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In the blue, hazy hills of West Java, the coffee harvest coincides with harvesting of rice and cloves. Several weeks earlier the daily rainstorms, a constant during the wet season, abruptly eased- giving way to hot, dry sultry days that crackle with heat from mid morning onwards. The showers still arrive, but late in afternoon, as the heat becomes almost unbearable.
As stillness descends on the villages that dot the hills, thunder storms begin their inevitable roll down from the slopes above. The sawah (rice fields) that were green and lush a month before are golden and rustling with a brisk crackle as the rain storms arrive. Before the rain arrives the air in the mountain towns is dry and fragrant, punctuated with the pungent scent of drying cloves, fermenting coffee and the dusty, baking volcanic soils. The mixture of these contrasting aromas is reinvigorating for visitors from the cities on the plains below.If you want to read more, visit the website of
Merdaka Coffee.
Q. Where do you find mangoes?*What's your favourite fruit? As much as I may miss a Cox's Orange Pippin, a gooseberry, rhubarb, a Victoria plum and all those other fruits that were grown in my parental home, I must agree with Nigel Slater who offers a paeon, nay, a symphony to the j
uicy, fragrant, sweet, sensual, sexy and, indeed, messy mango.
Read more for a couple of recipes, but not for wine. Has anyone tried to make it?
Ben Goldacre has
a weekly column in the Guardian and
a website, both called
Bad Science. He debunks all kinds of, erm, bad science, is
moved to tears by the beauty of blogs because "
criticising activities and ideas, of all things, with a passion for the truth, should never be a dangerous hobby", and has come across a paper, published in 2007, which suggests that
folk with Down's Syndrome and Asians have very similar characteristics.Read more.For example, "
Down persons during waiting periods, when they get tired of standing up straight, crouch, squatting down, reminding us of the 'squatting' position ... They remain in this position for several minutes and only to rest themselves. This position is the same taken by the Vietnamese, the Thai, the Cambodian, the Chinese, while they are waiting at a bus stop, for instance, or while they are chatting."
And "
Down subjects adore having several dishes displayed on the table, and have a propensity for food which is rich in monosodium glutamate."
Fidel Castro has questions for Obama"
The brightest and best of the presidential hopefuls seeks to extend a cruel, immoral Cuba blockade."
This man who is doubtless, from the social and human points of view, the most progressive candidate for the US presidency, portrays the Cuban revolution as anti-democratic and lacking in respect for freedom and human rights. It is the same argument US administrations have used again and again to justify crimes against our country. The blockade is an act of genocide. I don't want to see US children inculcated with those shameful values.Read more ... and reinforce your prejudices.
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*A. Where womangoes.
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