Bacon Mania

I have heard that my great-grandmother Lizzy from Danville, Virginia invented the peanut butter and bacon sandwich but I have also read that it was included in early editions of the Joy of Cooking. Regardless, it is a favorite in my family and I wish I had one right now (hint: the bacon must be very well done and crispy but that is true of bacon in general).

Interestingly, there is a resurgence of interest in bacon although some argue it is not healthy! Wiley did a Bacon Cookbook after I left (poor planning, my father would say). NPR has a really delicious looking picture of bacon cookies (I will omit the pecans) on its site today and a story about bacon mania. Yes, I realize those who know my 16th century roots (so to speak) would be more likely to expect I'd be blogging about Francis Bacon! Instead, I just made you hungry.

The Great White Whale

People in my book group also swear I would like Moby Dick if I gave it the chance but I am unconvinced...

Shampoo

Something had to go when I began law school, as 24 hours was insufficient to work full time, get a JD, occasionally eat, sleep, exercise, and read my email.* I kept the Betsy-Tacy list, and rarely skipped a message, even if it was midnight before I had a change to read them all. I kept the Georgette Heyer list, although often I had to delete those without reading them (even in digest form, they accumulated). I did, however, cancel my subscription to Girlsown, the boarding school story listserv. It had often been enjoyable - and my love of school stories continues unabated - but some of the discussions focused on series I didn't follow, such as the Chalet School** or the Abbey series.

And without fail, this group always returned to the most bizarre topic - hair washing. There was always a faction (the Americans and the younger Brits) who insisted daily hair washing is essential. Yet there was an odd faction that tried to assert that once a month was just fine, and that once your hair/scalp adjust, your hair doesn't "need" daily washing. Okay, I don't care if you have dirty hair or not, so long as I don't have to touch it, but the arguments became tedious. This sort of discussion group only works if people discuss the books. I said goodbye to Girlsown, but stayed in touch with the members I like. And my friend Sam forwards me any particularly juicy messages.

Still, I was amused to see this article on NPR on that very hair washing topic today! One caption in the article is: "Skipping Shampoos Is, Well, Un-American." I am amused to know I could start WWIII by forwarding it to the Girlsown list . . .

* Although often short of time, I consider hair washing an essential activity.
* This is not to say I haven't read the Chalet School books. I first came across them in a Bermuda bookshop when I was 11, and was allowed to buy three. Naturally, I chose The School at the Chalet as that begins the series. However, for some unknown reason it never captured me the way other books and series have. Which may be just as well - I have enough obsessions already.

Bargain Hunting for Books

This NYT article about book bargain hunters points out that no industry undermined by its greatest partisans will thrive long. It's true - gone are the days when I happily spent $1,000/year on books (and I don't think that included my law books, which were certainly expensive) and who could love books more than I do?

I alternate between thinking I left publishing at the right time and wishing I were still at Wiley where I could do my job in my sleep - and some of my colleagues surely did. It was a great place in many ways but definitely one of those companies where 10% of the people (mostly sales and editorial) did 90% of the work. And don't even try to get something done on Fridays when quite a few individuals said they were working from home. This would have been more convincing if they ever responded to email. It always annoyed me that my ability to get my job done was negatively impacted by their laziness or desire to spend time with their kids.

My friend Charlotte was interviewed on NPR on the state of the industry.

It's not fair!

I am devoted to my nieces and nephews but they all know that one thing I can't stand is complaints of "It's not fair!" With my eldest nephew, I simply leave the room (like my grandmother who never really believes I will hang up on her, he always seems surprised when I actually depart). So it is somewhat disturbing to learn that dogs have an intuitive understanding of fair play and become resentful if they feel that another dog is getting a better deal . . . Is there nowhere to hide? Let us hope they are more accurate/sparing in their assessments of such situations!

Fragile X Syndrome

I'm very proud of my college classmates, Katie Clapp and her husband, Michael Tranfaglia (who I think was in my freshman dorm), who started a group called FRAXA to research treatment for Fragile X Syndrome, a genetic disorder which can cause mental retardation and autism. It takes amazing people to do more than simply cope with their own family stresses and challenges.

It was not the first time but it is still startling to wake up and hear NPR interviewing a classmate! One feels very ordinary and underachieving going to work after that!

