Kitchen Scars

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Cooking is not something that I—what’s the word?—ah, yes: “Do.”

One does not live to be 47 without some food here and there, so I have eaten a thing or two most of the days I have spent here, and I must have even prepared a meal or a few in order to have made it this far. And I was not left to forage in the woods behind our house when I was growing up; my mom is an excellent and health-conscious cook. Thanks to her early adoption of a low- and sometimes no-salt kitchen, my heart will probably continue beating long after the rest of me has permanently allowed all my subscriptions to lapse.

This is not to say that I do not remember eating or cooking; oh, I do. My cooking is not memorable, though, in either direction: tasty treat or sublime sludge. I almost envy the good writers who are bad cooks (not as much as I envy the non-writers who are good cooks), because at least something interesting comes from their culinary assaults on taste and decency.
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Today in History: May 1

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Today is May Day. Much of the world celebrates the day as a festival of spring, with colorful things like maypoles (see above) and other expressions of joy at the season’s general Spring-ness. Much of the world also celebrates May 1 as International Workers’ Day, a form of Labor Day.

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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s opera The Marriage of Figaro received its premiere 230 years ago today at the Burgtheater in Vienna. Mozart conducted the first two performances himself. The Overture (below the fold):
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Off the Shelf

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Today is #IndependentBookstoreDay (‎@BookstoreDay). Here is my ode to booksellers, and here is a map to find an indie near you: http://indiemap.bookweb.org/

Mark Aldrich's avatarThe Gad About Town

My girlfriend says it is like watching a kid in a candy store when we visit a book store. I suddenly appear to have multiple arms, like a Hindu deity, and my stride becomes a purposeful lurch.

Any purpose to my stride can be attributed to my knowing that she is not much of a fan of shopping at all, and less of a fan of browsing, of idling, in a store whose shelves are taller than six feet and could crush us.

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