Category Archives: Reviews

Top Wine Bars: Absinthe Brasserie & Bar In San Francisco Is “Glamorous, Buzzy And Special”

From an SFBayTimes.com online article:

Absinthe Brasserie San FranciscoWhat makes this brasserie so popular? “A culture of hospitality comes from the top down,” explains Absinthe General Manager Brian Gavin. “Bill (our owner) is very gracious and the tone he sets makes everyone feel welcome.”

An homage to all things French, Absinthe is still one of my favorite places to eat in the city. Why? It’s a buzzy destination that feels glamorous and special, evoking a one-of-a-kind feeling of Belle Epoque-era Paris. It’s not just where I dine before the opera, symphony, ballet or SFJAZZ, but it is also where I always take out-of-towners, business associates, clients and staffers.

http://absinthe.com/

Absinthe Brasserie San Francisco Red Burgundies

To read more: http://sfbaytimes.com/little-slice-paris-hayes-valley-absinthe-brasserie-bar/

 

Book Reviews: “Lithium – A Doctor, A Drug, And A Breakthrough” By Walter A. Brown Is “Gripping”

From a Nature Magazine review:

Lithium A Doctor, A Drug, and a Breakthrough Walter A Brown Cover 1He wondered whether lithium could have the same tranquillizing effect on his patients. After trying it out on himself to establish a safe dose, Cade began treating ten people with mania. In September 1949, he reported fast and dramatic improvements in all of them in the Medical Journal of Australia (J. F. J. Cade Med. J. Aus. 2, 349–351; 1949). The majority of these patients had been in and out of Bundoora for years; now, five had improved enough to return to their homes and families.

Lithium: A Doctor, a Drug, and a Breakthrough Walter A. BrownLiveright (2019)

Some 70 years ago, John Cade, an Australian psychiatrist, discovered a medication for bipolar disorder that helped many patients to regain stability swiftly. Lithium is now the standard treatment for the condition, and one of the most consistently effective medicines in psychiatry. But its rise was riddled with obstacles. The intertwined story of Cade and his momentous finding is told in Lithium, a compelling book by US psychiatrist Walter Brown.

Read first part of Chapter 1:

Lithium A Doctor, A Drug, and a Breakthrough Walter A Brown

To read more click on following link: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02480-0?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20190829&utm_source=nature_etoc&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20190829&sap-outbound-id=BBBDB22DFC5EF7E2826B76187F671FEEEA0EA3C0&utm_source=hybris-campaign&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=000_SKN6563_0000014441_41586-Nature-20190829-EAlert&utm_content=EN_internal_32046_20190829&mkt-key=005056B0331B1EE88A92FE6D6D25F179

Culinary Profiles: The History Of Italy’s Oldest (And Most Famous) Cheese “Pecorino Romano”

From an ItalyMagazine.com online article:

Pecorino Romano Cheese - Italy MagazinePecorino Romano today is still made from rich sheep’s milk (pecorino comes from the Italian word for sheep, pecora) and the cheesemaking process closely follows the traditions of the ancient Romans. But most of it is now produced on the island of Sardinia, rather than in the countryside around Rome and Lazio. So why the shift? 

Millennia before cacio e pepe became one of the Eternal City’s trendiest pasta dishes and a social media sensation, its starring ingredient graced the tables of Roman emperors. Cacio refers to Pecorino Romano in Roman dialect, and its origins go back to the aged sheep’s milk cheese that was prized by the ancient Romans. They depended on it as an important source of nourishment for legionnaires—its nutritional value and ability to endure on extended marches made it an ideal food for the soldiers, who were allotted a daily ration of 27 grams.

To read more: https://www.italymagazine.com/featured-story/pecorino-romano-story-behind-one-italys-oldest-and-most-famous-formaggi

Healthcare Update: Health-Professions Students And Workers Are “Exhausted And Sick”

From a Scientific American online article:

Scientific American - Getty ImagesHealth care is a big business, and our system reimburses hospitals and health care workers for caring for the sickest people rather than healthiest ones. This process depletes healers’ energy and often causes them to become exhausted and sick. That means all of us who work in or study to work in health care are at risk. To break this vicious cycle, we need self-scrutiny and willingness to change.

