Ferenc Máté's Blog, page 3
May 7, 2013
Wine Spectator Interview
Interview with Owen Dugan for Wine Spectator (February 2009)
April 1, 2013
"Children should be allowed to get bored..." from BBC news
When our son Buster was 5 years old we decided to spend the summer sailing aboard a boat we had built and lived aboard for years. Our destination was the wild and empty archipelogos and mountainous fjords, of the British Cloumbia coast. We provisioned for two months: supplies, spare parts, food, wine and clothes for heat, wind and rain. What we completely forgot were Buster’s toys.
In his pocket he had one little car and that was that. By the time we realized this, we’d been a whole day at se...
In his pocket he had one little car and that was that. By the time we realized this, we’d been a whole day at se...
March 24, 2013
"You Phone vs. Your Heart" by Barbara Fredrickson
Friends, here's an important article from today's NY Times by Barbara Fredrickson. Another reason to connect face to face instead of phone to phone.
Your Phone vs. Your Heart
By BARBARA L. FREDRICKSON
CAN you remember the last time you were in a public space in America and didn’t notice that half the people around you were bent over a digital screen, thumbing a connection to somewhere else?Most of us are well aware of the convenience that instant electronic access provides. Less...
February 13, 2013
Strangers in the Night (and Day) (excerpt from A REAL LIFE)
Strangers in the Night (and Day)
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January 23, 2013
Financial Obesity (excerpt from A REAL LIFE)
Financial Obesity
The 1970s werestill an age of moderation, exemplified by the fact that for New York lawyers and teachers, starting salaries were about the same. In those days, the number of overweight or obese in the populace hovered around 10 percent. But by 2010, the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services classified 66 percent of adults in the United States as overweight or obese. That same year, the starting salaries for NYC lawyers had ballooned to four times that of the city’s te...
January 14, 2013
The Shallowing of Our Minds (excerpt from A REAL LIFE)
The Shallowing of Our Minds
Recently my bestfriend ruined my weekend. He grabbed from his shelf a book published last year and said it might fit in with what I was writing. It was titled The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains. I had never read a non-fiction book in two sittings, but Nicholas Carr’s book I just could not put down. He starts off wit...
Chapter excerpt from A REAL LIFE
Chapter 14
The Shallowing of Our Minds
Recently my bestfriend ruined my weekend. He grabbed from his shelf a book published last year and said it might fit in with what I was writing. It was titled The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains. I had never read a non-fiction book in two sittings, but Nicholas Carr’s book I just could not put down. He star...
January 7, 2013
Honor Thy Vegetable Garden (excerpt from A REAL LIFE)
Honor Thy Vegetable Garden (another excerpt)
Our relationship withfood defines cultures, often starts and decides wars, and reflects not only our social status but our whole economy. It is also a profoundly emotional and social one as when we share meals with friends and family, and when we build comforting memories with our children.
Perhaps the oldest and most enduring food culture is that of China. The Chinese philosopher Lin Yutang wrote, “If there is anything we are serious about it is ne...
New chapter excerpt from A REAL LIFE
Chapter 10
Honor Thy Vegetable Garden (another excerpt)
Our relationship withfood defines cultures, often starts and decides wars, and reflects not only our social status but our whole economy. It is also a profoundly emotional and social one as when we share meals with friends and family, and when we build comforting memories with our children.
Perhaps the oldest and most enduring food culture is that of China. The Chinese philosopher Lin Yutang wrote, “If there is anything we are serious abou...
December 28, 2012
How Do You Hug an E-Friend? (excerpt from A REAL LIFE)
How Do You Hug an Electronic Friend?
A recent study by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that kids aged eight to eighteen devote 1,600 minutes per week to watching TV, while the amount of time per week that a child spends in meaningful conversation with his parents is 3 ½ minutes. When I first read these statistics, I was speechless. It took some time to comprehend that if a child sleeps for eight hours, goes to school for abou...
