Pizza Time

Foodie internet sites today have been carrying a story about pizza

that is apparently noteworthy. The USDA (US deptartment of Agriculture)

has just released data about pizza to the effect that it is a favourite food for many.

On any one day, 1 in 8 Americans will consume pizza. Among teen-aged males, the

number is 1 in 4. The numbers below.

What can one conclude from this. After all, there is pizza and pizza. People like

cheese toast; maybe it has become a food category, like soup. I do know, for my part,

that the thin-crusted vegetarian Dr. O I sometimes eat one tiny piece of is nothing like, well, 

1976 all-dressed delivery. With a paste ball to hold the cover, overlapping pepperoni and  so much oil that the bottom of the box was quickly soaked...Memories!

Ukraine Numbers

source: Le Monde

February 7, 2014

Mathile Damgé

SnowC

source: Wikipedia

translation: doxa-louise


SNOWCLEARING
...


Spreading de-icing materials
At the beginning of precipitations, if the temperature is at the freezing point, the spreading of de-icing salt permits the accumulation to melt, to be subsequently evacuated by the sewage system. This can be the sole snowclearing activity if the quantity of snow is low. This technique is utilised after a large snowstorm, where the most of it has been removed by heavy transport and there is only to eliminate the thin residue on the road.

Salt (sodium chloride) spread out absorbs humidity from air and the surrounding snow, in an endothermique chemical reaction, so that the mixture so formed is a sort of brine. This initial dissolution of salt to form brine will be hastened as circulation gives a more intense mixing. Salt has the property of reducing the freezing point of water and the snow which melts at contact with the brine will remain liquid. However, the concentration of salt will diminish with additional melting, which diminishes its usefulness. Starting at -6 C, there is generally not enough humidity in the air to start the reaction and transport sevices are then forced to switch to a prepared product. Under laboratory conditions, sodium chloride (in large quatities) will stop the formation of ice down to -20 C; at the doses used on roads, the reaction no longer produces desired results at -10 C. The service trucks then spread a mix of salt and abrasives (gravel, sand, scoria, landfill) to make the layer of snow granular enoughto permit sufficient adherence for automobile tires. Other de-icers permit overcoming the shortcomings of salt (humidity absorption, corrosion).


Snow pick-up

...

Mandatory

Winter tires are mandatory in Quebec. Makes a big difference!

Happy Valentine's Day!!

Fat_D

During the dark days of snowed-in winter - and to be frank, when mindless munching beckons - I have taken to watching the Fat Doctor series of episodes on You Tube. It is an English show, over many seasons, where each tells the story of morbidly obese individuals undergoing bariatric surgery. And as the intro invariably says, "Beware of graphic scenes..." Performing surgery requires strong individuals, physically and morally.

This is not the first show introducing us to the lives of the terribly obese. I remember being utterly shocked when the first bed-bound individual made headlines (1 000 pounds, in the late 1970s?) How could such a state of affairs even be possible. Today it is commonplace to find people weighing over 14 stone (14 x 14 = 200) or 200 pounds, and at 22 (300 pounds) serious mobility restrictions set in.

Where earlier series often emphasize how it happens, and delight us with graphic eating scenes and recitations of daily intake -( Delightful because it is akin to a fairy tale moment where the protagonist scores his heart's desire, irrespective of the constraints of reality.) - this show zooms in on repetance. I love me food; Of course, my portions are too big. It is like crack cocaine to me...

The medical team is also quite likeable: these people need to be helped because things have reached a point where even the best intentions could not bring them back to normality. It is a world of large livers, distended stomachs, gorged fat aprons: a physical intervention to restrict intake seems to make sense. Does it really?

Dr Somers comments at one point how bariatric surgery has taken over his career. He is a highly trained 'gut' surgeon, after all. Indeed, the idea of bariatric surgery arose as an accident, when it was noticed that certain procedures left patients with a much reduced appetite. So what is the feedback we are getting here: no one really needs ulcer surgery anymore - ulcers happen to executives too driven to eat - but an aging population exposes record numbers of out-of-control fat-engorged bodies. Surely a new look at this phenomenon is possible.