Dear friends,
I know what you’re thinking: is our Bakerina a flash in the pan? Two days’ worth of recycled prose, two days’ sabbatical, now just a bunch of crappy interstitials? I would not blame you for thinking such things, but stop thinking such things. It seems that the past week’s arctic cold front (three degrees in NYC this weekend! Three degrees!) brought some mysterious and malevolent bug with it, because said bakerina has been feeling ill. Symptoms include fever, fatigue, malaise, ennui, gloom, a fruit-fly-like attention span, headache, dropsy, impetigo, low blood pressure, high blood pressure, acid-reflux disease, fear for the future, lack of interest in the future, sore throat, insatiable appetite for navel oranges, anthrax, housewife’s knee and nymphomania.
As you might suspect, all this has hindered my ability to string two or three thousand words together, but rather than just take a little sabbatical, maybe say “hi, friends, I’m taking a little sabbatical” first...nooooo, I have to share it all with you. 
Until I am on the mend, then, I will probably just throw a few nuggets of love your way. (If you think I’m throwing nuggets of something else, well, then, thank *you* for sharing.)
A moment of silence, for seneca has shut down All is Vanity. I was so looking forward to his return from his own winter sabbatical, and I’m sorry to see that he’s making it permanent. I’m still too shy to beg him to return, but seneca, if you’re reading this, won’t you reconsider?
The Universe Has a Sense of Whimsy, Part MM: On December 4, the very day that I posted my love letter to Petits Propos Culinaires and The Wilder Shores of Gastronomy, the Guardian ran Alan Davidson’s obituary. I had no idea he had died until I picked up my new copy of Saveur, where he is listed in this year’s Saveur 100. Davidson was the founder of PPC and its publishing arm, Prospect Books, as well as The Oxford Companion to Food, not only a peerless resource book but the best food writing you will read anywhere. Please, please do read the obit, which was written by his successor at Prospect and long-time friend Tom Jaine. Alan Davidson was a singular guy, and I will spend the rest of my life singing his praises to anyone who will listen.