Intro
\nWhatever is on my mind this week.
Things I enjoyed reading
\nTen-ish articles I found worth reading.
Things I didn't know last Tuesday
\nTen-ish facts I didn't know when I wrote the previous edition.
Book of the week
\nSome thoughts on the latest book I've read.
This is the 125th edition of the newsletter, and as I mentioned recently most of emails now require a paid subscription – this is one of those.
\nIf you'd like to receive this newsletter every week, as well as get access to an archive of all previous free and paid editions, you can do it here.
\nI've been on the road for more than a week, which typically means a special \"travel\" edition for the newsletter, whether it's due to technical restrictions or lack of time to do my usual reading.
\nHowever, this past week I did not do any digital reading at all, nor did I read over the weekend. As the result this newsletter is released in its shortened edition, and later this week I will follow up with another shortened one to stay true to the nature of things I read and enjoy.
\nWhile the details of journey are yet to fully process in my head, here is a slightly belated peak into the cake I made for Sasha's birthday.
\nBased on the Black Forest Gateau recipe by Julien Alvarez, an executive Pastry Chef at Ladurée and a Pastry World champion. Starts with numerous layered pieces of Sacher bisquit, vanilla ganache, and cherry confit.
\n\nThere are lots of ingredients but they're delicious on their own so nothings went to waste.
\n\nThe first layer is a Breton pate sablee, covered with namelaka Inaya and Amarena cherries.
\n\nThe layered pieces are put on top of the base and surrounded with dots of cherry confit.
\n\nThe rest of the space is filled with leftovers of vanilla ganache and covered with pieces of chocolate.
\n\nIn this recipe the chocolate shines through so using a good one makes the difference. I also felt confused 99% of the time while following the recipe, as every single ingredient looked wrong but turned great in the end. Maybe I am ready to try something else from this chef.
\nThis is a restaurant review but this paragraph pretty much describes any modern British cuisine restaurant:
\n\n\nThere will be a short list of tasteful snacks, usually involving anchovies or olives but also sometimes things like a house recipe Scotch Egg. There will be oysters - there should always be oysters - presented either with a zingy house dressing or just lemon and tabasco, shucked to order and presented on a metal tray filled with crushed ice. There will be a home made (or at the very least very locally-made) sourdough alongside a butter fused with something interesting like bone marrow or marmite. There will be a selection of strictly seasonal dishes of various shapes and sizes, comprising sustainable seafood, game (should the time of year allow) and one or two shareable large plates of steak or fish. There will also be dessert, usually one recognisable English classic (sticky toffee or bread and butter pudding) alongside whatever else the kitchen can dream up. There will be attentive, friendly service and you will pay 12.5% for it. You will go home happy.
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The predictability is not a bad thing though: it both manages the expectations and also makes it easier to navigate through.
\nA very good guide into the science (albeit often subjective) behind making filter coffee. After making one without scales for a few days in a row in the middle of a forestI treasure memories of more metodic cups with nostalgy.
\n\n\nThere are a lot of conflicting narratives about what to do with coffee when it’s old (say, more than two weeks from its roast date), and no one seems to agree. Some folks on the internet suggest upping the dose (relative to the water) and grinding coarser; the rationale here, which isn't supported by any evidence I know of, is to offset the loss in flavor with more body by brewing a stronger cup (but the higher dose requires a coarser grind to increase the flow rate and keep the brew times consistent).
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I often separate Serious Eats' articles into \"old\" and not implying that the former is beter, and this one is a good exception.
\nAn overview of a book that focuses on researching dreams under certain political regimes:
\n\n\nAfter her release, she began secretly recording the dreams of her fellow-Germans. For six years, as German Jews lost their homes, their jobs, and their rights, Beradt continued making notes. By 1939, she’d gathered three hundred dreams. The project was risky, not least because she was known to the regime.
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Given the world we're in, probably in a few decades someone will do a similar research based on TikToks or something.
\nThere are numerous posts, books, and stories from various relatively popular people who either lead companies of build startups. Most of them have something odd in common, whether it's intermittent fasting or taking drugs. This is an interesting perspective on why:
\n\n\nFounders have to convince investors that, with time and dollars, their companies will metamorphose into fat, pearly unicorns. But they have little that sets them apart, especially early on. “There’s no revenue. There are no profits. There’s an idea, which I don’t want to discount,” said Khurana. “But that leaves you very little to evaluate, other than what school did the person go to, who do they know, where did they work.” Like shamans then, founders fall back on personal qualities to convince investors that they can do something near-miraculous.
