Sparrows on the Grass, Alas...

More about the thermopolium in Pompeii, including a modified recipe from Apicius, similar to what the archeologist suspects would have been served there. I'm somewhat surprised by the amount and variety of bones found. I'd always imagined the ordinary Romans as being great lovers of bread and vegetables, who ate sparingly of meat, and especially so amongst the lower classes who would have formed most of the custom of the thermopolium.

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So, I've not had Campbell's Cream of Sparrows' Grass soup (a great favourite) since the Chinese Pestilence settled upon the land. It remained on Campbell's website, so I was sure that it wasn't discontinued, but you could never find it in stores. I wrote it off as being some sort of supply disruption caused by the pandemic. I finally found some yesterday! Better still, the same place (Martin's, part of the IGA Group) also has a sushi counter. I'm very satisfied.

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Apicius holds that asparagus is best cooked by immersing the stems in boiling water, and letting the buds (the top parts) steam uncovered. That nicely avoids the Scylla and Charabdis of mushy buds/tough stems.

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The Tokyo Olympics slowly falls apart. What seems to be dooming them as much or moreso than the Chinese Doom is that stereotypical Japanese attitude that it's unthinkable for operational-level people to even imagine, much less discuss, the possibility of failure. While strategic planning and executive decisions are important, it's at the operational level where much of the fallback and resilience to failure takes place. When you prevent people from discussing 'what if' scenaria, you pretty much guarantee that your organization won't be able to respond effectively when things don't go as planned.

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This is interesting. It's basically a herd immunity calculator, with various adjustable parameters.

Crows!

My Amazon package just came. To my absolute delight, it was the crows who alerted me to the presence of the deliveryman.