Adios Campagnolo

It's a black day at The Mothership.  Mark Bittman, one of my favorite food writers, is abandoning his post at The Times and taking a job with one of those companies that sends you fresh ingredients in a high tech box twice a week, plus recipes.  The twist is that Bittman's company (I'm guessing he has a piece of the action, and to that I say God blessim) is that it's vegan.  Vegan!

Here's a lovely photograph ...

Taken from an article in The Times last week titled "Mark Bittman's Top Ten Columns" or something similar, it's a photo illustrating one of the recipes from the column titled "Simple Stocks for Soup on the Fly."  The stock in question is herb stock.  Which sounds a little like something in a Bob Marley song.

Which brings me to this ...

Marlon James' book about political upheaval in late 70s Jamaica fueled, in part, by factional jealousies about Bob Marley's political leanings (or lack of same) and the CIA's need to stir every pot, even when the soup was cooking nicely by itself.

Da pot a cook but da food no nuff

What a book!  The bad news is that I'm only half way through and I have to return it to the library today or face a fine of a dollar a day.  The real problem is that the book is structured as a series of short point-of-view chapters, at least half of which are written in dense Jamaican patois.

I'm not talking the "Hey, mon" stuff--hey, that stuff is easy.  No, I'm talking deep patois.  I'm talking slang that if you google it you get nothing.

So it's a slow read.  But fabulous.  Immersive.  I think I'm going to have to buy it.