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I know a few folks who'd argue that those techniques make such founders more creative and independent, but that's not necessarily true and I am yet to figure it out.
\nA very detailed post about slow cookers and the way they've changed the history of food.
\n\n\nRobert’s solution was the slow cooker. In the small hours of the morning, when most of us are sleeping, he prepares his ingredients on a small bench in the body of the truck, puts them inside the ceramic pot, and plugs the cooker into an inverter in his cab’s cigarette lighter. The washing-up bowl stops the pot from falling off the passenger seat, and the bungee cords secure the rattling lid. At the other end of his journey, he has dinner — as long as Louis hasn’t got there first. This can be a real risk.
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I didn't use one for quite a few years now, and probably can't justify buying it given how much space it'd take, but at least it's useful, right?
\nLooks like a dangerous hobby:
\n\n\n\nArising as a daredevil stunt in the aerial shows of the 1920s, wing walking was the act of moving along the wings of a biplane during flight.
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There are still people doing it nowadays but seems like at least they have better setups than a century ago.
\nFood underwater doesn't spoil as fast as we are used to and it took decades to understand why.
\n\n\nIn their frantic escape, the crew had left behind six sandwiches, two thermoses filled with bouillon, and a handful of apples. After retrieving Alvin, researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution marveled at the state of this waterlogged feast. The apples looked slightly pickled by the briny water, but otherwise intact. The sandwiches smelled fresh, and the bologna (this being 1968) was still pink. They even still tasted good, the researchers confirmed upon taking a few bites.
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There is a bunch of reasons covered in the article, but seems like the lack of oxygen slows down bacteries and that's the main reason.
\nI didn't know the difference between just watercolours and gouache, despite using the latter most of the time at school. Apparently it's not exactly the same but is very similar:
\n\n\nDuring the eighteenth century gouache was often used in a mixed technique, for adding fine details in pastel paintings. Gouache was typically made by mixing watercolours based on gum arabic with an opaque white pigment. In the nineteenth century, watercolours began to be industrially produced in tubes and a \"Chinese white\" tube was added to boxes for this purpose. Gouache tends to be used in conjunction with watercolor, and often ink or pencil, in 19th-century paintings.
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So in the past it was sold as a DIY set.
\nThere is this new commerical from Pepsi where Santa mixes it with milk, and while I myself used to mix many wonderful spirits with Pepsi, this one seems to be a step too far (although not a new one):
\n\n\nPilk, for the uninitiated, is a portmanteau of Pepsi and milk, the only two ingredients in this instantly controversial beverage. Lohan didn’t invent it, and neither did Pepsi ad executives. In fact, the history of Pilk is (sort of) long and (somewhat) storied.
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Would it work with Coke though? I don't think I have any Pepsi to try.
\nWe were watching series From and in the very beginning a girl scaries here younger brother by saying that a bunch of crows is called \"a murder\". That sounded to random to be a joke so I had to look it up, and behold:
\n\n\nA group of crows is called a “murder.” There are several different explanations for the origin of this term, mostly based on old folk tales and superstitions.
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What a hilarious way to teach someone English.
\nWhile I didn't really read anything digital, I embarked on my journey with a new edition of Mikhail Bulgakov's Master and Margarita – a book I used to read and re-read a lot in my childhood while traveling on trains (and here by \"childhood\" I do mean very-very early).
\nIt takes certain effort to read it in English as it makes you think more. I don't have problems with understanding the plot, given how many times I've read it before, but certain words do not make sense unless I look them up.
\nAlso it's inevitable to lose some subtle meanings if you are not familiar with the way Russian patronic names are constructed, or without a map of Moscow in your head and so one.
\nIt's still as good a I remember though:
\n\n\n“We’ve been testing you,’ said Woland. ‘Never ask for anything! Never for anything, and especially from those who are stronger than you. They’ll make the offer themselves, and give everything themselves. Sit down, proud woman,’ Woland tore the heavy dressing-gown from Margarita and again she found herself sitting next to him on the bed. ‘And so, Margot,’ Woland went on, softening his voice, ‘what do you want for having been my hostess tonight? What do you wish for having spent the ball naked? What price do you put on your knee? What are your losses from my guests, whom you just called gallowsbirds? Speak! And speak now without constraint, for it is I who offer.”
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Reading it in English also made me check footnotes from time to time and I learnt a few things I didn't even question before, like the things the author invented but fit so masterfully into the surrounding world I just assumed they existed in Soviet times.
\nWhat do I read next? Probably Monday Begins on Saturday by Strugatskys if I manage to find one in English.
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\nCheers! 🍸
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