Briefs
Wednesday, November 30th, 2022
Thursday, May 26th, 2022
The Londonist surveys Platinum Jubilee afternoon teas. Lovely foodie photography.
Tuesday, April 5th, 2022
Cool — Bloomberg’s Pret Index shows that coffee sales at UK airports are now higher than pre-pandemic.
Friday, September 24th, 2021
It’s the greatest gig in the world, being alive; you get to eat at Denny’s, wear a hat, whatever you wanna do.
Norm Macdonald
Tuesday, August 31st, 2021
In googling what appears to me the flimsiness of the Jewish edict to not eat milk with meat, I came across Michael Harvey’s Times of Israel blog post “Why Separate Milk and Meat?” in which he argues it’s all a misreading of the word “milk” in “You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.”
The word for milk features certain vowels underneath to make the sound of chalev, distinguishing the word from others. Why is this important? Well, there happens to be another Hebrew word with the exact same letters, Chet, Lamed, Vet, but is pronounced, instead of chalev, chaylev. And that is the word for fat, as seen in such passages as Leviticus 7:23: “You shall eat no fat of ox or sheep or goat.” Could this commandment have actually been referencing fat instead of milk?
Tuesday, January 26th, 2021
Ra’anana-based Vertical Field signed with Emirates Smart Solutions & Technologies (ESST) to build a pilot of its vertical farms in the United Arab Emirates. Major cool.
Wednesday, December 16th, 2020
The first lab-grown chicken meat will be served at a Singapore restaurant this weekend!
Sunday, January 26th, 2020
Tuesday, September 24th, 2019
“By far the most important factor in determining whether a boiled egg will peel cleanly or not is the temperature at which it starts cooking.” There’s just too many quotable quotes in this first entry in a new New York Times series on the science of cooking. I think the Grey Lady has finally found a useful niche.
Tuesday, September 17th, 2019
This Gates Foundation presentation on global inequality is clear, straightforward, well-written, nicely illustrated with animated graphs, and surely worth the time of anyone who can access it.
Monday, August 26th, 2019
It’s a Kentucky Fried Miracle: KFC will sell meatless Beyond Fried Chicken.
Saturday, December 15th, 2018
Ashdod-based Aleph Farms is growing bovine steak within 3 weeks.
Tuesday, December 11th, 2018
A screed we need: “When Supplements Become Substitutes” by Joshua Mitchell in the redoubtable City Journal. This conceptual framework clarifies much of what Western societies are concerned about regarding themselves.
Saturday, November 17th, 2018
“Respected journalist” Joel Golby has pulled off a rather spectacular series of mini-essays for Vice in Choose Your Own Adventure: Friday Night Edition!. More relevant perhaps for people say a quarter of a century younger than me, but one can appreciate.
Wednesday, August 30th, 2017
From Dore Gold’s JCPA: The Jews are among the oldest of indigenous peoples.
Tuesday, July 4th, 2017
Robots don’t eat chocolate. James Meek weaves a rich tale of Cadbury’s moving its chocolate factory from Bristol in England to Skarbimierz in Poland. We get EU politics, British commercial history and contemporary Polish politics. It’s a microcosm of the economic game of musical chairs happening in our era. [via Tyler Cowen’s marginalrevolution.com]
Saturday, June 24th, 2017
He had me with his first-paragraph mention of Trattoria Da Enzo, my favorite. I’ve forwarded to visitors this panegyric to Rome by the incoming New York Times’ bureau chief. A lot of attractive restaurants mentioned and described. [via Juan Carlos Bronstein, who was unimpressed by the tone, as are many others in the comments]
Tuesday, January 10th, 2017
A double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled, cross-over feeding trial conducted for eight weeks at the University of New Mexico demonstrated that eating walnuts improves men’s mood (but interestingly not women’s). I announce here my love them with raisins, that’s 5 per half-walnut.
Thursday, December 1st, 2016
Gut: the inside story of our body's most under-rated organ
Giulia Enders
It’s arguably a profound and important book in that it can change our self-perception to one that’s closer to the truth.
Putting aside some questionable attempts at humor, the core of the book is an engaging, informed Fantastic Voyage from in the mouth all the way to out the bottom. I’ve seen so many images of our digestive system but never been presented with the process as a clear narrative, with emphasis on the differences between the organs involved and the inflection points between them.
