I am in some ways never happier than when I’m in a library. It’s just a natural place for me, somewhere it makes sense for me to be, and I think anyone who knows me would agree that if I were to shed all my worldly possessions and set up camp somewhere not particularly needed by other people, like around the oversized, falling-apart books about motorcycles, they would say they kind of saw that coming.
Among other problems I have terrible impulse control in libraries, and will notice books and decide that if someone went to the bother of writing it there must be something interesting worth reading in it, and, well, what I’m saying is this is why I borrowed Pasta and Noodle Technology, a collection of papers and monographs on the title subject published by the American Association of Cereal Chemists, edited by James E Kruger, Robert B Matsuo, and Joel W Dick. And the book was published in 1996, so it’s not even a book about the current state of pasta and noodle technology, but is instead about the state of pasta and noodle technology from the days when having an online community devoted to Spaghetti-o’s was just the distant dream of some madmen in alt.fan.pasta. What I’m saying is I think I need librarians to save me from myself.
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I would totally read that book! Don’t think less of me 😀
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It’s a magnificent read. The book just name-drops stuff like the trade publication The Macaroni Journal, and doesn’t even pause for the reader to giggle. There’s one full-page picture that shows one highly magnified strand of spaghetti as extruded in a vacuum versus a strand as extruded under some other condition, and as far as I can tell they’re the same thing but the text excoriates one for how the poor decision of its extrusion process has produced preferential paths for water saturation and I just know the author is in utter earnest. I am delighted by every page of this thing.
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Yes! I call these “living books” which are usually written by one person who is so passionate about the topic that they make it come alive! They connect me emotionally to the material in a way that a dry manuscript on the same topic couldn’t. If someone is passionate and can write well about their topic, I’m always grateful to read and become informed about a variety of things. Why not macaroni? 😀
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I am honestly and deeply delighted when I run across a subject I never thought about and discover it to be so fascinating. Now I admit I’m skimming some of the pasta book because it does get into a lot of fine technical points, although learning, say, that the Minolta corporation makes (or at least made) color-detecting equipment used in noodle quality production, well, that just opens the world in a way I sincerely did not expect.
Now that I know how much goes into making noodles I’m not sure it’s respectful of me to just eat them anymore.
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I agree. And this train of thought parallels my enjoyment for reading blogs on a variety of topics. Even math blogs 😉
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Aw, thank you kindly.
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You’re most welcome, Joseph.
Opening day for most MLB teams. Time for you to roll out stats perhaps?!
Hope your week is off to a great start.
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The week got off to a fairly busy, but decent enough, start. I’m just trying to keep up with the week now that it’s rattling out of control.
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Pah. Be who you are, I say. No shame in that! 🙂
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I’m honestly not ashamed, I’m just aware of how ridiculous this is. You have to remember, I’ve always been interested in eating but not so much in where food comes from, so reading all this text about where it comes from is a fascinating adventure.
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