Sunshine Help Me

Following on from my post about the sources of weather information that I actually find useful (as opposed to Ken's almanac, which isn't) I stumbled across MetService's "new" rural weather service. I'm not sure how new it actually is, or why it took me so long to find it, but the features it provides look excellent. I am particularly enamoured of the fact that Waipara is given its own forecast - a nifty little three day forecast generated every hour, together with a ten day outlook which is just about perfect for planning farm work. There's also a seasonal outlook, which I shall follow with interest.

Friday, November 17, 2006 3:39 pm (permalink)

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The Truffle Book

Winner of the Special Jury Award at the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards. "Absolutely rivetting" - a well-known prince. Available as softback, limited edition hardback, and PDF. Free sample PDF.

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current reading

It's taking me far too long to read this. I have been a fan of Pynchon since reading Gravity's Rainbow as a student. Against The Day strikes me as one of his most approachable novels, full of fantastic characters and wild invention, but I've been busy doing word things, and sometimes the last thing I want to do is read. But this is like fine wine, keeps tempting me to another glass. At 1085 pages, I'll be squiffy before I'm finished.

just read

I've read two books called Heat in the last month. One was damn scary, and one was by George Monbiot, about global warming (which has a fantastic cover). Some would say I've been and gone and had my mid-life crisis, but it didn't involve doing an apprenticeship at the altar of real Italian cuisine and a tyrannical chef. Bill Buford is not me, and for that I'm grateful. I suspect he may be too. I enjoyed it - the kitchen stuff was pretty compelling (as was the Italian butcher I may just have to visit next time I'm on Italian truffle time), but somehow the whole thing didn't hang together. I know where Bill's coming from - and I can sort of sense where he went - but his own motivation (and his family's reaction) remain mysterious.