Health-professions students and workers live in chronically stressful environments—responsible for an increasingly sick population, which they are expected to repeatedly rescue from failure. To heal others, our health care professionals need healing themselves.

American medical students, physicians and nurses: There’s good news and bad news.

The bad news is that our health care system and many of its workers are sick. The good news is that we can heal them. We should waste no time in starting.

To read more: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/american-health-care-is-sick-and-its-workers-are-too/

Top Upcoming Exhibitions: “James Tissot – Fashion & Faith”, Legion Of Honor Museum In San Francisco Oct 12, 2019 To Feb 9, 2020

James Tissot, Self Portrait, ca. 1865. Oil on panel Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Museum purchase, Mildred Anna Williams CollectionTissot consistently defied convention in both his professional and personal life. His contributions to the academy and the avant-garde are documented by participation at diverse venues such as the Paris Salon as well as London’s Royal Academy and the Grosvenor and Dudley Galleries. This exhibition explores his multifaceted career with a fresh perspective and original scholarship and will also question where and how Tissot should be situated in narratives of the nineteenth-century canon.

Tissot was arguably a painter of modern life although he did not formally belong to the Impressionist circle and never exhibited in their group shows, despite an invitation from Edgar Degas. 

Legion of Honor Museum

The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and the Musée d’Orsay, Paris are co-organizing James Tissot: Fashion & Faith, the first major reassessment of the artist’s career in over 20 years. In San Francisco, this international retrospective will examine approximately 60 paintings, additional works on paper, and cloisonné enamels by Tissot. Exhibition highlights are drawn from the permanent collections of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, including Tissot’s Self Portrait (ca. 1865) as well as prints and photographs from the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts. New scholarship on the artist presented in this collaboration demonstrates that even Tissot’s most ebullient society paintings reveal rich and complex commentary on topics such as nineteenth-century society, religion, fashion, and politics, rendering him an artist worthy of reexamination in the twenty-first century.

https://legionofhonor.famsf.org/exhibitions/james-tissot-fashion-faith

Top Scientific Podcasts: Carbon-Based Computing And Depleting Ancient-Human Genomes (Nature)

Nature PodcastA nanotube microprocessor: Scientists are looking beyond silicon, by constructing a computer chip using carbon nanotubes.

Using ancient-human remains conscientiously: While genetic sequencing of ancient-human remains is providing more information than ever, these remains must be safeguarded, warn researchers.

In this episode:

00:45 A nanotube microprocessor

Scientists are looking beyond silicon, by constructing a computer chip using carbon nanotubes. Research article: Shulaker et al.News and Views: Nanotube computer scaled up

08:38 Research Highlights

Weighing neutrinos, and discovering a hidden Zika epidemic. Research Highlight: Lightest neutrino is at least 6 million times lighter than an electronResearch Highlight: Cuba’s untold Zika outbreak uncovered

10:29 Using ancient-human remains conscientiously

While genetic sequencing of ancient-human remains is providing more information than ever, these remains must be safeguarded, warn researchers. Comment: Use ancient remains more wisely

17:21 News Chat

The discovery of a 3.8-million-year-old hominin skull, and using CRISPR to make ‘smart’ materials. News: Rare 3.8-million-year-old skull recasts origins of iconic ‘Lucy’ fossil; News: CRISPR cuts turn gels into biological watchdogs

New Historical Fiction: “To Calais, In Ordinary Time” By James Meek Is “Inventive And Original”

From a Canongate.co.uk online release:

to-calais-in-ordinary-time-hardback-cover-9781786896742.600x0“Fans of intelligent historical fiction will be enthralled by a story so original and so fully imagined. Meek shows the era as alien, which it is, and doesn’t falsify it by assimilating it to ours. But his characters are recognisably warm and human”
HILARY MANTEL

“An inventive and original novel that captures the distant past and pins it to the page”
The Times, Book Of The Month

Three journeys. One road.

England, 1348. A gentlewoman flees an odious arranged marriage, a Scots proctor sets out for Avignon and a young ploughman in search of freedom is on his way to volunteer with a company of archers. All come together on the road to Calais.

