@jon In case you have a moment, we were just in Padua where the trams run on a central single rail. Presumably the have balancing wheels on the sides. Are they unique? Is it considered a good design, or weird?
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The round red ball of Chioggia radicchio, with its white ribs, is a mainstay of Italian salads. However, it is just one of a huge family of varieties in a range of colours from pale pink to dark magenta and green splashed with red. Now, thanks to more than a decade of work by Lane Selman and the Culinary Breeding Network, they are beginning to be recognised in the USA.
A new book tells that story.
I just listened to Avery Trufelman’s podcast Lace and Labor.[1] What a banger. An absolutely thrilling episode for all sorts of reasons. Naturally, I had thoughts.[2]
[1] https://overcast.fm/+AARIdT6k-yg
[2] https://jeremycherfas.net/blog/knitting-crochet-and-podcasts
Went for a bike ride and pondered a fitness problem. If I am getting fitter, and I am, how come Apple Health says my cardio fitness is going down?
I love reading, and then day-dreaming, about the kind of cycling infrastructure I’ll never get to enjoy, like these cycling bridges in Limburg, BE. Time was when I used to visit Leuven, but never with a bicycle.
https://brainbaking.com/post/2026/09/five-striking-cycling-bridges-nearby/
New episode: The Truth About Picky Eaters
I cannot imagine the horror of being a parent whose child won’t eat anything. The guilt, the fear, the worry. And yet pickiness is everywhere. It seems almost inevitable. Helen Zoe Veit's new book reveals that pickiness wasn’t even a thing until the 1920s. Where did it all go wrong?And what can you do if your child is picky?
Rabbit Quest Geohashing 20260914-W-B2M8NE
* On foot
* 43.4747, 12.1380
* 14 September 2026
* 424.32 ppm CO2
* OpenStreetMap https://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=43.47472&mlon=12.13803#map=14/43.47472/12.13803&layers=H
Deep in the Umbrian countryside, even a Rabbit only 1.3 km away (much less as the crow flies) might not be reachable, and so it proved. I got as close as I could, on the edge of an olive orchard, but the Rabbit itself was down in a steep wooded valley.
RE: https://functional.cafe/@otfrom/117217395338987297
In this one respect, I would much rather be in Dundee than Rome, where Critical Mass seems to have slunk off into a corner to die.
Crocheted ‘Fungi Hunts’ is absolutely bonkers, and I love it.
https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2026/08/lydia-hansen-fungi-hunts-crocheted-mushrooms-minnesota/
h/t @melanie
Highly unscientific survey, but while sitting at the bus stop today I counted 20 cars and 25% had a single occupant.
RE: https://mathstodon.xyz/@fractalkitty/117222305898020763
Great selection.
If you go for a run and forget your tracking device, did you even go?
Rabbit Quest Geohashing 20260903-W-C171SL
* On foot
* 55.9376, -3.2137
* 03 September 2026
* 423.86 ppm CO2
* OpenStreetMap: https://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=55.937583&mlon=-3.213731#map=14/55.93758/-3.21373&layers=H
Always nice after a day of travelling to find a rabbit within easy walking distance.
We can pickle it. But will we want to?
Ken Albala thinks maybe not.
”This next generation is really going to not care much about pickles, or they’re going to like pickles that are bought in the store and made industrially and really not care about the strange, weird local thing that comes from the other corner of the earth. I think that’s going to fade.”
We talked about fermentation around the world and the past and future of real pickles.
Today is the third anniversary of my joining Mastodon. I continue to enjoy it and all of you.
Deconstructed panzanella with ricotta for lunch.
RE: https://glammr.us/@flickrfdn/117168545360179809
My entry for Q8 tomorrow. #bikenite
That’s it IG. Even my Following choice is now infested with ads. I am not following them. You have betrayed my trust for the last time.
”I’ve been quietly seething for months now about the dumb emails I get from people wailing about my podcast’s invisibility on YouTube. Increasingly urgent, promises that this is the last time, more in sorrow than in anger, blah, blah, blah. ... Why stop seething quietly now?”
https://jeremycherfas.net/blog/no-i-do-not-want-to-be-on-yt
https://social.ewenbell.com/notice/B9VkdcImjwAsdHnC6q prompted me to write a little something about my own disenchantment.
RE: https://mastodon.social/@medieval_illuminations/117126072323898265
I have questions.
In the latest Eat This Newsletter, a couple of dreamy prescriptions for a better food world, as well as a clear-eyed view on what’s up with wheat prices. And if all that is too bitter, how the USA became sweet on yoghurt.
“As late as 1972, a Wall Street Journal article ... claimed that “most people really dislike yogurt—at least at first.” ... “most people” here refers to white, middle-class Americans.
Rabbit Quest Geohashing 20260814-W-AY68OD
* On foot
* 41.8877, 12.4554
* 14 August 2026
* 424.10 ppm CO2
* OpenStreetMap: https://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=41.8877&mlon=12.4554#map=14/41.88772/12.45542&layers=H
Too hot to be out strolling just to get somewhere random, but when the algorithm delivers a rabbit just off the path of my customary morning jog, I was bound to bag it.
RE: https://xoxo.zone/@artlung/117080947709426595
Also good if you're in Europe and can manage mornings.
In the latest Eat This Newsletter, I share a bad case of pessimism. Or is it realism? But there are also lotus eaters, a history of biryani, and a love letter to Italy's August traditions.
I should add, the lack of traffic on the roads and free availability of parking places tempt me to go joyriding to dispel the pessimism.
https://buttondown.com/jeremycherfas/archive/etn-312-gloomy/
Almost 20 years on, my compadre Luigi has refreshed a page that answers the multilayered question What is Agrobiodiversity?
In the course of thinking about macro-photography I discovered a useful possible alternative, at least for now.
Lovely piece on the game of Diplomacy, which I haven’t thought about for more than 50 years.
https://grantland.com/features/diplomacy-the-board-game-of-the-alpha-nerds/