Fountain Pen Buying Guide

A Sample of Different Writing Nibs

Click here to read The Five Reasons to Buy a Fountain Pen

Click here to read How to Buy A Pen That Will Last Forever

Click here to read about the LAMY Safari Fountain pen. This is one of the best fountain pens made and available for around $25-$30.

Peter O'Toole - RIP

Babette's Feast - Movie

One the great food movies of all time. This movie was so popular that many restaurants offered a special Babette's Feast menu.

Babette’s feast was made up of the finest dishes and wines served at the restaurant she had in Paris:

§ Potage a’la Tortue

(Turtle Soup)

§ Blini Demidoff au Caviar

(Buckwheat cakes with caviar)

§ Caille en Sarcophage avec Sauce Perigourdine

(Quail in Puff Pastry Shell with Foie Gras & Truffle Sauce)

§ La Salade

(Salad Course)

§ Les Fromages

(Cheese and Fresh Fruit)

§ Baba au Rhum avec les Figues

(Rum Cake with Dried Figs)

...and after prayer, the dinner begins. The wine is opened and poured, the turtle soup ladled into each bowl. Next, tiny pancakes garnished with odd looking, fishy smelling little black eggs. Ah, a quick look of surprise 

in the eye of the French Officer. Caviar! 

And Champagne!

...and then, as the guests are beginning to sip another glass of vintage wine, the aroma of something special wafts through the dining room; “Caille en Sarcophage avec Sauce Perigourdine.” It is a masterpiece. One of the finest 

of the finest of classical French dishes served only in Paris’s finest restaurants. Tender, gamey quail stuffed with foie gras and encased in a puff pastry shell, swimming in a pool of black truffles hand-picked in the Perigord region of France.

Rare bottles of “Clos de Vougeot” are poured into crystal goblets.

Dinner ends with a fabulous rum cake with glaceé and fresh fruits.

In 19th century Denmark, two adult sisters live in an isolated village with their father, who is the honored pastor of a small Protestant church that is almost a sect unto itself. Although they each are presented with a real opportunity to leave the village, the sisters choose to stay with their father, to serve to him and their church. After some years, a French woman refugee, Babette, arrives at their door, begs them to take her in, and commits herself to work for them as maid/housekeeper/cook. Sometime after their father dies, the sisters decide to hold a dinner to commemorate the 100th anniversary of his birth. Babette experiences unexpected good fortune and implores the sisters to allow her to take charge of the preparation of the meal. Although they are secretly concerned about what Babette, a Catholic and a foreigner, might do, the sisters allow her to go ahead. Babette then prepares the feast of a lifetime for the members of the tiny church and an important gentleman related to one of them.

European Film Awards 2013

The European Film Awards were just held December 7th in Berlin. Check the following website to see a list of the Nominees.

European Film Awards Nominees

Follow this link to see the winners and photos of the festivities.

Brain Pickings

Brain Pickings is the brain child of Maria Popova, an interestingness hunter-gatherer and curious mind at large, who has also written for Wired UK, The New York Times, Harvard’s Nieman Journalism Lab, and The Atlantic, among others, and is an MIT Futures of Entertainment Fellow.

Brain Pickings is a human-powered discovery engine for interestingness, a subjective lens on what matters in the world and why, bringing you things you didn’t know you were interested in — until you are. Founded in 2006 as a humble email digest and eventually brought online, the site was included in the Library of Congress permanent web archive in 2012. Here’s a little bit about the 7 most important learnings from the journey so far.

The core ethos behind Brain Pickings is that creativity is a combinatorial force: It’s our ability to tap into the mental pool of resources — ideas, insights, knowledge, inspiration — that we’ve accumulated over the years just by being present and alive and awake to the world, and to combine them in extraordinary new ways. In order for us to truly create and contribute to culture, we have to be able to connect countless dots, to cross-pollinate ideas from a wealth of disciplines, to combine and recombine these ideas and build new ideas — like LEGOs. The more of these building blocks we have, and the more diverse their shapes and colors, the more interesting our creations will be.

Brain Pickings — which remains ad-free and supported by readers — is a cross-disciplinary LEGO treasure chest, full of pieces spanning art, design, science, technology, philosophy, history, politics, psychology, sociology, ecology, anthropology, and more; pieces that enrich your mental pool of resources and empower combinatorial ideas that are stronger, smarter, richer, deeper and more impactful. Please enjoy.

Brain Pickings web site here:

My Current Book Request List

I am a big fan of history. Here's a brief list of books on my request list. I've seen many of the authors make presentations on BookTV.org.

✔	i	Format	Title	Pickup Library	Status	Hold Position
			Lawrence in Arabia : war, deceit, imperial folly and the making of the modern Middle East    by Anderson, Scott, 1959-	Northwest Regional Library (Surprise)	Active (since 10/29/2013)	8 of 14
			The bully pulpit : Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the golden age of journalism PRES    by Goodwin, Doris Kearns, author.	Northwest Regional Library (Surprise)	Active (since 11/12/2013)	15 of 58
			Hitler's furies : German women in the Nazi killing fields    by Lower, Wendy.	Northwest Regional Library (Surprise)	Active (since 11/17/2013)	7 of 14
			Heretics and heroes : how Renaissance artists and the Reformation priests created our world    by Cahill, Thomas.	Northwest Regional Library (Surprise)	Active (since 11/24/2013)	1 of 1
			George Washington's secret six : the spy ring that saved the American Revolution    by Kilmeade, Brian.	Northwest Regional Library (Surprise)	Active (since 12/7/2013)	58 of 63
			The heir apparent : a life of Edward VII, the playboy prince    by Ridley, Jane.	Northwest Regional Library (Surprise)	Active (since 12/7/2013)	1 of 3
			The storm of war : a new history of the Second World War    by Roberts, Andrew, 1963-	Northwest Regional Library (Surprise)	Active (since 12/8/2013)	1 of 1
			Extortion : how politicians extract your money, buy votes, and line their own pockets    by Schweizer, Peter, 1964-	Northwest Regional Library (Surprise)	Active (since 12/8/2013)	10 of 10
			Alexander Hamilton : creating a nation    by Kent, Zachary.

Favorite Chinese Films

I'm a big fan of Chinese films. All of the following films include Li Gong except Eat Drink Man Woman, China's most famous actor. All of the films except Farewell My Concubine (Chen Kaige) and Eat Drink Man Woman (Ang Lee) were directed by Yimou Zhang.