giant rodent kills man in belarus. be careful with your ridiculous wildlife photo ops, i guess is the lesson from this one.

Brancusi filmed

In a rare culinary outing we went to Atera on Wednesday night. One of the best meals of my life. Not counting meals memorable for reasons beyond the food (Skinny's 71 Clinton NYE party, etc...) this was probably top 3 along with Mugaritz and I can't even think of another to put in that class.

Very small room. Open kitchen with surrounding bar seating, and then just one other table (we had the table.) Just a single prie fixe menu. No choices, no substituions. The food is highly inventive, but not in a crazy sci-fi way (not that there's anything wrong with that style.) Great ingredients paired in unexpected ways with a lot of thought obviously going into both flavor and texture combinations. Each course was a real delight. Started with 10 rapid fire "snacks", followed by three small sort of appetizer like dishes, followed by three slighly more substantial but still small entree like things, followed by a bunch of desserts including the entirely edible "egg" shown below. It was a ton of food, but not enough to make us feel bloated afterwards. I love this style of small plates. Sort of like ordering everything on a more tradional menu and then sharing, except you don't have to share!

Highly recommended.

Business Insider article on Atera.

Vegetarianism explained.

waste water from natural gas drilling in NY found to be radioactive

manhattanhenge

Hitler teapot

new skyline

William Scott images

Seabreeze - Daytona, Florida. Circa 1904.

dark room
"Perhaps culture is now the counterculture" / a defense of the humanities

NHK world online great Japan cooking shows like LUNCH ON!

Not a great rib cooker but not a quiter either so I scored an amazing slab of giant full sized ribs from Bend  http://www.ponofarm.com/ they provide the best meat in Portland IMHO..... I went with this advise since sdb is not my neighbor  "There are many recipes available for slow cooking foil-wrapped ribs in the oven, but the best explanation of the process I’ve seen is by Harold McGee in a June 29, 2010 New York Times article. My procedure is adapted from his." and mine slightly from his adaption....

biggest soccer game of the year, the champions league final between borussia dortmund and bayern munich is on fox at 245 est. doesnt feel all that interesting to me maybe because they are both german teams and i dont watch the bundesliga. still, they crushed both of the spanish teams they faced in the semis so they are definitely deserving. 

art with Grateful stickers (Kaz Oshiro)

coffee leaf rust

i still cant decide if this is a joke or not but with friends like these who needs facebook.

Great art ugly room