I think I want to talk about NaCl, but I am not sure

Categories: books, food-and-drink, holidays

Tags: salt, Library Thing, Books

Date: 01 August 2006 14:40:56

I just wrote a really long post and clicked something which made it disappear into the ether. Lets hope that I can remember most of it.

Despite my earlier post, I haven't yet posted anything about books. There are three reasons for this: firstly, I was saving it until I had nothing else to say; secondly, I haven't been reading anything I would admit to recently and thirdly, I want to link to other websites, so need to give myself the time to remember how html works. Thanks to the wiblog FAQ, I think I have this last figured out. Time will tell.

Has anyone come across Library Thing? If not, make sure you have an hour or two to spare before clicking since it is the most effective procrastination tool I have yet come across. It allows you to create your own library catalogue of books you own, look at how many other people have the same books as you, and much, much more. The most addictive thing I have found is applying the correct cover to each book in your collection and then viewing them as a virtual bookshelf. I've not yet upgraded to a full account so I am limited to 200 books. This means that my collection at the moment is rather skewed towards books I want people to know I read. I actually read a greater proportion of rubbish than appears here.

Note: since starting to retype this post, library thing has been unavailable. Hopefully it will be back up again before too long. Thanks to Daisy, my regular commenter (commentator?), for the original recommendation of Library Thing.

Onto one of my favourite books from the last few years:
Salt by Mark Kurlansky
This is, no really, a book about salt, as in the stuff you cook with and spread on icy paths. It includes the history of salt making/harvesting/mining, the political significance of salt, the importance in food storage pre-refridgeration, some rather worrying recipes (take a barrel of salt, top up with X, leave for 6 months, pour into a jar) and other fascinating stuff. Kurlansky writes in a really engaging style, with stories interspersed with facts and information. I first read it on a train to Cologne, hardly noticed the channel tunnel and nearly forgot to change at Brussels. Since then, I have read it again on more than one occasion and found it just as interesting.

This book changed my life because: when I read fiction, particularly fantasy or historical fiction, I get distracted by working out how this community must get enough salt to preserve meat/fish etc. I also have a new respect for parma ham, one of my favourite things.

His other non-fiction is definitely on my wanted list.

On a related note, this is my favourite salt. It is nice enough to eat in small quantities straight from the packet and goes really well on a spinach and tomato salad with a dash of balsamic vinegar. Having just checked out the website, I can see that I am going to have to acquire some Maldon Pepper as well.

There, I think I remembered most of what I was going to say. One final question: Did I use the semi-colon in the first paragraph correctly? This punctuation lark is causing me no end of bother.