Jack Gilbert’s debut was a phenomenon. When he first appeared on the literary scene — winning the prestigious Yale Younger Poets prize in 1962 for “Views of Jeopardy” — he was accorded a measure of celebrity that even today’s media-savvy luminaries would envy. (How many other poets find their photos featured in Esquire, Vogue and Glamour?) He was hailed for his unique voice and sensibility and, rising from the gritty landscape of industrial Pittsburgh, for taking a bold stance counter to the prevailing fashions. Read full article > >

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Book World: In Jack Gilbert’s ‘Collected Poems,’ a pen that cuts deep

Rarely seen colour photos

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In pictures: Russian Empire in colour photos

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan It’s a few days before Christmas, and Staff Sgt. Andre Vappie is showing pictures of himself dressed in a red suit for the “Santa Claus 5K Run” that took place a few weeks ago at the U.S. military base here. As he scrolls through the photos, you can see at least 50 other guys in Santa suits celebrating the holiday season in this muscular way, far from home. Read full article > >

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Joy to the troops

Food says so much about where you’ve come from, where you’ve decided to go, and the lessons you’ve learned. It’s geography, politics, tradition, belief and so much more and these next two weeks, we invite you to dig in and discover the rich, ever-evolving taste of America in 2011. Catch up on past coverage and read the live blog from our Secret Supper in Chicago. It was, of all people, Gwyneth Paltrow who inspired – and agitated – me to write a cookbook. There it was online: Paltrow and her new cookbook, My Father’s Daughter . Heck, if she could do it, so could I. So began my three-month journey to put together a cookbook dedicated to a way of cooking that many Americans consider exotic or foreign. For me, though, these recipes have been a way of life: they are the traditional foods of my family from Pakistan. Spices are everything in South Asian cooking. It's rare that my mom cooks anything without dhaniya , zeera , lal mirch or haldi . Cumin, coriander, red chili and turmeric (the English names, respectively) run in my veins. But my quest to find out how much of these spices to use and how to incorporate other foods with them was a small mountain of a problem: most South Asians don’t keep precise written recipes of the foods they regularly make. The secrets (as they may as well be) are passed down by word of mouth from family members or friends. Even after recipes are received, the mind's eye leads them and people cook by “andaaza” or by estimated measurement. If I wanted to put together a cookbook as a gift to my mother for her recent birthday, I was going to have to deploy the skills of an investigative reporter. I tried cooking with her, which helped…some. She'd say things like, “use about a handful of fried onions,” until she saw what my massive fried onion fist looked like and corrected the original instruction accordingly. I drilled her nearly every evening for specific recipes and pressured her to give me concrete measurements. I even called my aunt to resurface recipes my mom made when I was a child that she has since stopped making. Paltrow's book included a foreword by Mario Batali, which inspired me to get someone to write one for my book too. I recruited my Nani (my mother's mom) who still lives in Karachi, Pakistan, for the task. A few weeks later, I received a completed foreword from her and the first line read, “Ever noticed a mother bird feeding her nestlings?” It was immediately clear her foreword was going to be a little different from Batali's, but it had the exact personal touch and the heart that I wanted from a family member. Her last line even mentioned how she was so happy I had learned to cook because it would ultimately lead to a happy marriage (her way of nudging me in that direction). I went through stacks of old family photo albums, and found one picture for the introduction – it was of the day my family received our American citizenship. We posed with a cake my mother had made with white frosting, sliced strawberries and blueberries arranged to look like the American flag. At the time, I remember thinking how silly it was my mother made a cake just because we were changing our passport color from green to blue. Looking back, and even thinking about how I've “Americanized” many of her dishes over the years, I realize just the enormity of what that moment represents in my cooking – and beyond. Despite the fact that many South Asian women don't use formal cookbooks for South Asian food, compiling family recipes is something that many South Asian women commonly do – even my mother had partially started a hand-written journal filled with cooking instructions. I wanted mine to look professional though and so I used a company called AdoramaPix to lay out my photos and text. I had already written up the recipes, so I was certain this step would just take a weekend; how