Tag: new york times

Amelia, it was just a false alarm

There’s a marvelous post on the New York Times photography blog, Lens, about women aviators taking to the sky at the dawn of aviation. Shall we call them aviatrices? Their fabulous stories, daring adventures, and frequent epic disasters are almost as romantic and swoon-worthy as their outfits. Poppy Wyndham (née Elsie Mackay), above, became a vaudeville actress against her father’s wishes and ran away with a fellow actor, scandalizing society- she perished in her plane attempting to cross the Atlantic.

Ruth Elder, who named her plane “American Girl”, was divorced by her husband, who claimed she “caused him many sleepless nights by her transatlantic flight attempt and much embarrassment in New York when she failed to kiss him upon her return”. She, like most good ladies, also packed a mean picnic for her transatlantic flights with lots of coffee and sandwiches. She had to bail out over the Azores, but was rescued by a steamer.Beulah Unruh, below, was a New York City waitress who got her license out on Long Island (she probably flew in and out of Governors Island and Floyd Bennet Field). She estimated that her pilot’s license (and those amazing knee high socks) cost her about 13,000 tips.Such a wonderful place to put your mind, to think about the frictionless allure of sky-bound women taking to the heavens in icy altitudes. See the whole piece here.

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The Matrix

Yunhee Kim for The New York Times. Food stylist, Maggie Ruggiero; prop stylist, Deborah Williams.

THE VEGETABLE SOUP MATRIX: You choose the green bean and the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. Take the red lentil, you stay in Wonderland, and get shown what the rabbit’s eating down deep in its hole. This divine little article explores the recipe-less free-wheeling cousins of bisque. Just like I like alphabetizing my condiments and labeling my leotards, the idea of pushing a vast category of wild foodstuffs into Four Simple designations (CREAMY, EARTHY, HEARTY, BROTHY) is like a Punnet Square of sustainable eating on the cheap. We’d better get (pepper) cracking if we’re going to make any of these delicious bottom-of-the-barrell greenmarket scrapers before we’re back to rhubarb and tomatoes. I will gladly celebrate the end of butternut squash, kill the kale, and im-peach the beet, all with toasted baguettes and crème fraîche.

Love, nidification, and good eating

From Meags: Daily Lexeme: Nidification

Today’s word, in association with the unbeatable Oxford English Dictionary, is:

nidification (n.) The action of nest-building (esp. by birds); the construction of a nest or nests; the manner in which this is done.

Used in a sentence in 1842 by H.W. Herbert:

“He arrives here from the South during the month of February …
Love, nidification, and good eating are then his chief employment.”

This is now my official mantra, motto, way of life, om shantih shantih shantih, manifest destiny, instruction booklet, mandate.

 

 

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