%%USERNAME%%    %%ACCWORDS%% %%ONOFF%% |
 Items to fit into your overhead compartment |
|
Carrion Luggage  Native to the Americas, the turkey vulture (Cathartes aura) travels widely in search of sustenance. While usually foraging alone, it relies on other individuals of its species for companionship and mutual protection. Sometimes misunderstood, sometimes feared, sometimes shunned, it nevertheless performs an important role in the ecosystem. This scavenger bird is a marvel of efficiency. Rather than expend energy flapping its wings, it instead locates uplifting columns of air, and spirals within them in order to glide to greater heights. This behavior has been mistaken for opportunism, interpreted as if it is circling doomed terrestrial animals destined to be its next meal. In truth, the vulture takes advantage of these thermals to gain the altitude needed glide longer distances, flying not out of necessity, but for the joy of it. It also avoids the exertion necessary to capture live prey, preferring instead to feast upon that which is already dead. In this behavior, it resembles many humans. It is not what most of us would consider to be a pretty bird. While its habits are often off-putting, or even disgusting, to members of more fastidious species, the turkey vulture helps to keep the environment from being clogged with detritus. Hence its Latin binomial, which translates to English as "golden purifier." I rarely know where the winds will take me next, or what I might find there. The journey is the destination. |
| Bread is food. Everything else is a condiment. From Vox: Sorry, it’s true: The US really does have crappy bread  The difference between a baguette here and in France is a matter of law. And don't get me (re)started on the differences in cheese. Have you ever gone on a trip to another country and thought, “Why does the food here taste so much better than the food in America?” No. I mean, yes, I've gone on trips to other countries. But I just take the "why" as a given. Yes, the fact that you’re in a new and exciting environment is a factor. I'm assuming the article is about vacationers, not soldiers. But you also aren’t imagining things: other countries have different ways of preparing and producing food that factor into what you’re tasting as well. And yet, it's not always "better," which is largely a matter of personal taste, anyway. Take the French baguette: that iconic bread that brings to mind berets and bicycling along the famous Champs-Élysées avenue as accordion music plays in the background. Arrêtez avec les stereotypes. I know I've mentioned this before, but there's a bakery near me that makes excellent baguettes (and other breads, and pastries). The baguettes there are, in my opinion, superior to any I had in France. Before you start dusting off the guillotine, France, I freely admit that most of the bread I had there was in hotels, and they likely sourced cheaper loaves. And don't get me wrong; they were delicious. I'm just lucky to live in a town with a really good artisanal bakery. According to Eric Pallant, the author of Sourdough Culture: A History of Bread Making from Ancient to Modern Bakers, that image is no accident; France is so invested in its bread that the country made a law protecting it from the encroaching mass-produced bread market. If only we could have done that in the US with beer. The rest of the article is a podcast transcript with more from Pallant. Just one more quote from him: For 6,000 years, nobody knew what made bread rise. It was just magic. You put this glop called sourdough starter into a dough, and like magic, it rises. By the 1870s, 1880s, Louis Pasteur discovered that yeast are living things. Beer was magic until then, too, and for much the same reason. (Oh, who am I kidding? It's still magic.) And, let's see, what nationality was Pasteur, again? Ironically (maybe), French cheese is so good because much of it is not made from pasteurized milk. And no, I'm not agreeing with a certain public official here; raw milk is dangerous. But the cheesemaking process all but eliminates that danger in cheese. There's still a very tiny chance of bad things happening, but a) people in the US have died from eating fuckin' lettuce and b) good cheese is worth the infinitesimal risk. As usual, there's more at the link if you're interested. The one downside of the local bakery I mentioned? Because they don't use preservatives, you gotta eat the bread pretty much the same day you buy it. Or, well, I seem to have cracked the code: Freeze it and eat it within a week or so. One more interesting thing: in the French versions of fairy tales, what we call a magic wand, they call une baguette. I find this highly appropriate. |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
