The Cost of Eating Well

I’d really like some feedback on this one. In his excellent (and not at all snobbish) food blog “Bitten”, which I discovered via Rod Dreher, NYT writer Mark Bittman presents the now – notorious viewpoint of English celebrity cook Delia Smith. “Delia Smith, probably Britain’s best-known and best-selling cookbook author, says celebrity chefs should stay …

Read more

Book Meme

This particular meme, via Eve Tushnet, seems irresistible for the bookish. 1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).2. Open the book to page 123.3. Find the fifth sentence.4. Post the next three sentences.5. Tag five people. OK: as usual I am reading about eight books but the nearest physically is John …

Read more

Convergent Pigeons

Reader Mike Spies, who has a place in Jamaica, noticed that wild White- crowned pigeons (Columba leucocephala) resident there resembled some white- capped Catalonian tumblers he had seen on the blog. Of course, “Cats” are only one of the myriad breeds of Darwin’s pets, domestic pigeons descended from the Rock dove (Columba livia.) But the …

Read more

AR, ID, and Evo

In the fascinating blog “ERV”, scroll down the post to the header “Tard Fight”, where blogger S. A. Smith gives us the edifying spectacle of two creationists bashing each other over Animal Rights, one arguing that if evolution is right then so is PETA and the other, I guess, that Jesus was a veggie and …

Read more

Monday Links

A movie I must see: a so- called “Mongol Western” about Chengiz. See also here; director Sergei Bodrov has also made a Kazakh epic. Beelzebufo: “prehistoric frog from Hell”. (Do not confuse horned frogs with horned lizards!) The best way to handle invasive species. I want his forthcoming book– his last was very good. Peculiar …

Read more

Late entry

I just got around to posting a couple of Steve’s pics in a blog below “Seasons Change.” Scroll on down and check it out.

Seasons change

My young Harris, Ernie, has been gaining weight on a steady diet of thawed cotton rats, the by-product of six months’ field work on birds and rabbits—His first season of falconry ended two weeks ago. Today Ernie is almost 200 grams over hunting weight (which, he being such a tame hawk, was never very low); …

Read more

Wood Heat

Also from the New York Times: annoying poor people are firing up their dirty old woodstoves. I’ll give up my grimy old stove (80+ years– the woman who sold me the house, in her seventies, said it was their only heat and cook stove when she was young, and not new) when the Times buys …

Read more

The Box

Spring weather led us out in search of a legendary canyon this weekend. It is only twelve or so miles away, but all of this is off- pavement and a lot is through a river bed. Finally , you have to cross two ranches and I wasn’t sure what “jurisdiction” the box itself was in. …

Read more

Links

More and longer and prettier soon, but here is the usual presentation of friends, foes, follies, and gallimaufry, not to mention science.. Which first: a very old bat. (Zimmer has also devoted a new site to his collection of “Science tattoos”. Love that Archaeopteryx!) The long- distant migrant known as the red knot is in …

Read more