A space for mostly short form stuff and responses to things I see elsewhere.
1 min read
”I like to say that I was a garlic smuggler for the mafia, which I was, but there’s more to the story than that.”
@ehasbrouck@urbanists.social reflects on his time in a federal penitentiary, where the kinds of cooking Italian maximum security inmates get up to would have been completely unthinkable.
1 min read
* On foot
* 41.8867, 12.4664
* 9 February 2026
* 428.77 ppm CO2
* OpenStreetMap
How very pleasant. Today’s quest was just to the side of what some people cite as the jewel of the Renaissance architecture, Bramante’s Tempietto. I couldn’t get any closer today, though I have been inside on other occasions.
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Let's try editing this and see whether anything changes
I really do like WithKnown as one of the most competent IndieWeb-ready CMS around, but lawks! is it a mess to tinker with. Having successfully migrated to a new host and persuaded it to use the CSS stylesheet it always used in the past, it still cannot find photos. Maybe later.
This plugin to connect a Grav website to the Fediverse sounds interesting, but given that I already have microformats and web mention display on my Grav site, I do wonder whether it will play nicely. Also, I remember being not too happy with the default presentation of my site, but that may be something I could tinker with.
Eat This Newsletter 294: All wet
* A water sommelier walks into a spa ...
* Never mind food prices, how did water get so costly?
* Arizona attempts to keep Saudi Arabia out of its aquifers.
All the news that's fit to drink at https://buttondown.com/jeremycherfas/archive/etn-294-all-wet/
New Eat This Newsletter 293: Normal Service
Parmigian-Reggiano’s Hail Mary pass
Gastronationalism in Italy and the Levant
Gourmet undead
Read it at https://buttondown.com/jeremycherfas/archive/etn-293-normal-service/
You might be interested in my interview with Farrell, in the old bakery at Ostia Antica.
https://www.eatthispodcast.com/ostia/
New episode: Cooking in Maximum Security.
Prisoners in Italian maximum security prisons have a right to cook in their cells. A new book shares their recipes and the tools they invent to make them.
https://eatthispodcast.com/prison
1 min read
* On foot
* 41.8703, 12.4458
* 8 December 2025
* 427.73 ppm CO2
* OpenStreetMap
Another occasion on which the Quest provided the kick I needed to go for a walk, to the bicycle location, as it happens, which was closer and a btter walk than the foot location today.