A Fork in the Road

Table of Contents
Consider the Twinkie
Carrot cashew curry  in Stolen apples Yankee pot roast
chasing the tail of chiuchow - strips of taro frosted with silvery sugar
An Italian Education
Annabel Langbein
Afloat On the Amazon
Omar Sharif slept here
Cassoulet  Vs Cassoulet
Cuisine by Design
Green chile chicken with spring vegetables 

100 Greatest photographs to ever appear in Arizona Highways magazine

Hum

Jamaal May

Whos Who at the Zoo

Year of No sugar

Year of no sugar

I have stopped having sugar in tea since I started the 100 diet 
about 2 months now.
But I still need to have some sugar in coffee as it tastes bitter even with cream.
Today I was at a point if I should add sugar to my coffee.  I like tea for its a hot drink, so I dont miss sugar too much.
I am much into sweets. But cookies rule me. Its the crunch that gets me. Are gooey things more sweet?

Five-plant Gardens

Wow. Like flower arrangement, arrangements of plants in a garden.

Five strides on the banked track

I read about Roller Derby in Frank Deford's previous book Over Time. If you have heard his commentary on NPR, you cant help but read the book in his tone.
'The Roller derby prospers, rocking and whirring,exciting its own, nurturing its young. It was designed on a tablecloth..'
Deford's writing technique moves with contrasting images of high activity and a tablecloth.
Like Meads study on Samoans, Hemingway's on Bull fighting, this will be the last word on Roller Derby.


Nowadays people mostly want to read about things they are already familiar with 

Never Ever shout in a Zoo

With Zoo theme at day care, my daughter read this book yesterday.
I didnt guess what would happen if you shouted in a zoo. The illustrations of all the animals of the zoo in one activity creates immediacy.
The verses itself catch on to you fast as each line adds a new word like a magnet attaching links. Remind sme of my poem Count to believe.

Never mail an Elephant

Mike thaler

Its Zoo theme this week.
From the title, I thought the story was going to be about sending a letter to an elephant. But the actual story is different. Next time I look for a stamp, I am always gonna think about reams and reams of stamps needed to mail .. you will know what, when you read the book.
Today my daughter read this at her day care.

Poetry of Witness

Yannis Ritsos
Paul Celan
Nazim Hikmet
Paul Eluard
Sergei Yesenin

exercise:

1. What would your breathcrystal poem  be?
2. Schwarz Milk - Black Milk to Schwarzenegger meaning German Names
Black Milk  - Oil is the black milk of the world
3. cent pour cent - one hundred percent
   Heard it a lot back home in India
4. What  Realia would describe you?
5. Chestnut covers
 Admiring paper of Chestnut Tree
Our Ancestors didnt know   
A book would become an Albatross
6. Alexandrine

Is Internet really the answer?

On Twitter, we keep following what we like. Linkedin shows you similar and you might know and related links. With this Big Data, will some day we actually know what we are looking for?

Blaise Lantana

I heard  Blaise lantana say 'I am Blaise Lantana' at  Chandler Jazz Festival. The music was fun. we all danced to it.

Belgian Malinois 

Monster High Password Journal

Monster High

You have to say the password to see how rad the journal is. Diary has come a long way from the times of Samuel Pepys. It feels as sci-fi as the cars with doors that open upwards like wings. The invisible ink is cool too. Only you have to keep moving the journal close to the light, to read what you have written. It would have been better if we could adjust the light to fall on the book.

Pitch Perfect

Bill Mcgowan
This book has a gazillion of techniques of how to get your message across in different settings. Scorcese principle, pasta-sauce reduction are good mnemonics for some of the ways.
" He is also a trusted advisor in the C-suites of tech companies like, Facebook, Spotify, AirBnB, Dropbox and Salesforce.com."
The above line was the line that lured me into the book. These are the hot companies of the day and public has interest in knowing about all they can about them.
With these names on the blurb, I was expecting specific techniques applied to the said companies. It must be a trade secret that the author does not want to divulge. Thats one disappointment with the book. Another is, with the sea of lessons, the book has too much general stuff that could have garnered weight with specific examples. I have just read  Scaling Up Excellence with a lifetime load of lessons, so my expectation is way too high.

PS: My neighbour saw me reading this book and said that its made into a movie. she thought I was reading Pitch Perfect.

Nineteenth century American literature