Busy, Like a Fox

Before there was stupid is as stupid does; there was busy is as busy does. A regional expression that  - quite honestly, I have never heard that particular phrase that combines the sentiments as busy as a bee and idle hands/Devil's playthings I am going to assume it was localized to my family. In any case, I have been stupid busy...

Arthur Allen wrote a book about tomatoes called Ripe. The subtitle, one man's quest for the perfect tomato, makes it sound like Eat, Love, Tomato, but the book isn't a navel gazing journey about one's feelings concerning tomatoes, no it is informative, entertaining and knowledgeable. I interviewed Arthur for the Portland Farmers Market Blog here.

As great as it was to exchange emails with Arthur Allen, I had the same opportunity to interview one of my all time favorite food writers, Russ Parsons, that interview can be read here.

Or if you are sick of reading what I write, a big thank you to Charlie Seluzicki (below) for helping out last week and you can read about how the Pavlovsk seed bank will soon be condos or tract housing here. Pavlovsk was founded by Nicolai Vavilov a biologist/geneticist who plays a part in Arthur Allen's Ripe (above). Vavilov was a key figure in helping the world understand biology better, he eventually died, hungry and out of favor with the Soviets who favored a type of theoretical science that matched their political views - cautionary tales say what...

Even in the midst of this stupid busy time in my life, I have had time to read: Catching Fire; How Cooking Made Us Human, is an anthropological tour explaining how cooking helped us jump down from the trees and into the savanna. Richard Wrangham opens his short treatise with a review of raw foodist claims. Since he is telling me what I want to hear, I am not the most objective person to judge how persuasive his arguments are, but around the same time I was reading his reasoned slap down of raw food diets, I saw or heard this from NPR, about how the man is cracking down on raw milk sales.


Personally, I never thought of pasteurization as the enemy and I understand some claims that raw milk proponents make and there is some science to back those beliefs up. And while I don't think raw milk itself is dangerous but the first time someone gets sick or dies because of the rickety, below the radar distribution system couldn't keep raw milk properly chilled/stored or the milk was bottled in an unsanitized container, I hope NPR, Nina Planck and the rest of them spare me their outrage about how this could of happened.