all the photos turned out badly, and there's nothing worse than a food blog with crappy photos; "hey check out this disgusting looking thing I made! You want the recipe?" I may be a bit shallow, but to me that's a bit like looking at "Readers' Wives". 


So anyway, I had about 15 prawns left and Poppy was hungry mid afternoon on Saturday. I started to make gambas al ajillo, which is really simple, but as  I am a man of pork (unfortunately not the John Holmes kind) I decided to add some lardo. lardo is salty cured pork fat and the stuff that I get from the Santa Caterina market is the creamy Iberico belly kind.  If you get it sliced thin enough, use it to blanket hot, garlic-rubbed toast and it melts down like butter. 




Then as I began to pull stuff out of the fridge, I found a few other ingredients to add, and so the dish ended up looking a little more like this. Poppy and I both agreed that as a dining experience, it was quite like smoking crack*.


Recipe


12-16 shelled green prawns
5 cloves of garlic, peeled and  thickly sliced
a slice of lardo or a couple of thin slices of pancetta, finely chopped
a handful of slow roasted tomatoes, chopped (you can substitute with the sun-dried variety)
a sprig of rosemary
a handful of chopped flat leaf parsley
80g feta cheese


Preheat the oven to 240c or as high as that little baby will go.


Pour 50ml of olive oil into a heavy bottomed saucepan over a medium heat. Put the lardo and rosemary in the pan and simmer slowly until the lardo starts to melt away. 







Throw in the garlic, and cook nice and easy. You don't want the garlic to brown, you want it to go translucent and soft, this is important. Now add the tomato and warm it all through. You can remove the rosemary at this stage if you want, it's only there to add a subtle perfume. I did not.





Toss in the prawns  and immediately turn to coat in the oil. Crumble the feta all over the top and put straight into the smoking hot oven. Cook for 5 to 8 minutes, or until the feta is golden brown and melting into the oil. Be careful not to cook the prawns for too long or they will go tough and rubbery. 



Sprinkle the flat leaf parsley and squeeze some lemon juice over the top and serve immediately. Make sure you have fresh crusty bread to mop up all the sticky stuff at the bottom on the pan. 






Poppy had to really struggle with herself to share some with our daughter. I on the other hand was very generous.








This is Poppy mopping up the tangy garlic oil. By the end of it, she was actually displaying some common behaviours of a crack fiend. She now rocks dookie braids.




* Poppy and I have never smoked crack, but we imagine that it is the drug equivalent of this dish.