As I head out for a few days, I thought it best to move four of the chilli seedlings out of their disintegrating cardboard pots and into something a little bigger and sturdier. Here's hoping they manage the transition and my absence.

#gardening

I took my BirdNet-Pi on a little holiday and was delighted with the results.

https://jeremycherfas.net/blog/birds-in-the-countryside

#BirdNET_Pi

For the first time, I did a gauge swatch for my next project, although I don’t really see the point as I will be measuring it against my head as it goes.

#crochet

Eat This Newsletter 300

Yup, what started as a little way to entertain and inform between podcast episodes has reached 300 issues not out.

Aside from blowing my own trumpet, this time I look into the cultivation of morels, “Achieving Healthy, Sustainable, and Equitable Diets,” a real man making quiche, and part of the whole truth about whole grains. Plus, a cartoon that made me laugh.

Read it at https://buttondown.com/jeremycherfas/archive/etn-300-seriously-300/ and while you are there, consider subscribing.

#food #newsletters

Just started reading @adapalmer wonderful Inventing the Renaissance and already I have questions.

Does our word brute derive from Lucius Junius Brutus, or is that me thinking wishfully?

#etymology

Visitors in the 25,000s one week and the 2000s the next. Pretty certain it isn't the software that analyses the logs, so it must be something to do with the logs, but the truth is I am not all that motivated to dig deeper.

https://jeremycherfas.net/blog/number-go-up-and-down-and-back-up

#logfiles #webanalytics

My railway work: no shortage of meaning, but for the EU institutions that can be uncomfortable: https://stream.jeremycherfas.net/2026/my-railway-work-no-shortage-of-meaning-but-for-the

Easter Monday morning.

#rome #garibaldi

Early smoke mask seen this morning at the firefighters' museum, a little known gem on the edge of Testaccio in Rome.

#museums #Rome

New Episode: In Search of the Real Cheeses

Trevor Warmedahl worked in commercial cheese operations large and small in the USA for about 10 years, becoming increasingly disenchanted with their pursuit of uniformity. So he set off to learn about “other, older ways to go about the fermentation of milk and the care of dairy livestock and the making of cheese”.

Listen at https://eatthispodcast.com/cheese-trek

#podcast #cheese #agriculture

On the ground arms flap.
Tree high parakeets gaze down.
Qi Gong in the park.

#haiku

TIL: I have been using the ISO setting on my camera all wrong.

Thanks Tom. https://macwright.com/2026/04/01/recently.html#:~:text=I%20didn't%20understand%20ISO%20either!

I don't have a /caws page like some of my friends, but I do have a page of caws, with more to come, I hope.

https://jeremycherfas.net/blog/caw-01

#birds #hoodedcrows

Eat This Newsletter 299: No Doom

Supply lines are imperilled, but the linking must continue.

1) Cool as a cucumber, with added nomenclature
2) Meat and mushrooms, apostasy in Texas and Iowa.
3) Anchovies, the best on the internet?
4) Olive Oil Tourism, the deets

https://buttondown.com/jeremycherfas/archive/etn-299-no-doom/ this time, and consider subscribing.

#food #newsletters

Suffering from a mild case of imposter syndrome. I expect I will get over it.

#beer

False alarm.

OMG. Never thought to look before. https://support.apple.com/en-us/118667

#Navidrome

I mean, if I can mirror my iPhone to my iMac, I surely ought to be able to mirror my iMac to my phone.

#Navidrome

My big problem with #Navidrome is that when I’m listening on the sofa and have all songs on shuffle, I have to bestir myself and walk across the room to skip a song I don’t wish to hear.

I can live with that, but there must be a way.

The grapevine on the terrace is definitely getting going now. As always, the question is: will it flower and set fruit?

#gardening

New episode.

EU regulations for extra-virgin olive oil include tasting notes. An oil that has any of the forbidden flavours cannot be classified as extra virgin.

But modern, old-fashioned oils in Provence go out of their way to develop some — but not all — of the EU’s “defects”. These throwback oils rely on up-to-date equipment and the skill of the miller.

In this episode, the paradox of old-fashioned modern oil.

https://eatthispodcast.com/old-oil

#podcast #food #olives

Today, in Annals of Machine Transcription:

1) IT Desk Podcast

2) Heed This Podcast

No idea where 1 came from, but I quite like 2.

If you want to be sure to hear the podcast, with hand-corrected transcript, head over to https://eatthispodcast.com/subscribe-2/

I ought to update that page, I suppose, but, you know …

#podcasts #food

My BirdNET-Pi detected a tawny owl a few times over the past week, usually around 3 am. We live near a big park so I was inclined to give it the benefit of the doubt. And I was right, because this morning, in the park, I found incontrovertible evidence.

#birds #BirdNET_Pi

I’m resurrecting my post from this day in 2021 because the question it asks still requires some sort of answer.

“damninteresting its core, is about how Lysenko’s fake science, intended to demonstrate the superiority of Marxist theory, was responsible for the death by starvation not only of Nikolai Vavilov but also of uncountable millions of Russians.

“Does a photo faked to show Vavilov in the card index of a library not undermine that intent?”

https://jeremycherfas.net/blog/nikolai-vavilov-as-he-never-was

#damninteresting

Rabbit Quest 20260315-W-AY68OD

* On foot
* 41.8873, 12.4734
* 15 March 2026
* 428.94 ppm CO2
*OpenStreetMap[1]

A fitting rabbit for the Ides of March, the Pope’s Tobacco Factory[2]. I did walk past much closer to the actual Rabbit, but could not pass up the opportunity to snap what might such a significant building.

[1] https://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=41.88733&mlon=12.47436#map=14/41.88773/12.474360&layers=H
[2] https://insidethevatican.com/magazine/holy-smoking-in-piazza-mastai/

#RabbitQuest #geohashing

A neighbourhood Bruggmansia in full flower.

#gardening

Today's exciting news from the terrace, not worth photographic evidence yet for obvious reasons: Convallaria peeping above soil, dahlia ditto, one leaf bud on the Wisteria has broken.

#gardening

Ping! The WhatsApps that should have been an email | Tim Harford: https://stream.jeremycherfas.net/2026/ping-the-whatsapps-that-should-have-been-an-email-tim

The unstoppable rise of extra virgin olive oil

The standards for extra virgin olive oil were adopted in 1960, after a decade marred by wholesale adulteration. Today, EVOO is everywhere, transformed from a mark of quality to a mark of little meaning. The terrible frauds have mostly vanished, but all is not rosy.

“I would argue,” says Carl Ipsen, “that a bigger problem today than fraud is transportation and storage.”

Listen at https://eatthispodcast.com/evoo

#podcast #food #OliveOil

Eat This Newsletter 297: Proudly Inefficient

This time around, efficiency is a very poor metric.

Cooking is inefficient, but enables you to Eat Real Food. Just in time food delivery is inefficient when things are stable, but things are not stable. Microwaves are efficient, even for gourmet meals. Contemplating breakfast in too much detail is inefficient, but fun.

Read it at https://buttondown.com/jeremycherfas/archive/etn-297-proudly-inefficient/

#newsletter #food #agriculture

There is a special place in hell reserved for websites that don’t let you paste your credit card number into a form.

That is all.