SaltShaker

 Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, I hear them all at once. What a delight this is! All this inventing, this producing, takes place in a pleasing, lively dream.”
-Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Buenos Aires - The spot was busy, bustling, loud. Not a soft surface in the room and packed with businessfolk talking […]

 The life of Zen attainment is not like standing on a riverbank watching the current and appreciating the water or the landscape as a witness; it is jumping into the current and becoming one with it.”
- Trevor Leggett, Judo Expert, Author
La Plata - Part of our Monday trip to La Plata turned into a venture […]

 The mighty human species (what a pass!)
Brought to its knees by stalks of hairy grass
And when you think about it (use your loaf)
Which is the genius and which the oaf:
- Smug golden acres waving as they grow?
- Or we who make the earth a place of woe?”
- Hugh Mitchell, from The Wheat Shall Inherit…
La Plata […]

 It’s nice to think that sharing a cherished food brings enemies together, easing tension and misunderstanding. But the world’s rawest conflicts can include disagreements over common foodstuffs. Irish Catholics and Protestants have lightly bickered over whiskey. Turks and Greeks have feuded over coffee. And Jews and Arabs argue about falafel in a way that reflects […]

 MAN can find no new field of activity into which the cold relentless figure of the law does not follow him. Before the discovery of America European nations gave little thought to the international problems of colonies and control of the seas, partly because there was at first little or no competition between them, and […]

 Rhythm is the basis of life, not steady forward progress. The forces of creation, destruction, and preservation have a whirling, dynamic interaction.”
- Kabbalah
Buenos Aires - I’ve said many a time that my “themes” for our Casa SaltShaker are often loosely if at all based in the world of food. This weekend was a perfect example. […]

 One is Jangada, where locals go for the pacú, a lumbering cousin of the piranha that can grow as large as 60 pounds. Jangada’s serving is the size of a porterhouse. Grilled until crispy, the flesh is firm but flaky, and so succulent that from the first bite you’ll understand how it earned its nickname, […]

 For me, Fellini was like a watermelon. It is there. A watermelon cannot die.”
- Roberto Benigni, Actor, Writer, Director
Buenos Aires - I know when I mentioned pickled watermelons yesterday, at least some of you had an image in mind of cutting a whole in one and upending a bottle of vodka into it. It’s a […]