The Elephant and Butter, as you may know, has co-founded a film festival. Confounded a film festival! Confab a flimsy vestibule! Cuffed a fish Vesuvius! Co-funded Vin Diesel! 

Tickets are running out. They are priced quite anti-capitalistically.

The Elephant and Butter has acquired anchovies, yet does not really eat anchovies. There are so few pull-tab tins in my life, though, it seemed worth bringing home. It is very probable that the anchovies will be deposited furtively on the shelf of a local boutique when I tire of the tin. Dada shopping.

The Elephant and Butter has been underground lately, in the basement stacks of the local library. There resides a substantial subterranean vault cookbook section aisle, and I've been borrowing volumes one by one. The other night I took Suzanne Goin's "Sunday Suppers at Lucques" over to the coffee shop and copied down recipes. Though I was tempted to try the recipe for ragoût of morels with crème fraîche, if only because of all those attractive little grave and circumflex marks hovering above the words, I opted instead for the parmesan pudding. The savory custard very quickly took a turn toward pecorino romano, though, because that's what the refrigerator dictated.  I also cracked pepper and scattered some thyme on top. Custard in itself, you see, offers few surface effects. The taste of this savory version, though: salvific. 

Probably, everyone has a nemesis word. By this, I mean a word that lurks in one's life, easy to misspell or easy to mispronounce. Until very recently, one of mine was Renaissance. For some synaptic reason I will probably never understand, it took me far, far, too many years to stop imagining that word having a helluva lot more Ns than it does. I only mention it because there's a pretty great collection of Renaissance kitchen illustrations here. And to convey the fact, dear reader, I had to spell it.

Food preparation with Little Richard, as sung in 'The Girl Can't Help It':

If she walks by, the men folks get engrossed/

If she winks an eye, the bread slice turns to toast.

From The Blood Oranges, by John Hawkes:

None of the bitter aged and none of that arrogant handful of the contemptuous youth have tasted the love lunch, for instance, or know anything at all about the sexual properties of my golden wheels of ripe cheese.

That John Hawkes sure knows how to pack a lunch, doesn't he? Meanwhile, after a lunch of dubious cafeteria curry, my stomach sounds like it's housing a family of pigeons. I would call it a dovecote, but that word is far too comely for the ominous din below.

I became a little uppish today. A bit cock-a-hoop. I put on airs. Oh, gentle reader, do forgive me, I wore a sweater vest and ate Heidesand cookies at a tea party for only me.

The Elephant and Butter has issued a challenge to the entire office: Let's combine our various thirsts and drain this entire water cooler in one day! One day! Let's come together as one in one day! Let's reenact the classic Man v. Nature paradigm, from which so much insight has been gleaned in art and literature! Let's be the collective Ahab to this water cooler's Moby Dick! Let's forget our differences and hydrate as one humanity!

But the office largely balks. Someone says: I don't understand why we must do this. The person in charge of our budget tells me my idea is costly. And despite the impressive efforts of a few, the water level hasn't subtracted much (see photo). Perhaps history will regard my ideas more enthusiastically, more seriously, more thirstily.

The Elephant and Butter has been feeling approximately red pants. But persisting nicely. Lemons are being preserved. The Hinterland is being adjudicated. Asparagus is being researched for a free-lance project. I mean, really researched. As in: amino acids, spies, Persia, urination, and possibly even the Queen of England. Details to follow in a couple of months.

To my ultimate credit, I have decided to eat all my meals for the next month with my left hand instead of my right. This decision was made last night over a plate of Thai drunken noodles. In a flash of cognizance with no known source, it occurred to me that for practically my entire life my right hand has dominated every meal requiring a utensil. Unsurprisingly, my right hand is fantastically adept at all sorts of actions, while my left hand generally rests on the table as if miserably near-dead. Dear god, what have I done?! No hand deserves a subaltern status. So begins my uplifting project of giving my left hand a month of hot attention.