internet explorers club | grilled cheese travesty

Yesterday JK Rowling announced the existence of 11 wizarding schools around the world apart from Hogwarts. There are some cryptic maps which are simultaneously clear and confusing, especially for those of us who spent almost a half-hour trying to figure out where the North American school, Ilvermorny (Ill-ver-morn-ee) is located (my current guess is Upstate NY / Canada, though why you wouldn’t put it in the middle of the American West is beyond me)

The other schools are Castelobruxo in Brazil, Mahoutokoro on a volcanic island off of Japan, and Uagadou, carved out of mountainside in what appears to be the DRC.

Cool creepy things in history alert! A drought uncovered a 19th century wagon from a sunken Oregon town called Old Detroit.

Also! Rebecca Onion (whose newsletter is lovely) wrote a fascinating look at the “real” Hugh Glass (protagonist of The Revenant), delving into the origin of the story, and and how different versions of the story were used over the years to push messages about Native peoples, masculinity, and the American West.

…before the 20th century, the mountain man was a figure to be admired but not necessarily to be trusted. He was too slippery, telling tall tales and living by his own code, outside of society’s strictures; this made him colorful but dubious. It took some historical distance for a fictional Glass to become an icon of moral rectitude, as well as physical strength.

Cuneiform cookies!!!

The big food news in Manhattan is that Pete Wells, the restaurant critic for the Times downgraded Per Se from four stars to two (the review is DELIGHTFULLY snarky). This article in the Awl talks about how strange it is that restaurant critics for the Times are being hailed as populist heroes. What’s even more interesting is the brief discussion of Ruth Reichl, critic in the mid-to-late 90s, who caused outrage at reviewing restaurants outside the normal purview of the Grey Lady. There’s a delightful interview with her from Salon in 1996 that’s well worth a read.

A strike against the NYT, however, is this travesty of a “grilled cheese” they reviewed at a new restaurant. I found out about this three weeks ago and I’m STILL angry. (in Wells’s defense, he did refer to it as coming “out of a Betty Crocker children’s cookbook.”)

In other strange hipster takes on food: an article about a “water sommelier” giving a “water tasting” at LACMA (from their customized water menu at the restaurant) I cannot read with a straight face.

Riese begins his water presentation by paying homage to the artistic scene in Los Angeles.

On the other side of the world, thirty-five restaurants in China are under fire for seasoning their food with opium.

I have spent far too much time with this online Spirograph

Etcetera: Obscure 18th-Century Man or Fancy Cat? I am not even going to try and top this headline: Author Amy Tan 'Thrilled' by Bloodsucking Leech Named in Her Honor. The US Government is hiring a project manager for Burning Man.