What food would you say is your specialty?
I make a mean pot of steamed rice.
PROMPT: Specialty
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Category Archives: food
BOOK: “The Virtues of the Table” by Julian Baggini
The Virtues of the Table: How to Eat and Think by Julian BagginiMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Publisher Site – Granta
This book examines the nexus of food and philosophy, from the ethics of butchery to the virtue of authenticity to whether hedonism is a necessary component of eating philosophically. Much of the book challenges or debates conventional wisdoms such as whether local foods are inherently better, whether dining is always and everywhere a social activity (or should be,) and whether organic is always preferable. The book covers a wide variety of topics including: mindfulness, gratitude, skepticism, fasting, willpower, spontaneity, technology, etc.
The book offers many ideas for reflection though sometimes it felt like it rambled on for more than the issue in question necessitated.
Each chapter ends with a discussion of a particular food and its preparation as thought relevant by the author. This is a nice grounding mechanism for discussion that tends otherwise to be cerebral and philosophic.
I’d recommend this book for anyone interested in thinking more about food and its intersection with philosophy of life.
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CHINA LIMERICK
There was an old man from China
who thought he was having angina,
but it was the Kung Pao --
with peppercorns for WOW! --
that gave heartburn to the old man of China.
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PERU LIMERICK
There was a Guinea Pig from Peru
who didn’t know just quite what to do.
He’d heard there were places
-- oh, so magical places –
where his kind lived as pets not as food.
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PROMPT: Do More
Pie eating. I don't mean to be gluttonous about it, but I seldom eat a proper piece of pie. I'd say I get enough dessert, overall, but perhaps need to shift more of the balance of dessert in the direction of pie. Or maybe I just have a momentary hankering for pie, and this is all just meaningless rambles. I do not intend to build a pie-eating action plan, so things will probably remain as they are on the pie-eating front.
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PROMPT: Energy
Food and air, mostly. Ultimately, the Sun, I suppose.
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PROMPT: Cooking Fail
Write about your most epic baking or cooking fail.
A blunder once in a while does not rise to tragedy. I burn toast on a regular basis. Think about that. It’s the most rudimentary culinary activity imaginable, and I fuck it up at least weekly.
To be fair, I think my toaster might be a North Korean imposter, part of a plot to undermine the Western Capitalist world one ruined breakfast at a time.
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PROMPT: Foods
Those that are authentic to wherever I am at the moment. [Nothing fancy, but with nutritional value.]
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FIVE WISE LINES [September 2025]
The aim of introduction is to conceal a person’s identity.
George Mikes, How To Be an Alien
From the beginning our philosophers have tried to teach us how to die,
Jonathan weiner, Long for this world
and our poets have taught us that to contemplate death
is to learn to live.
Nothing is harder to see into than people’s natures.
Zhuge liang [a.k.a. Kongming], The WAy of the General
To know how to eat is to know how to live.
Auguste Escoffier
Reality can be beaten with enough imagination.
Mark twain
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PROMPT: Recipe
Flour, water, salt, and yeast. The epitome of simplicity.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 