TWICK OR TWEET?

Sorry -- couldn't resist that ghastly pun in the title.

This morning (or was it last night?) I got a forwarded message from my excellent friend Peter Griffin about a culinary twend (ouch! Sorry again) involving the social networking phenom known as Twitter.

I am not interested in Twitter. About a month ago, I struggled mightily against the forces of inertia and wriggled out of the clutches of FaceBook because, after two years of being Fbooked I found it annoying and time-draining and I was delighted to cut my links.

So I do NOT want to become interested in Twittering on any other activities that make me wonder whether that's a bird in my brain or just the wind whistling in through one ear and out the other.

NEVERTHELESS ... reading the piece below had me wondering whether there IS something in all that social networking after all ... something cute and (oh dear, here it comes) TWEET!

Read on:


Take 1 Recipe, Mince, Reduce, Serve
By LAWRENCE DOWNES
OF what possible use to me is Twitter? I’m not interesting enough to follow around. To convey the capsulized brilliance of my life at any moment, 140 characters are too many. The same, I reluctantly add, goes for you: unless you’re hemorrhaging, I think I can wait to know what you’re doing until the next time we talk. Let’s get coffee later. My tweet.

But wait. There is one thing. A woman in Northern Ireland has turned Twitter’s solipsism upside down. She sends tweets that tell followers nothing about herself. Instead, they tell useful, interesting things, things they might really want to know.

She tweets recipes.

Honeyed Tagine: brwn lb/500g yam or lamb/T oil&butter/t tumeric&ging&s+p&cinn; +c onion&carrot9m; +c broth/3T honey/9prune. Cvr~h@400F/205C.

Biscotti: mix 1/3c sug/3T oil/egg/t anise flavr; +c flour/t bkgpwdr. Roll log to fit bkgpan; pat down. 30m@375/190C. Slice~14; brwn+6m/side.

Look closely. These are awesome acts of compression. Ingredients, actions, quantities, times and temperatures — both Fahrenheit and Celsius — boiled down to utmost richness, density and clarity. A dish, a meal, a trip to deliciousness magically packed into the tiniest carry-on bag.

.... (the rest of the article is available here. It's really worth reading. I twick you not!)