Bread and noses

-Kei has inspired me to try again with bread- and croissant-making, and possibly to buy the book she's using. (I had this romantic notion that getting cookbooks in Paris would allow me to turn a NJ kitchen into a boulangerie-pâtisserie, but instead I end up bogged down in measurement conversions, and in the inability to track down things like "farine 55.")

-Connoisseurs of contemporary litchrachure might be aware of the "ingredient" genre - books with titles like "Bell Peppers" or "Cinnamon" that tell some sweeping historical tale through the lens of some food item. It seems there's now one on sliced white bread (via). Aaron Bobrow-Strain, a politics professor, is here to tell us that contrary to what Michael Pollan claims, our grandmothers had to contend with processed food. As a great fan of the debunking genre (still waiting for, "Yes, French Women Do Get Fat, And Can't Properly Tie A Scarf"), I may have to check this out.

-As a member of a minority group known for visiting the rhinoplastoligist, but still in possession of the schnozz Moses himself gave me, I'm always up for a good nose-job-shaming story. First, there was the Norwegian mass-murderer, oh so blond and "Aryan," who, it was later revealed, had had his schozz rechiseled in 'merica of all places. The latest incident involves a fellow Semite - an "Islamist" Egyptian politician "expelled from his ultraconservative party for fabricating a story that he was viciously beaten by masked gunmen," when his bandages were actually from cosmetic surgery on his nose. The real tragedy, of course, is the lack of before-and-after shots.