Manic Bookstore Cafe

Sign in Ljubljana Airport re: illegal items to transport It's summertime, right? So the living should be easy. Kenneth Gold on summer school In the U.S. we have gotten used to long summer breaks for children and even for teachers. Every year there are news stories linking the history of our school calendar to the needs of farm families, but last year PBS -- drawing on a 2002 book by historian Kenneth Gold --   argued that this is not true . In fact, taking the summer off is more about the urban middle and wealthy classes, who regularly fled the hot cities in summer for cooler climes -- the mountains, the lakeside, the beach. And at some point they began to ship their children off to summer sleep away camp. There are still schools today which lack air conditioning, and students swelter in those places in June and September. The nine-month school year is entrenched across much of the country, leaving classrooms empty and children unsupervised during the long summer mon...

I am an enthusiast. There's no doubt about it. When I read something, go somewhere, learn about something, I want to try. I want to share. I want to do it again and again. Since I'm a New York Times reader and an amateur cook, this does not always go well. This week, for example, I tried making jam for the first time (with blackberries, not the NYT recipe blueberries, and the jury is out on whether it jelled or not...). I also made coconut cardamom panna cotta (a true flop). But the sweet corn blini were a hit. Oh wow. We joined our CSA again, Patchwork Gardens , and I picked up the first box of veggies today. The result? Russian-style cucumber and heirloom cherry tomato salad (yum), sauteed zucchini and summer squash with honey and mint (interesting), and sweet corn blini. To be fair, the corn didn't come with the CSA share. But having read the blini recipe the other day, I headed straight for the Brentlinger Farm truck after picking up my beets, tomatoes, onions...