Thursday, August 11th, 2016
Brightonians spend more on coffee than Londoners.
Monday, July 11th, 2016
These small things—nutrition, locality, climate, recreation, the entire casuistry of selfishness—are inconceivably more important than everything that has hitherto been considered important.
Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce Homo
Friday, June 3rd, 2016
“You can’t cross the species barrier but, by bumping up against it, you can learn things.” In The New Yorker, Joshua Rothman surveys ventriloquism of the soul. “Tolstoy’s animals teach us to be good,” he explains. “Joyce’s teach us to be alive.” [via aldaily.com]
Saturday, April 23rd, 2016
Possibly the world’s most important story at the moment? American middle-class impoverishment, or as the author—himself afflicted—calls it, financial impotence.
Sunday, December 28th, 2014
Zoe Harcombe investigates the WHO data and demonstrates that higher cholesterol = longer life.
Thursday, September 12th, 2013
Monday, August 12th, 2013
Dr Mark Post of Maastricht University serves the world’s first non-lethal hamburger.
Thursday, March 21st, 2013
Jeffrey Goldberg imagines what Obama would really like to be doing on his visit to Israel.
Friday, March 8th, 2013
Surely the definitive article about internet wunderkind Aaron Swartz. Only eating white or yellow food seems a glaring sign that not everything there was quite right.
Thursday, December 13th, 2012
7,500-year-old cheese discovered. “The most important ingredient for cheese-making is milk and only domesticates can be milked. Thus, it is unlikely that the origins of cheese-making predates the Neolithic,” says the researcher breezily.
Wednesday, October 17th, 2012
Humans evolved to run long distances, argues Daniel Lieberman, Professor of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard, and the evolutionary approach helps us use our bodies better. Great stuff!
Tuesday, October 9th, 2012
Chart showing cancer rates around the world.
Tuesday, July 10th, 2012
Prescribing a new bit of etiquette: the phone stack. Everyone places their phone facedown in the center of the restaurant table. Whoever picks theirs up, pays the bill.
Sunday, July 1st, 2012
Exhaustive and wonderful list of what Alli Magidsohn expects to miss upon leaving Israel after 7 years, published by the impressive David Horowitz’s new The Times of Israel. (Not so sure about “the ferocity of celebration here” though, at least among the non-religious.)
Wednesday, March 28th, 2012
Complete Guide to Urine Therapy. I think I’m sold.
Monday, December 26th, 2011
Thursday, December 15th, 2011
Sunday, October 23rd, 2011
We need to go back to nature in order to move forward. Amazing futuristic ways to be smart about energy in your own house by Philips at Dutch Design Week.
Monday, October 10th, 2011
Monday, August 8th, 2011
“Gutted” by Steven Shapin in the London Review of Books is a wonderful tour of the boyn unfortunately is interesting and relevant to me.
Thursday, August 4th, 2011
My guy Daniel Doron in the WSJ on Israel’s cottage cheese rebellion. Lots of sensible, knowledgeable input in the comments section as well, such as from Naif Mabat.
Sunday, July 24th, 2011
Vivid, loving portrait of the beach at Brighton that gets in some of my own favorites, like Jack and Linda’s Smokehouse.
Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011
Michael Totten reposts his masterly visit to Tripoli in light of Libya’s pending liberation.
Saturday, February 12th, 2011
A valuable rant against gourmands/gluttons.
Friday, January 14th, 2011
Tuesday, April 13th, 2010
“Hash browns, yes or no?” “Never. They’re American.” On the English breakfast and thereby Britain itself.
Wednesday, March 31st, 2010
The daily activities most associated with happiness are having sex, socializing after work and having dinner. The daily activity most injurious to happiness is commuting.
David Brooks
Monday, February 22nd, 2010
The Beginning of Wisdom
Leon R. Kass
The book of the Book. I am biased but there is just so much here, and the good doctor is such graciously juicy writerly company. I especially like the Babel treatment.
Sunday, January 31st, 2010
Where Should I Eat? Fast Food Edition. Excellent flowchart.
Tuesday, January 26th, 2010
Dr Mercola’s most in-depth article ever. Here’s the skinny on high fructose corn syrup.
