Just finished this on Friday. It's already brought me into new taste experiences-- I had no idea what sweet vermouth is before, but it's a lovely mixer. And without her introduction to Drambuie (a Scotch-based infusion) I was thinking I might have to resign my peerage due to failure to qualify on the Scotch-tasting front.


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This classic text on medieval herbs from the Cloisters has finally been declared out of print by the Met and is available for download!http://www

• Earle, Rebecca. The body of the conquistador: food, race, and the colonial experience in Spanish America, 1492-1700. Cambridge, 2012. (My note: review says it uses the framework of "humoralism" ie. how Spaniards saw their food experience in America in terms of humoral theory.)
• Getty Research Portal, from the J. Paul Getty Trust.  Internet Resource. ( Read more... )

Miss B. was just finishing a book, and I knew she'd be casting about for something new, so I handed her Mister Monday by Garth Nix. (Ok, I'd suggested it before, but she had taken it to Florida and then left it in a knapsack with a decaying lunch; it was now aired out enough and I'd re-read it.) She said she'd read it next. A little while later, I ( Read more... )

Wade Rouse. At least in the city someone would hear me scream: Misadventures in search of the simple lifeRouse convinced his partner, Gary, that they should move out of the big city (Chicago) to their summer house in an area he calls "Gayberry", so that he (Rouse) could live a modern day Thoreau-like transformation ( Read more... )

Library journal does a rundown on: Long Ships and Broadswords: Viking Fiction
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6611608.html

Does anyone have a copy of this ( Read more... )

Does anyone else reading this enjoy the Sister Frevisse 15th century mystery series (starting with The Novice's Tale) by Margaret Frazer? Do you also find that you are reminded of people you know (especially if you're in the SCA) by certain of her characters?

I have had a cold for about a week. Beekman apparently had severe ickage (growth spurt? developmental frustration? poor sleep patterns? Mommy ate the wrong things?) for the last two days, so I'm at home today recovering; tomorrow I hope to head north to show him to his great-grandmother, 6 hours away.

Sandra Boyton is a genius; we got Hippos Go ( Read more... )

I have these out because they have illustrations that predate 1922, but I'm returning them during my leave ( Read more... )