"... tangy reduction enlivened with a sprinkle of cinnamon and saffron."

"You may have heard that Italy was introduced to pasta by Marco Polo, who brought it from China. It's a great story, but it was probably cooked up by a 1920s Don Draper — it's just not true. Italians were eating pasta before Polo was born. How, then, did two nations half a world apart, with radically disparate cuisines, wind up making noodles that are strikingly similar? That's what food writer Jen Lin-Liu sets out to discover in On the Noodle Road, traveling overland from Beijing to Rome.
     Lin-Liu, a first-generation Chinese American, was raised in suburban Southern California; she went to Columbia University and afterward moved to China to explore its food and culture. She wrote about the country's rapid changes alongside her own story of attending cooking school and becoming a chef in her first book, Serve the People. This book, too, mixes personal narrative with a journalist's take on the world around her.
     Lin-Liu traveled the Silk Road, selecting her path from the trade routes along which recipes and ideas might have migrated. She took about six months, giving herself time to eat lots, explore kitchens and learn to make noodle dishes along the way."

— Carolyn Kellogg, Los Angeles Times
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For what it's worth

Gutenberg Bible: a complete first edition is worth
US $25-$35 million (from: Luxist)

What's a novel for? A short story? A poem? And what are they worth?
     In an age where stuff is cheap — in the 1976 Eaton's catalogue (like Sears in the U.S.)  the cheapest colour TV (14") was $399.99. That's $1,270.14 in today's dollars; on March 19, 1984 a Proctor-Silex toaster was on sale at K-Mart for $22.88; again, in todays money: $39.82). A toaster at Walmart now costs about $15.00.
     Life is cheap, too. We are all too familiar with the lot of factory workers throughout the developing world and here in North America (Bangladesh is in the news right now, finally); the resurgence of slavery and human trafficking.
     And then there's the factory in China, Foxconn, that makes iPhones and other high-end electronic goods banning their workers from committing suicide.
      In Honduras, "There is a violent death every 74 minutes... and the country has a murder rate more than four times higher than Mexico." according to an article on the BBC News Magazine website.
     In an age where everything has been devalued, except for the absolute essentials like food and fossil fuels, is it any wonder that authors of fiction can't make any money?
     Never mind poets, and writers of so-called "literature." Granted, some novelists strike it rich and become millionaires, billionaires; but these occurrences are as anomalous as winning the lottery or gazing upon the proverbial blue moon.
     So, to answer the question... questions: Entertainment, then — that's why we do it; we're like court jesters — distraction, that's what we're for: the slaking of humankind's craving for escape, to suffer along with some made-up character: catharsis.
     But, you say, TV shows, computer games, the Internet, music, the theatre and movies do all that. Look at shows like "Mad Men" and "Breaking Bad," and movies like "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel," and "The King's Speech," to name a few. That's where the money is — for people who want to tell stories in this day and age. We must all become screenwriters and cast out lot with hordes of taxi drivers and waiters and dog walkers in L.A. who live their lives waiting for the "ka-ching" of success.
     All things considered, especially in light of the heart-warming news in the first few paragraphs of this post, I guess we should count ourselves lucky even to have the opportunity to write.
     Now I'm really depressed; or at best, just lost for words.
— Michael Hale