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Ige writes a food column called Bandehado, which appears every Sunday in Bandera. Here is his (no longer) secret recipe for my favorite comfort food, champorado. The recipe looks easy enough, but who has the patience to wash all those pots and dishes afterwards? Does anyone know a restaurant that serves good champorado?

Champion Champorado

May alat ang dapat na kapartner ng champoradong ito upang mabalanse ang tamis na taglay nito—pritong tuyong lawlaw, dilis, o kaya tinapang tunsoy o galunggong na galing sa Rosario, Cavite…

On February 12 we mark the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin.

I’ve read a lot of good books and even more bad books, and I’m ashamed to admit that I have not read probably the most important book ever written, The Origin of Species. (Although I know that Darwin’s grandfather founded the Wedgwood china factory.) So I’m going to try and make up for my ignorance by reading TOS and keeping a diary of the experience. Join me.

More on Darwin’s 200th at Science News.

For seventy years, a prayer book moldered in the closet of a family in France, passed down from one generation to the next. Its mildewed parchment pages were stiff and contorted, tarnished by burn marks and waxy smudges. Behind the text of the prayers, faint Greek letters marched in lines up the page, with an occasional diagram disappearing into the spine.

The owners wondered if the strange book might have some value, so they took it to Christie’s Auction House of London. And in 1998, Christie’s auctioned it off—for two million dollars. For this was not just a prayer book. The faint Greek inscriptions and accompanying diagrams were, in fact, the only surviving copies of several works by the great Greek mathematician Archimedes.

A Prayer for Archimedes, in Science News. Take that, Newton and Leibniz.

Looks a bit like a tennis ball: Rhombic Dodecahedron I, mathematical art by Vladimir Bulatov.

At the Australian Open, pre-tournament favorite Andy Murray is out, losing to Fernando Verdasco. Defending champion Novak Djokovic is out, retiring from his match with Andy Roddick. Roddick was leading two sets to one. Djoker had complained of a leg cramp that was impeding his service motion. He was clearly suffering from the intense heat. And he has a history of quitting big matches at the majors, but I’m going to be kind. Roger Federer beat Juan Martin del Potro in the quarters to set up a semifinal match with Roddick. In the other half of the draw, Rafael Nadal meets Gilles Simon, and last year’s finalist Jo-Wilfried Tsonga meets Verdasco.

Federal/Naderer were not regarded as the favorites in Melbourne. Good for them.

The other day I saw The Scarlet Tunic, a movie adaptation of The Melancholy Hussar, a short story by Thomas Hardy. It’s based on a Thomas Hardy story with ‘melancholy’ in the title, so you know it’s no barrel of laughs. Watching the protagonists meet their tragic fates, all we can say is, “You guys should’ve been in a Jane Austen novel, those end happily. At least you’re not in Jude the Obscure because compared to that, this is a ray of sunshine. If you have to be a Thomas Hardy character, try to be in Far From The Madding Crowd.” I was prepared for the human tragedy, but not for the scene in which the hero’s horse breaks a leg and has to be put down.

This prompted me to compile a list of movies I refuse to see because they have a major animal character and the animal either endures terrible privation or comes to a tragic end.

Umberto D. by Vittorio De Sica (Flag the dog)
Au hasard Balthazar by Robert Bresson (Balthazar the donkey)
Old Yeller (No! Not Old Yeller!)
Movies where the hero’s horse breaks a leg and has to be put down
I could barely watch Babe: Pig in the City because I feared for the pig.

Large-scale human carnage on the screen, no problem; suffering animals, trauma. Near the start of Far From The Madding Crowd, an idiot dog causes a flock of stupid sheep to jump off a cliff, and the newly-impoverished shepherd shoots the dog. I had to stop the DVD for a few minutes.

In his NYT blog Dick Cavett says “the reason the death of a pet is worse than the death of a human is that you have mixed feelings about all people.”

Speaking of animals, our ampon stray cats Jarndyce and Jarndyce have been bringing a friend to dinner.

The cat is pretty, though very dirty.

She/he has some resemblance to Mat, who spent a couple of years outdoors getting to know the local females.

Mat: “You can’t prove anything. I demand a DNA test.”

The new cat is well-behaved, so we’ll let her join the feeding sessions. But she/he needs a name, so why don’t you make some suggestions and post them in Comments? My cats’ names are combinations of tennis/literary/historical/TV and movie names so I would be more likely to pick such a mixture.

If your entry is chosen, you get a copy of In the Wilderness by the Spanish writer Manuel Rivas, to be mailed to a Philippine address (Assuming you send the right name and address and the postman finds you). According to the blurb, the Rivas novel has “A glorious cast of animals and birds.” Rivas wrote Butterfly’s Tongue, which was made into a lovely Spanish movie with a tragic ending.

Saffy Safina wishes her father Marat a Happy 29th Birthday.

Research conducted in Stockholm suggests that drinking coffee might lower the risk of dementia later in life. Might—there’s no evidence that if you start chugging coffee today you will be protected. If you do start chugging coffee today, I suggest black, no sugar, no mountains of whipped cream.

“After controlling for numerous socioeconomic and health factors, including high cholesterol and high blood pressure, the scientists found that the subjects who had reported drinking three to five cups of coffee daily were 65 percent less likely to have developed dementia, compared with those who drank two cups or less…

“Dr. Kivipelto and her colleagues suggest several possibilities for why coffee might reduce the risk of dementia later in life. First, earlier studies have linked coffee consumption with a decreased risk of type 2 diabetes, which in turn has been associated with a greater risk of dementia. In animal studies, caffeine has been shown to reduce the formation of amyloid plaques in the brain, one of the hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease. Finally, coffee may have an antioxidant effect in the bloodstream, reducing vascular risk factors for dementia.”

Cat coffee pot and espresso cups