hard could it be to copy and paste? Working with an online template was a painful Tetris game though; it required maneuvering recipes to a different section of a chapter based on their length, or tweaking some recipes to get them to fit on a given page. Because so many of my mom's recipes were given to her or emailed to her by different friends and family, many of them had different abbreviations and styles. I had to compose a stylebook for myself, and decided that there would be many words I'd abbreviate: like teaspoon and tablespoon. I also had to choose a font size and type for the picture captions that I could keep consistent throughout the book, in addition to dozens of other minuscule decisions. None of them were hard to make, but keeping what I wanted consistent in my 78-page book was a tedious and eyeball-aching copy-editing project. Finally, when most of my own book had been put together, I bought Paltrow's book. I didn't look at many cookbooks while doing my project because I wanted my own ideas to shine through. After looking through her book, I surprisingly found I had an incredible admiration for what she did and the fact that it seemed she was really hands-on in making the book. Still, judging Paltrow's book solely by its cover was a great thing for me: it set me off on a three-month cooking, photography and book-making journey and it gave me the spark I needed to make my very own cookbook. Here are a few recipes from my mother: Daal This is a spicy Pakistani lentil recipe Ingredients 1 cup masoor daal (whole orange lentils) 1 tsp salt 1 tsp red chili powder 1 tsp coriander powder pinch of turmeric 1/2 yellow onion, minced 1 tomato, diced 1 1/2 serrano pepper, minced 1/4 cup oil 1 tsp whole cumin 1 medium garlic clove, sliced cilantro for garnish Cooking Directions 1. Place the daal, salt, red chili powder, coriander, turmeric, onion, tomato and serrano pepper in a pot with about 2 cups of water on high flame. Once the mixture has come to a boil, lower the flame and cover the pot with a lid. 2. The daal will be cooked and the water will be absorbed in 15-20 minutes. Thoroughly mash the daal mixture or blend using a hand blender 3. Heat oil in a separate small fry pan. When the pan is hot, add whole cumin and garlic. As the garlic starts getting golden brown, pour the cumin and garlic mixture (with the oil) into the pot with the daal 4. Cover the pot again and let it sit off the stove for a few minutes to cool before serving 5. Stir the mixture; plate and add cilantro for garnish Aloo Means potato in Urdu. The way South Asians cook aloo is typically very flavorful and spicy. Ingredients 1/4 cup oil 3 medium-large potatoes, peeled and sliced 2 stems of curry leaves (Available at Indian store. Not mandatory, but it will add to the taste) 2 garlic cloves, minced or blended 2 serrano peppers, thinly sliced or blended 1 tsp whole cumin (seeds, not powder) 1 tsp salt 3/4 tsp red chili powder 1 tsp coriander powder 1/8 (a pinch) of turmeric powder 1 tomato, diced cilantro for garnish Cooking Directions 1. Cover the surface of a large pan with a thin layer of canola oil (about 1/4 cup oil) and place it over a stove on medium flame 2. Saute in the curry leaves, garlic and cumin until the garlic turns light golden (this should just take a few minutes) 3. Stir in the green chilis, salt, red chili, coriander, turmeric so they are well-mixed (about a minute) 4. Stir in the potatoes and occasionally flip them so both sides of slices start cooking 5. Once the potatoes start turning golden, stir in the tomato 6. If the potatoes are sticking to pan, stir in a quarter cup of water 7. Then cover the pan with a lid and place the stove on low flame for 10 minutes 8. Plate and add cilantro for garnish Karahi Chicken A karahi is a wok-like pot that many South Asians use to cook. My mother doesn't use one to cook this, but the name stuck and we always refer to it as this in my family) Ingredients 1/4 cup oil 3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts 2.5 serrano pepper, minced or blended 2 garlic cloves, minced or blended 1/2 tbsp ginger, minced or blended 1 tsp cumin powder 1 tsp coriander powder 1 tsp red chili powder 1 tsp salt 1/8 (or a pinch) of turmeric 1 tomato, diced cilantro for garnish dash of lemon juice for taste Cooking Directions 1. Defrost the chicken and cut into squares or strips 2. Cover the surface of a large pan with a thin layer of canola oil (about 1/4 cup of oil) and place it over a stove on medium flame 3. Stir in the serrano pepper, garlic, ginger for about a minute until you can smell the aroma (about a minute) 4. Saute in the cumin, coriander, red chili, salt and turmeric for about a minute 5. Mix in the chicken and stir it until it’s almost cooked (this will take a few minutes until the surface area of the chicken appears cooked) 6. Stir in the tomato for about 2-3 minutes 7. Put the lid on, turn on low flame, and allow it to cook for another 10 minutes 8. Double check that the chicken is fully cooked by cutting through a few. If still needed, cook the mixture on high flame for another few minutes 9. Plate and add cilantro for garnish

