Charlotte's Web...

Spotlight: E.B. White wrote Charlotte's Web in 1952. The story of a spider (Charlotte) who tries to save a pig (Wilbur) from slaughter became an instant hit with children and parents alike. Today at noon (EST), schools, libraries and other organizations around the globe are working to break the world record for the most people reading the same passage simultaneously in multiple locations by asking students, educators, librarians and fans of Charlotte's Web to gather in schools, hospitals, libraries and community centers to read a passage from the book. Dakota Fanning stars in a film version of the book, due to be released next week.

Quote: "I don't understand it... When the words appeared, everybody said they were a miracle. But nobody pointed out that the web itself is a miracle." — Charlotte's Web, by E.B. White

See previous Spotlights

How to cook pig in French and English!

Serious Cookbook, Manic Pig
By OLIVER SCHWANER-ALBRIGHT

MARTIN PICARD may be one of Canada’s most famous and respected chefs, but his name doesn’t appear on the cover of his new cookbook, “Au Pied de Cochon — The Album.” There was no bank-breaking advance, and no promotional tour. In fact, there wasn’t even a book deal.

Instead, Mr. Picard, the chef of Au Pied de Cochon, the cult Montreal restaurant, published the book himself, and had faith that a readership would find him.

Now he has a publishing phenomenon.

The book sold out its first press run of 6,000 copies (5,000 in French and 1,000 in English), three weeks after its release on Oct. 23.

The book was very much a collective effort of the whole restaurant, the reason the only name on the cover is Au Pied de Cochon’s, Mr. Picard said. He and his staff wrote it over two years on Mondays, when the restaurant is closed. That is also the day when they do their pickling and preserving, so they held editorial meetings while making enough cornichons and corn relish to last through the winter.

From the start they had an unconventional cookbook in mind, and self-publishing proved to be more liberating than limiting.

How else could they open the book with a photograph of Mr. Picard in a meat locker, slugging a split pig as if it’s a punching bag while his shirtless staff watches? Would a big publisher have let them include a picture of the barrel-chested Mr. Picard wearing nothing but a regal sash under the title “PDC Food Porn,” or a portrait of the dishwashers acknowledging their hard work, or a phone message from an unhappy diner with choice words for Mr. Picard? More

Recipe: Venison Tartare

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Swift & Company

Not contributing enough?

FW: Breaking News Tue., December 12, 2006

Breaking News from ABCNEWS.com:

BUSH ADMINISTRATION ASKS APPEALS COURT TO OVERTURN RULING REQUIRING REDESIGN OF U.S. CURRENCY TO HELP THE BLIND

...yeah, screw them too...

WoW, imagine that!

Massive gun 'buyback' doubled fall in Australian gun deaths
Australia's 1996 gun law reforms -- Faster falls in firearm deaths, firearm suicides and a decade without mass shootings

The chances of gun death in Australia dropped twice as steeply after 700,000 guns were destroyed in a national firearm ‘buyback’ and amnesty, reveals a decade long study in Injury Prevention.

The study tracks the 10 years following the introduction of gun law reform in Australia between 1996 and 1998. More