Aglaia Kremezi has the straight dope on Greek yoghurt.¹ The stuff she ate as a child was not thick and creamy. Imagine that! If thick and creamy was required for a dish of, say, tzatziki, her family strained it specifically. That’s a relief; I can carry on with my home made stuff, straining if I...

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I just watched Michelle Obama tell the girls of Elizabeth Garrett Anderson school that “being smart is the coolest thing in the world”. At last! Of course, in some sectors the very fact that she said it will reinforce the idea that being smart is uncool, but screw them. They’re losers anyway.

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Last weekend called forth a flurry of activity on the terrace, where two trees really needed moving to bigger quarters, the iris needed decongestants, and various other things needed new homes. Fun it was, too, and satisfying in its own way. But boy! The cost!

It’s one of the things all those cont...

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Can this be for real, part 1:

A brief piece on page 183 of the latest D+C, a publication from Germany's Development and Cooperation agency caught my eye. Reporting on the first meeting of G8 agriculture ministers, last April, it noted the disappointment of civil-society organizations.¹ “Whilst...

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It is so easy to keep doing nothing when you’ve been doing nothing for a month or so. This inactivity has to stop, and today is as good a day as any.

I’ve always enjoyed playing with ferments, and used to make yoghurt in a curious contraption with little hexagonal glass pots and a double-walled al...

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