Coming in their direction from across the Channel is the Black Death, the plague that will wipe out half of the population of Northern Europe. As the journey unfolds, overshadowed by the archers’ past misdeeds and clerical warnings of the imminent end of the world, the wayfarers must confront the nature of their loves and desires.

https://canongate.co.uk/books/2764-to-calais-in-ordinary-time/

Top Museum Exhibits: “Buried by Vesuvius – Treasures from the Villa dei Papiri” At Getty Villa

From a Wall Street Journal article:

Getty Villa Buried by Vesuvius - Treasures from the Villa dei Papiri…the Getty Villa, despite some anomalies and insertions, is considered a strong likeness, which makes it a powerful locale for “Buried by Vesuvius: Treasures From the Villa dei Papiri,” the first major exhibition of works discovered in the Roman residence. The show includes Weber’s 1758 architectural map—used to build the Getty Villa—along with some of the approximately 90 sculptures pulled from the site, showing athletes, philosophers, rulers, poets and mythological figures. The exhibition also displays findings from the recent excavations.

The idea was half-mad: building a museum to look like an ancient Roman villa that was buried under 75 feet of debris when Vesuvius erupted in A.D. 79 and had never really been seen since. But J. Paul Getty made his immense fortune by bringing ancient subterranean material (i.e. oil) to the surface, so he must have felt similar excitement in exhuming this villa, in concept if not reality. It opened as the home for his eponymous museum in 1974; now called the Getty Villa, and located in Los Angeles, it holds the institution’s Classical collections.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/buried-by-vesuvius-treasures-from-the-villa-dei-papiri-review-a-homecoming-of-sorts-11566941174

French Wine Values: Red Burgundies Are Top Long-Term Values (Exceeding S&P 500 Over Last 15 Years)

From an Economist.com online article:

Collectors who have drunk most of their Pinot already may need another glass after seeing the results. By the end of 2018, red Burgundy had returned 497%, versus 279% for the s&p 500. (Our index does not extend to 2019, since many of the wines it contains have not been traded this year.)

Wine Price Index Economist August 2019

 

The index has also been less volatile than stocks are, though this may be an artefact of how it is calculated: no one knows what each wine would have sold for in the crash of 2008-09. Bordeaux and Champagne rose by 214% in 2003-18; everywhere else did worse.

Predicted Wine Appreciation from Economist August 2019

 

Wine collectors like to proclaim that “all roads lead to Burgundy.” They often wince at the plonk they drank when starting their hobby. In America and Australia, a common entry point is local “fruit bombs”: heavy, alcoholic wines that taste of plum or blackberry; bear the vanilla or mocha imprint of oak barrels; and should be drunk within a few years of bottling.

To read more click on the following link: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/08/24/burgundy-wine-investors-have-beaten-the-stockmarket?cid1=cust/dailypicks1/n/bl/n/20190828n/owned/n/n/dailypicks1/n/n/NA/299647/n

Consumer Issues: Many Products Designed For Older People Are Just “Brown, Beige And Boring”

From a MIT Technology Review online article:

Engaging older people in designing for older people “is a good thing,” says Smith. “Because younger people do tend to have this picture of designing things that are functional for older people, but not really understanding what makes them happy.” Presented with products that are “brown, beige, and boring,” many older people will forgo convenience for dignity.

MIT Technology Review why are products for older people so uglyIt’s a familiar tune to engineer Ken Smith, director of the mobility division of the Stanford Center on Longevity. He says one of the biggest mistakes designers make is to assume that around the age of 60 people lose interest in aesthetics and design. This can have dire consequences for products meant to help people with their health. No one wants to stick a golf-ball-size hearing aid the color of chewed gum in their ear, any more than they want to wear a T-shirt that reads “SENIOR CITIZEN.”

To read more click on the following link: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/614167/why-are-products-for-older-people-so-ugly/?utm_campaign=the_download.unpaid.engagement&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=76169117&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-_dlTg24O7Cr_1b5J4cniKFvi74Dmh8Fm3nuJVTbblAB8Z3fna_Rj6WoV6M6aodqOVSJnh603-liOHFgjAr_EQEh9sVQw&_hsmi=76169117