Election coverage

NPR has had the most entertaining stories about the media coverage of Sarah Palin, and how the best way for the Republicans to garner support is to bash the media.

Judith Warner has a good piece in today's NYT. And the rock group, Heart, tells the GOP not to play their old hit Barracuda for Sarah Palin:

"Here's a statement by Ann and Nancy Wilson:
'Sarah Palin's views and values in NO WAY represent us as American women. We ask that our song 'Barracuda' no longer be used to promote her image. The song 'Barracuda' was written in the late 70s as a scathing rant against the soulless, corporate nature of the music business, particularly for women. (The 'barracuda' represented the business.) While Heart did not and would not authorize the use of their song at the RNC, there's irony in Republican strategists' choice to make use of it there.'"

Other musicians have expressed similar views.

Summer Reading

Nancy Pearl, who is a charming and energetic librarian-turned-book personality, discussed the horror of being stuck on a plane without a book on NPR the other day and provided Summer 2008 reading recommendations. I thought they would all be recent fiction or nonfiction, so was delighted to see An Infamous Army (and also Sunshine by Robin McKinley - I can see its rank shot right up on Amazon). Pearl is also a fan of Betsy-Tacy.

Can six words describe you?

Heard on NPR: "Once asked to write a full story in six words, legend has it that novelist Ernest Hemingway responded: 'For Sale: baby shoes, never worn.'

In this spirit of simple yet profound brevity, the online magazine Smith asked readers to write the story of their own lives in a single sentence. The result is Not Quite What I Was Planning, a collection of six-word memoirs by famous and not-so-famous writers, artists and musicians. Their stories are sometimes sad, often funny — and always concise.

I keep trying to think of a good one but have only come up with:

I came, I saw, I giggled... or Why is it always 1 am?

I think I prefer Haiku.

Chocolate Bread

I talk about cooking a lot more than I actually do anything about it, and like Betsy Ray, I am able to make a company dinner and little else. However, I own an new and as yet unused silicone loaf pan waiting to be filled, and I now realize chocolate bread is clearly the right choice for this project. Just read this description from NPR and drool...

If you like your chocolate gooey and compliant, you could pop a slice in the toaster. If you like your chocolate firm, dark and potent, you could eat it as it was. Either way, the bread was mouth-filling, faintly decadent and addictive in both the short and long term.

Either way? For a second, I thought I had to choose!

Have you played FreeRice?

I was interested to hear about FreeRice on NPR (why on earth did I never listen to NPR before moving to Boston? Of course, I didn't own a car previously so listened to the radio much less often). For each word you guess right, they will donate 20 grains of rice through the UN to alleviate world hunger. Today I wasn't sure about "helicoid" but it sounded like helicopter, so I went with "spiral" and was equally dubious about "larboard" but it was "glacis" that broke my streak. . .

Have you been wondering about Figgy Pudding?

My dear friend Marlene and her family invited me to accompany them to Boston's Christmas Revels on Sunday, which I enjoyed very much (as did the Boston Globe).

I noticed Marlene and I were both amused by the lyrics of We Wish You a Merry Christmas which went:

Now bring us some figgy pudding,
Now bring us some figgy pudding.
Now bring us some figgy pudding
And bring it right here!

We won't go until we get some,
We won't go until we get some,
We won't go until we get some,
So bring it right here!

Today, NPR officially answered all our questions by asking baking expert and cookbook author Dorie Greenspan and All Things Considered host Michele Norris to prepare figgy pudding, and this article even includes a recipe (it looks good and they swear it doesn't taste like fruitcake but maybe it is better to sing about than to eat).

Spam vs. Bacon

I am very intrigued by a new term I heard about on NPR and want to alert my old friends in Cleveland, the editors of the definitive dictionary, Webster's New World (we will have to see if it catches on). We all get tons of email we don't want to read but it falls into different types of junk mail (just as my snail mail does). First there was spam. Now there is bacn (pronounced "bacon"), the latest buzzword to infiltrate the Internet.

Spam is junk email like those neverending messages about Viagra or from people in Africa seeking money but according to NPR, bacn is e-mail you want to read — just not now.

I used to think it was funny/annoying that whenever I asked B&N.com to send a targeted email to their customers about a certain book, using buying history, they would argue that they didn't want to overload these people's email boxes. But they certainly don't hesitate to send me messages that rarely relate to my interests. What, I'm not special?