What does this somewhat revolting photograph have to do with a pasta maker, you ask?

Still confused?

This, my friends, is pasta dough. Which is one of the easiest things in the world to make. Try it sometime. You’ll like it. That brilliant yellow color is from the egg, a farm-fresh specimen form Rancho Navarro. Which reminds me, where does the term “farm-fresh” come from? I mean in theory all things are fresh from a farm at some point in their lives.

But I digress.

This, my friends, is a pasta machine, my latest acquisition. It is, as you can see, bright, shiny, and immensely fun to use. Fairly easy, too, although when the strands of dough get long, it’s a little hard to handle things one handed.

It came with one attachment, for making linguine and capellini.  I realize that this picture looks incredibly cluttered, but that’s kind of what happens when you have a small house. There’s not a lot of white space. Except for in the bedroom. And I don’t make pasta in the bedroom, for reasons which I hope are obvious.

Here’s some pasta all rolled and cut. If you’ve never used a pasta machine before, it’s hard to explain how awesome it is. It fills me with a childish sense of glee to slowly crank the pasta through, dialing the settings down one by one to the desired thickness.

My father also has a pasta machine. His has a ravioli attachment, although it doesn’t work very well, as we discovered the one time we tried to make ravioli with it. I suspect that ravioli may require thicker dough. F and I may be experimenting with manufacture of ravioli in the future, but I don’t think we will be using a ravioli attachment, not least because borrowing kitchen equipment from my father is like trying to rope an invisible greased pig. I’m thinking half moon ravioli. Simple. And delicious.

Here’s what the pasta turned into, by the way. I do love me some pasta.

People like looking at animals. The history of human and animal interaction and the human fascination with animals is pretty neat too.

Gender and race are pretty big issues in the election, something which I personally think is pretty silly.

Hoarding or helping? People who run animal shelters out of their homes sometimes run afoul of the law.

Traditional ways are on the way out in some parts of Japan. Thanks, globalization!

Climate change in slides, courtesy of the Guardian, just in case anyone still thinks it’s a myth.

Steven Spielberg will not be assisting with the Beijing Olympics, responding to concerns about Chinese actions in Sudan. I am conflicted about participation in the Olympics. One the one hand, I think it transcends national boundaries and politics. On the other hand, I’m not sure I support China’s actions in a lot of fields, from human rights to food security, and I have a tough time supporting our involvement in the Olympics as a result.  Thoughts?