Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Sodium Chloride

Once again, this time by E-mail from Kaiser Permanente, I have been warned not to do something I do every day. That is, to sprinkle a bit of salt on certain prepared dishes at my table.
"Shake the salt habit," says Kaiser.
Too late, says I. Way too late.
You see, nobody ever told me until I was already pretty old about all the bad things that too much salt can do to me. As I wrote once before, when I was younger, at our house the salt shaker was always a necessary presence -- and a pleasure. I'll keep mine.
I referred just the other day to the wonderful taste of a home-grown tomato. Well, for me that requires a pinch of salt.
A taste that has been developing for going on 90 years doesn't have the time or patience to start doing without now.
Cheers!

Duel in the Sun

Fussing with his gloves,
The batter tries to guess
What the next pitch will be?

Monday, August 15, 2011

Today's food note


Two Tomatoes

No. 1: Supermarket tomato: Beautiful, sturdy, a meaty chunk, little juice, tasteless. Origin: commercial tomato factory.

No. 2: Mary's tomato: Ordinary appearance, soft to the touch, drippingly juicy, full tomato flavor. Origin: the back yard.

Monday, August 8, 2011

Mark

Will we ever see
Another Mark Hatfield
From Republicans?

Sunday, August 7, 2011

Galleria

Out on Williams Street
Witness true art in motion
-- Yellow butterflies

Saturday, August 6, 2011

How Long?

It was most likely a rocket-launched grenade, authorities think, that brought down the Chinook helicopter in Afghanistan the other night, killing 30 American troops among others.
They'd been sent on a night mission in that misbegotten and seemingly endless war. President Barack Obama offered condolences to the families, of course, and what more could he do, you say?
Well, he might decide, finally, to use every bit, every smidgen of his presidential power and his political influence to GET US OUT of there. Not just get us out by next year, not just by 2013 or 2014, but as close to immediately as possibly can be, by whatever emergency means are available.
War hawks warn that pulling out would make Afghanistan a disaster area. Afghanistan is already a disaster area.
We ought to know: we've been there 10 years, and the day of the Chinook kill was our deadliest day yet.
A simple fact is that the United States can't be the world's policeman. Don't we ever learn?

Friday, August 5, 2011

Survivor

My gnarly old elm
Defies wind, age, killer bugs
-- Long may she wave