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How Gwyneth Paltrow inspired me to write a cookbook

Between his coaching gig on the NBC singing competition “The Voice” and his photos splashed across tabloids after his Texas wedding to fellow country star Miranda Lambert, there’s been no shortage of Blake Shelton lately. But the moment he strolled out Saturday night at the Maryland State Fair and roared the opening lines of the party song “All About Tonight,” one thing became clear: The place he really belongs is onstage with a guitar. The lanky, charismatic crooner has been a mainstay in country music for the past decade. “I just wrapped up a show called ‘The Voice.’ . . . People think of me as a new artist. Most of y’all know I’ve been doing this a long time,” Shelton said, referring to viewers who think they’ve discovered an up-and-coming country act on the reality show. Read full article > >

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Blake Shelton delights state fair crowd with his country hits

The Defense Department has refused to do a quick review of a Freedom of Information Act request for photos of Osama bin Laden’s dead body. The Associated Press requested the photos and other materials related to the death soon after the May 2 raid on…

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No Fast Review of bin Laden Photos

More members of Congress are seeing something cleared for only a select group of Americans: Photos of Osama bin Laden’s corpse.

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Death pics called ‘pretty gruesome’

Republican Sen. James Inhofe said Wednesday night he had seen the “pretty gruesome” photos of Osama bin Laden’s corpse, part of a growing group of members of Congress who have seen the photos. “That was him,” said Inhofe. “He is gone. He’s history.”…

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Inhofe: Bin Laden Photos ‘Gruesome’

President Barack Obama will not to release photos of Osama bin Laden’s body as evidence of his death, the White House says. FULL STORY | BLOG • Palin says Obama ‘pussyfooting’ • Why the photos won’t be released • Is Pakistan doing enough to fight terror? • Fake bin Laden photo circulates • More raid details emerge • Jumbled raid reports raise doubts • iReport: World reacts | What’s next?

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Death images of bin Laden kept secret

Eerie new photographs show details of the Abbottabad compound where Osama Bin Laden was killed. There is still blood on the floor in the room where he presumably died. One of the photos obtained by ABC News shows a stock of medicines from the house,…

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New Photos Detail Bin Laden Compound

Eds: Restores links to AP Photos, video, audio. With AP Photos. AP Video.

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Volunteers tend to victims in storm-ravaged South

Timed nicely to coincide with all of the talk yesterday ( here and elsewhere) about the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s flight around the globe, Wired Science put together a fascinating gallery of retouched space photographs. The image displayed above — and all of the others in the collection — shows how the Soviet Union simply airbrushed some cosmonauts out of spa in the 1970s. “The Soviet Union’s string of space triumphs over the United States was tarnished by a series of falsifications that surfaced and cast doubt on all their accomplishments, even the genuine ones,” former NASA scientist James Oberg wrote in introducing the photographs. ”Today on the 50th anniversary of the Yuri Gagarin’s first spaceflight, the greatest of the Soviet space triumphs, there are still plenty of unresolved doubts and suspicions.” It was only discovered that the photographs had been doctored after clumsy Soviet news managers accidentally re-released the originals. “Side-by-side publication of the forgeries sparked widespread mockery of the clumsiness of the Soviet lies,” Obert wrote. ”This led to a series of awkward attempts to explain the photos, that let slip even more information.” H/T BoingBoing .

