Tom Keirstead

Cover of the cookbook, Pride and Pudding

A package of Atora vegetable suet set on a cookbook opened to the recipe for plum pudding

My vegetarian suet arrived today. Time to think about plum pudding!

Goofiest and grandest, I should have said. And in case there’s any confusion: the picture is not of Alex Tilley.

Man wearing a blue Tilly hat holding a bulb planter.

The bulb planter with Tilley hat. R.I.P Alex Tilley, inventor of the goofiest hat in the world.

It seems a proper swear word. And a clever one to boot

Tabernac!

A film crew has taken over a block of College St nearby and lined it with vintage cars. They’ve even erected a couple of phone booths. Any Torontonians around who know what’s going on?

A film crew has taken over a block nearby and lined it with vintage cars. They’ve even erected a couple of phone booths. Any Torontonians around who know what’s going on?

Spider, spider web, and full moon

It’s getting to be that season! Full moon and spider, Toronto, Ontario.

Good morning from Toronto. The days are getting shorter, but for now at least they’re starting off well

The hotly contested Somerville bike path mayoral contest has been decided. The new mayor is Minerva, whose one-word platform apparently appealed to voters. I voted for mela, the scaredy cat.

A row of posters for candidates for the cat mayor of the Somerville Community path

Poster for Ernie (Feel the Ern), candidate for mayor of the Somerville Community Path

Poster for Midnight, candidate for mayor of the Somerville Community Path

Poster for Mela, candidate for mayor of the Somerville Community Path

The race for cat mayor of the Somerville (MA) bike path is heating up. There are even some non-cat interlopers

A peach galette

A galette to make the most of this summer’s excellent peaches!

Mr Bean, a medium haired grey cat draped over his cardboard scratching pad. Head on the floor.

Can this be comfortable? I suppose that’s a silly question for a cat. (An early or very late) Happy Caturday!

Redcurrant and raspberry fool in a blue bowl

Celebrating the season! A redcurrant and raspberry fool, with fruit from the local farmers market.

And here’s the finished product—just in time for the cocktail hour

Should be okay as long as you wash it down with five gallons of polyethylene glycol. No seeds in the bread though

Oops. Should have said “I spent most of the afternoon watching gin drip from the still”

Ingredients to make a Canada Day gin: spruce tips, Labrador tea, birch bark, juniper berries and coriander seeds

Gin dripping from my Air Still

A gin for Canada Day! With spruce tips, Labrador tea, as well as the usual ingredients. Should have had a Saskatoon berry, too, but I had to settle for a Canadian cranberry instead. Of course this meant that I spent most of the afternoon gin drip from the still. It is as exciting as it sounds.

Devastating news and a complete betrayal of the idea that IU was a place where students could learn about the world. Bloomington took area studies seriously long before most other US universities, and it still boasts that it teaches more languages than any university in the US.

Indiana public colleges cut almost 20% of degrees Public Indiana colleges and universities have eliminated 19 percent of their degree programs to meet requirements added to the state’s budget, according to the Commission for Higher Education.

So, here it is. Thanks to a new state law that was NEVER DEBATED, Indiana University has committed itself to abolishing majors in African-American/African Diaspora Studies: American Studies; Art History; French; Italian; Religious Studies etc. DOZENS of majors. www.ipm.org/news-section...

2013 was the 60th anniversary of the end of the War for the Liberation of the Fatherland (祖国解放戦争), a.k.a. The Korean War

I’m sure that something like this is what Trump really wanted. Coming soon to the Kennedy center? Pyongyang, 2013.

Here’s some similarly old tanks, from the guys who know how to put on a military parade. Pyongyang, 2013

The angel Gabriel tells Joseph to get to Bethlehem asap. From the York mystery plays 2025 at the university of Toronto

Herod, in a blue suit with an overly long red tie, orders the slaughter of the innocents. From the York mystery plays 2025 at the University of Toronto

From the York mystery plays being performed at the University of Toronto today (they’ll be on until midnight so there’s time to catch a play—or thirty). Gabriel telling Joseph to head to Bethlehem, and Herod ordering the slaughter of the innocents. The overly long red tie seems a nice touch.

A dinner for spring! An asparagus frittata with fiddleheads and rhubarb-strawberry galettes for dessert.

Very tired grey cat on cardboard scratch pads

In the very very tiring month of may—Mr Bean doesn’t even notice that his head’s falling off

A gray cat (medium hair) stares intently at a glitter ball hiding under a step stool

The same grey cat, pouncing on the glitter ball

How to warm up when it feels like -10 (Celsius) outside. All it takes is a glitter ball and a step stool.

Celebrating spring in Toronto with a couple of centimeters of snow and ice

Celebrating Spring in Toronto with snow and ice in front of Robarts Library on the university of Toronto campus

Celebrating Spring in Toronto! By burying the crocuses, which have just begun to blossom, in icy mush.

Tom Conlan has an article about wet nurses in heian and kamakura. I think it was in HJAS around 2005ish.

A donabe, Japanese earthenware pot. Round, with lid, rather like a Dutch oven. Grey, chrysanthemum design

Nabeyaki udon: udon noodles cooked in a clay pot. Garnished with slices of fried tofu, kamaboko, shrimp tempura, shiitake, two eggs poached in the broth, and some dandelion greens

Tonight’s dinner: nabeyaki udon, to break in my new donabe