A fitting end.

Blatty’s The Exorcist, when I was about 11. The old house creaked while I was on the “Tanzt Ihre Tochter gern?” scene with Karl. I had enough German to understand how disturbing the taunt was. Bolted off the bed and into the hallway in three steps before I was even conscious of being scared.

Right? It was something I cited myself a few days ago in a manuscript, but it had been bugging me. It cast a wrong shadow over the paragraph. And that’s why: it’s almost certainly fake.

Pre-ChatGPT, I should clarify. Ghost citations are a dime a dozen these days. But this one made it into print a few times long before LLMs.

Dome magnifier resting on the second edition of the Compact Oxford English Dictionary. The word “scorpene” is visible in the magnifier. No, the word is not related to my discovery; just happened to have the book out

Score!

Deep in research mode, I’ve found a phantom citation. Everyone quotes it verbatim. I’ve tracked it to a single source; before that, no trace of the supposed book in any library or bookseller catalog. An HL Mencken–style hoax? An absurdity? Maybe. But a little pseudobiblical treasure for me.

I was thinking just today, not for the first time: Where do they dare bury him?

Package of cheese labeled “Old Croc”

Trapped in the Mario Batali man cave, a searing question falls upon your ears: “You ever drunk Baileys from an—“

The greasy-spoon, breakroom, diner sugar pourer. My mother has an old one—heavy clear glass, faint spiral, pewter spout. A sound idea.

No doubt. New York to Key West in a week is doable, but only if you bail on New York prematurely and manage to bypass Miami’s many distractions.

I learned years ago: buy salt in bulk if you have the space to store it.

Into the syrup pot then!

Irish relatives told me of their plan to visit—in order, in a single week—New York City, Las Vegas, Miami, and Key West.

NYC to Vegas alone, I cautioned, is roughly the distance from Dublin to Cairo—farther than Paris to Istanbul.

Godsmacked. They thought they’d drive.

Pretty.

Sel Gris French Grey Sea Salt Bulk - Brut Grain | SaltWorks® Sel gris grey sea salt bulk brut grain is ideal for food manufacturers for topping baked goods, confections and snack foods that call for a crunchy texture.

I use similar nesting bowls but for salts: top for everyday sea salt that I reach for a few times a day, bottom for crunchy, knobby grey salt for finishing. Ordered ten pounds a while back, remembered that I wanted 10 pounds, but forgot that I had ordered it. Now I have so, so much sel gris:

I like those, but the humidity here makes me think the sugar might go a bit clumpy. Heard about the larger canister; my Mom kept a ten-pound cylinder for sugar under the counter. She left a scoop in that. My version is an 8 quart Cambro in the pantry when it’s Syrup Day or time to bake.

I like Weck, always have. Lately, I’ve been thinking about replacing plastic containers at home with Weck jars. You’re only making the thought more pressing.

Three objects on a kitchen counter: an electric kettle, an open Le Parfait jar partially filled with white sugar, and a beer stein filled with tea, its lid resting open

Morning tea, hot, in all weather.

I’m sticking with the beer stein, but could stand to upgrade that sugar pot.

What do you all use for a quick-draw, countertop sugar supply, the sort you’d reach for when dosing coffee or tea or when you need a small-ish amount for a recipe?

I only hope I’d have the foresight to do the same in some varmint situation.

Saw an interview with D’Onofrio in which he explained that, while he knew roaches would be up his sleeves in the film, he’d assumed they’d be CGI. Nope. No dice—proper, scuttling, skittering roaches. Skeeved, he put bands around the sleeves so they could only come out, not burrow further in.

Braised beef short ribs in a LeCreuset Dutch oven.

Phase 2: Remove ribs; chill, defat, blitz, then finish the sauce tomorrow with beurre monté. Carbs TBD: polenta, egg noodles, and bâtard all in the running.

Carrots, celery, and onions in a large round Dutch oven. To the side: two small trays of seared beef short ribs

We braisin’ today.

Short ribs, chunk-ass mirepoix (ugh, ok: mirepoix grossière pour braisage et feuilles de céleri), garlic, herbs from the garden, tomato paste, half a bottle of Grenache, and a liter of beef stock. Bring it up hot, then into the oven for a few hours, low and slow.

Harriet Williamson @harriepw NEW: LGBTQ+ publisher PinkNews is making its remaining reporters redundant, saying it wants to "move away from having a reporter-led newsroom" to a model where there "isn't a need for the reporter role" Most relevant replies v Harriet Williamson @harri... • 9m g Replying to @harriepw In redundancy meetings, reporters were told that "what we're consulting on is that we don't feel we need the reporter role anymore" Harriet Williamson @harri... • 9m 0 Multiple sources said they were told regarding the redundancy wave that PinkNews was looking to shift to a reporter-free newsroom

A “reporter-free newsroom” at PinkNews, you say? Then it isn’t news anymore. Call it PinkSlop, PinkSlime—take your pick. Another newsroom gone dark. With it, the remains of what alternative press once did so well: telling a community what was happening in its own streets.

Nah, these guys are just doing a little swarm. They’ll move on when they find something more protected. We do have tiny wasps in San Diego, though, that pollinate some varieties of figs (not quite fruits, but syconia—inward-facing clusters of flowers turned in on themselves).

They’re all the buzz.

It should have a little bite. The mustard helps as well as the finally grated raw onion (cooks and mellows a bit as the pan bakes).

Small bee swarm beginning to form in a panache fig tree.

New variety of figs in the tree. So spicy! My husband calls them “Hey, man. Hey! Don’t eat those.”

I can ID a great many typefaces (too many insomnia nights reading about design and typography), but that one escaped me.

Man in a suit pauses on the street with a concerned look. The subtitle reads: I don't like my imagination.

An evergreen:

I don’t touch some of those books for years, then, suddenly: that’s exactly the text I need for some research or quote.

Two outstanding foods that only improve in each other’s company. This is the mac and cheese version I’ve been making for maybe 20 years, a slight tweak to Edna Lewis’s. The breadcrumb topping I added later is optional only in the strictest sense of the word.