a whirlwind engagement

We're getting married today! 

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Spanische Windtorte

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When I was young, my mother had a nearly-complete set of the Time-Life Foods of the World cookbooks. Although the recipes in these were not, as a rule, very good, I was much taken with the photo on the cover of The Cooking of Vienna's Empire -- a Spanish Windtorte. I told my mother that I wanted one for my birthday cake. I had not grasped quite how difficult they were to build. I think we wound up with more of a Pavlova instead. The thing is, a Spanische Windtorte is almost exactly the same thing as a pavlova, only with a fancier-shaped meringue. So, when I set out to make one again yesterday, I used a combination of this Pavlova recipe and these Spanische Windtorte instructions . I increased the quantities in the pavlova recipe by about 1/3, and, in the final step, did not macerate the fruit but rather mixed it with sugar immediately before adding it to the whipped cream mixture... but I'm getting ahead of myself. Making the meringue was fairly straightforward, except that...
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Life and death since the Paleolithic, Part 1

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There are a lot of differences between the life of a Paleolithic hunter-gatherer and the life of a modern, reasonably well-off human. We evolved and adapted in conditions that were simpler, rougher, and more physically demanding. Nowadays, we are more comfortable but that comfort has taken a toll in the form of chronic debilitating disease, which nobody wants. Looking back at our history – and especially our prehistory – can show how we’ve strayed from the way of life we were built for, but the past is a big place, people lived in many different natural environments, and we only have scattered clues about what actually went on.  Anatomically modern humans emerged around 200,000 to 300,000 years ago in Africa, and we stayed there for most of our prehistory. Around 40 - 60,000 years ago, we started using complex language and moving around over long distances, exploring new continents. Recorded history covers less than 10% of the time since the first homo sapiens migrated to ...
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Don't Poison Yourself

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For some things in life, the healthiest amount to ingest is zero. That covers tobacco cigarettes, most illegal or recently-illegal drugs (probably -- research on them is not good), alcohol (maybe), refined sugar (again, maybe), and various additives and preservatives in "food-like substances." That said, your body can handle a bit of toxicity now and again, so there's no need to avoid every little additive, just avoid the biggest killers, cigarettes and excessive alcohol. Here is the CDC's list of the top 12 causes of death in the United States, as of 2017: Heart disease: 647,457 Cancer: 599,108 Accidents (unintentional injuries): 169,936 Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 160,201 Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 146,383 Alzheimer’s disease: 121,404 Diabetes: 83,564 Influenza and pneumonia: 55,672 Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 50,633 Intentional self-harm (suicide): 47,173 Source:  Deaths: Leading Causes for 2017, table 1...
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