You know you have a problem with being the Interlibrary Loan guy when...

...all of the books that come in that day are for you!

Today's specials:

Archestratos of Gela - Greek Culture and Cuisine in the Fourth Century BCE: Text, Translation, and Commentary
Sport in Classic Times, by Alfred Joshua Butler
Dangerous Tastes - The Story of Spices, by Andrew Dalby
Food in Antiquity, ed. Wilkins, Harvey, and Dobson
Food in Antiquity - A Survey of the Diet of Early Peoples, by Don Brothwell
Language in Danger - How Language Loss Threatens Our Future, by Andrew Dalby

The first five are only semi-recreational, as I'm putting together a seminar about Ancient Greek cuisine (what else?). What started as a harmless classroom introduction to the tastes of antiquity has rapidly snowballed into a full-scale Broadway production, not just as a lecture now but as a real sit-down meal at a respectable restaurant and guests that may or may not include the food critic for The Boston Globe! Of course I'm excited, but at the same time, I'm only a self-taught cook, with only a dilettante's knowledge of food history. Granted, I've spent a lot of time with the sources, and you don't need to know much about Ancient Greek cuisine to start calling yourself an "expert", but pulling off such a stunt is going to take an awful lot of knowledge and effort, to say the least. It is a subject I am passionate about, however, and how better to educate people about the passions of the classical world than by immersing them in its food and drink? And even a failure to make this event happen would be something to talk about. So why not?

The sixth book is merely a happenstance find, by the same author of Dangerous Spices (and the monumental Siren Feasts, which documents food and the Greeks over a period of three thousand years). Linguistic diversity is an issue near and dear to my heart, so I'm eager to see what Mr. Dalby has to say about it. For a while, my brother and I were thinking about launching a non-profit venture dedicated to disappearing languages, as a "good works" adjunct to his brainchild, an online language instruction company called LingLang.com. Yes, I know, the link doesn't work. But it was a good idea at the time, and even though the business model morphed from language instruction to online tutorial services, and the linguistic diversity offshoot idea was soon lost in the shuffle, I was truly sorry to see the company go under, because my brother poured his heart and soul into making it fly, and too few people are trying to fill the cracks in our nation's educational system these days like LingLang did.