At 15, Wie Is in Line to Make Men's Cut - New York Times

At 15, Wie Is in Line to Make Men's Cut - New York Times: "SILVIS, Ill., July 7 - While many other teenage girls relaxed Thursday on summer vacation, Michelle Wie was playing on the PGA Tour and giving the men a run for their money. Michelle Wie could become the first woman since Babe Didrikson Zaharias in 1945 to make a PGA cut. The 15-year-old Wie fired a one-under-par 70 in the first round of the John Deere Classic and put herself in a good position to become the first woman to make a PGA Tour cut since Babe Didrikson Zaharias in 1945, at the Tucson Open"

I'm the Boss, and I Say No Lentils

New York Times: "AK PELACCIO can't stand sweet potatoes. 'I find them a little too rich, a little too cloying, a little too overwhelming,' Mr. Pelaccio said. 'I don't like to eat them.' It isn't unusual for somebody to hold a deep dislike for a particular food, but Mr. Pelaccio is the chef of 5 Ninth, an inventive restaurant that plays fast and free with its ingredients. Veal breast is braised, topped with botarga, and served with green tomatoes, shishito pepper and ground ivy. But no innocent sweet potatoes?'I just have no desire to cook with them, ever,' Mr. Pelaccio said. 'And sweet potato fries are the most disgusting things.'Almost everybody has his or her sweet potato, a food that is harmless to the rest of the world but that is, to this individual, too revolting to stomach. Your basic eater can spend a lifetime dodging that ingredient, bypassing those dishes that will make him at best unhappy, at worst queasy. But a chef can turn his personal dislike into restaurant policy. 'Whenever I tell somebody I hate lentils, they're shocked,' said Bobby Flay, whose menu at Bar Americain, incidentally, is peppered with sweet potato, including some in the clam chowder. 'There are a lot of lentil fans out there.'An early draft of Bar Americain's menu had a beet and goat cheese salad with lentils, but Mr. Flay rejected it before the restaurant opened. 'When I go on vacation, they run specials on lentils,' he said. Celery is a building block of French cooking, but it has no place at Chanterelle. 'I don't use it in my stocks,' said the chef, David Waltuck, whose loathing has become lore. 'I don't use it in my mirepoix. It has no flavor. It's one-dimensional. It's an exercise in chewing. It's pointless.' There are arguments for banning an ingredient based on concerns about quality or morality. Some choose not to use out-of-season strawberries because they're flavorless, or Chilean sea bass (also known as Patagonian toothfish) because of overfishing. The argument for banning carrots bigger than your thumb, however, is a little more arbitrary. 'I will serve baby carrots,' said Alexandra Guarnaschelli, the chef of Butter. 'But once it gets over two inches long I break into a cold sweat.'"

Donate Live 8 profit says Gilmour

BBC NEWS : "Artists and record firms who have seen album sales soar after Live 8 should donate their profits to charity, Pink Floyd star Dave Gilmour has said. 'I will not profit from the concert,' the guitarist said. 'This is money that should be used to save lives.' Lib Dem culture spokesman Don Foster said performers should donate 'the profits that Live 8 helped to create'. Universal Music said it would give its profits from digital downloads of Sir Paul McCartney's performance to Live 8. 'One hundred per cent of the revenues we receive from the downloaded tracks will be passed on to the Band Aid trust,' said a company representative. Live 8's spokesman was unavailable for comment. Pink Floyd guitarist Gilmour urged artists and record companies to make a charitable donation off the back of Saturday's landmark global concerts. LIVE 8 STARS' ALBUMS BOOST 1. Pink Floyd - Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd - 1343% 2. The Who - Then and Now - 863% 3. Annie Lennox - Eurythmics Greatest Hits - 500% 4. Dido - Life for Rent - 412% 5. Razorlight - Up All Night - 335% 6. Robbie Williams - Greatest Hits - 320% 7. Joss Stone - Mind, Body and Soul - 309% 8. Sting - The Very Best of Sting & The Police - 300% 9. Travis - Singles - 268% 10. Madonna - Immaculate Collection - 200% Source: HMV 1. Pink Floyd - The Wall - 3600% 2. Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here - 2000% 3. Pink Floyd - Dark Side of the Moon - 1400% 4. The Who - The Ultimate Collection - 1400% 5. Pink Floyd - Animals - 1000% 6. Velvet Revolver - Contraband - 1000% 7. Robbie Williams - Greatest Hits - 800% 8. Pink Floyd - Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd - 600% 9. Razorlight - Up All Night - 600% 10. The Killers - Hot Fuss - 200% 11. Kaiser Chiefs - Employment - 200% 12. Dido - Life for Rent - 200% 13. Joss Stone - Mind, Body and Soul - 200% 14. Scissor Sisters - Scissor Sisters - 200% 15. Madonna - Immaculate Collection - 150% Source: Amazon.co.uk"

Television That Leaps Off the Screen - New York Times

Television That Leaps Off the Screen - New York Times: "IN a nondescript optics lab in tucked into an anonymous office park in the San Fernando Valley, the photon hackers of Deep Light are showing me the future of media. The object of their affection is a small screen on which an animated gladiator is clashing scimitars with a horned monster in a Coliseum-like setting. But this isn't a flat cartoon image: it's full 3-D space, the combatants circling each other inches from my eyes so convincingly that my hand twinges to grab them - and I'm not wearing those clunky red-and-blue cardboard glasses, either. I'm seeing a 3-D image with the naked eye. My host, Deep Light's co-founder Dan Mapes, bounces on his heels, giggling with delight. 'It's cool, isn't it?'"