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How the Soviet Union Airbrushed Some Cosmonauts Out of History

Has former Alaska governor Sarah Palin peaked politically? (AP Photos/India Today) Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin may have peaked, politically speaking.

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Sarah Palin’s tipping point

The U.S. Army apologized Monday for photos published in Germany’s Der Spiegel that showed American soldiers posing over the corpse of a civilian. In a statement, the Army called the photos “repugnant to us as human beings and contrary to the standards…

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U.S. Army: Afghan Photos ‘Repugnant’

Q:  I’m an iPad owner that is overwhelmed by the number of applications available. Where should I start if I’m looking for a way to utilize the iPad’s screen for browsing through photos? FLICKPAD Free lite version | $4.99 | Version: 2.1.3 | Shacked This one’s for those of us who travel in photo-happy circles. We’ve gotten a taste of what the iPad can do with loads of pictures (Exhibit A: the Photos app and its nifty stack-of-pix and scrolling grid layouts). Now we want the same treatment for those other two big sources of picture plenty: Facebook and Flickr. Flickpad is a special-purpose viewing, sharing, and commenting tool. Its name reveals its main method: you “flick” photos on and off a screenwide lightbox. Especially when you’re flooded with new pix, the app’s review-and-release system (you flick viewed photos offscreen and a replacement from the same album instantly appears) is not just efficient, but also great fun. PICK & PRESERVE : The app’s calendar-based approach (you can view this week’s haul, last week’s, or move day by day) is great for catching up on photo-viewing chores you’ve had to put aside for things like, you know, work. Save the gems you like best to a Flickpad favorite album and email any pic you like to anyone, even if they’re not a member of one of these networks (yep, still a few of ‘em out there). TONS O’ TOOLS : Other treats: double-tap any picture to see the full album it belongs to; hide friends whose photos you don’t want to see; and, in the Flickr icon, tap Explore to see a greatest hits selection — sorta like a tour through your friends’ best pix … if your friends were all pro photographers. HONORABLE MENTION: QUBICAL $0.99 | Version: 1.0 | Aleryon Half the fun of Facebook comes from the photos your pals share. But unless you’re on full-time news feed patrol, it’s easy to miss the latest pix. And even the ones you do see show up in that boring “click Previous, click Next” layout. This app stakes its future on a pretty distinct bet: photo browsing’s more fun when pictures get laid out like tiles on a twirlable 3D cube. And you know what? As you exit the Land of Lists and feast your eyes and fingers on the app’s photo-filled cube, the temptations to tap, to pinch, to — whoa, there, fella … these are your friends — well, let’s leave it at this: Qubical’s a fun way to browse. CUBE CONTROL : Grab the cube by tapping and holding anywhere onscreen (not just on the cube itself) and pivot it by moving your finger. Shrink or enlarge the box by pinching or spreading. For your autorotating pleasure, tap the arrow-around-the-pole icon. The app’s also got Facebook’s commenting hooks built in, so you can add comments. PICTURE POWER : Double-tap any friend whose photos you want to see an then head to the Albums icon. Here’s where you can roll through whatever photo collections your buds have broadcast. See something you like and wanna view it, uh, normally? Just tap the picture for a regular shot frozen in plain ol’ 2D space across your screen. Tools mentioned in this entry: APPLE IPAD More questions? View the complete Toolkit archive . Excerpted from Peter Meyers’ Best iPad Apps: The Guide for Discriminating Downloaders . Copyright 2010 O’Reilly Media, Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission . Read more Atlantic Technology Channel book excerpts .

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iPad Apps: Best App for Friend Photo Browsing