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The Catholic Food Manual: Menu Planning and Recipes for 6 to 600

by Brother Herman E Zaccarelli, C.S.C., 1960 Someday, perhaps, I will feature Brother Zaccarelli’s horrifyingly sexist advice on managing an (ideally!) all female (and so emotional!) cafeteria staff, but today, his recipe for Tuna Bunsteads! I made a (small) batch, and it’s good stuff. Tuna Bunsteads Ingredients 100 portions 50 portions 12 portions Cheese, American, […]

Ramen and the Future

In Japan, ramen is an art form you can dedicate your life to perfecting, in some tiny shop in the warrens of the city. And in my hometown, it’s a 10 cent lunch. But outside my fevered faux poetic brain it is also 10 cents in Japan and can be had at some fairly greasy […]

Bits and Bobs

If more than 30 percent of the student body pledges to abstain from sex, it doesn’t work, again showing that evangelical Christians need to feel persecuted. A telecoms-based order of nuns answers phones at the Vatican (except at night). A Newfoundland specialty, the Jiggs Dinner!

Cooking a la Ritz

by Louis Diat, Chef, Ritz-Carlton Hotel, New York, 1941 A 524 page long book of recipes from the famous restaurant, supposedly for the American housewife. I think most American housewives would look on this beast with horror in their eyes. It’s packed with horrifically complex sauces and dishes containing huge ingredients lists, each requiring extensive […]

Half a Crown Review

Half a Crown, Walton. Yes. In most respects this last volume is the best of Walton’s “Small Change” series (Farthing and Ha’penny being the first two). I don’t know how long it’s been since I last burned through the final third or so of a book in one sitting, but Walton succeeded completely in making […]

Now and Forever Review

Now and Forever, Bradbury. No. Now and Forever comprises two novellas: “Somewhere a Band Is Playing” and “Leviathan ’99”. Both had been kicking around Bradbury’s head for a long time, and I don’t think the extended simmering did either of them any good. The former work is merely unremarkable; the latter was nearly too overwrought […]

Space Solartron Review

Tom Swift and His Space Solartron, Appleton. Yes. This was really more of an historical exercise than a book reading. I’m satisfied that I have now read as many Tom Swift books as I ever need to, and they’re really not very good. I was impressed with the accuracy of some of the scientific speculations, […]

Old friend found again

I loved the Bell Labs Text to Speech synthesizer demo ten years ago, but the bookmark got misrouted in the Lucent spin-out. Fortunately, Google works; so I was able to make synthesized voices say arbitrary things again, and you can, too.