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Nothing can kill kitchen morale like a slow night. And any cook will tell you that it is much more likely for their food to suffer on a slow night than on a busy one, even though a single plate might have the kitchen's full attention. Cooks thrive on energy, speed and efficiency, and without the challenge of a full dining room, they easily become bored and unchallenged, which leads to a lackadaisical cooking performance. So, they find ways to combat boredom. Some have cook-offs, contests to see you can make the best, original sausage (pork with coriander), or the best snack for a drunken night (French fries with pulled pork, gorgonzola fondue and tomato aioli). Other, less industrious cooks, play cards or take turns scouring the web for poker and porn on the office computer. Most spend at least some of the time tormenting the waiters or each other. One group of cooks I worked with came up with a truly original way to beat the boredom.
 
 When it became clear that the night was going to be endless with only a few orders trickling in from time to time at the most, the cook in charge of the kitchen (and the ringleader for most of the kitchen capers), would announce that it was time for Pants Off Dance Off. While singing the opening music to the 80's dance classic "Everybody Dance Now" by C and C Music Factory, each of the four or five male cooks would drop their baggy, elastic-waist kitchen pants. For the allotted time, the cooks would work with their pants around their ankles, which not only handicapped their movement, which was normally quick and efficient, but made them look incredibly silly. They had the added bonuses of being a wee bit naughty (they were working in their underwear!) and a wee bit dangerous (they were still cooking with fire). But laughing at each other and the confused looks from waiters was not enough.
 

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Hi There-

 I subscribe to a very cool e-newsletter called 'The Daily Green' and on most days, I barely have time to read it. But today, their headline was 'Selling Earth Day.' Yikes, I thought! Really? But then I remembered that we market and promote everything for profit, so why not Earth Day?

The Daily Green really called a spade a spade with this one. It seems that everyone from Tropicana (who will plant trees when you buy their newly re-branded products...and harvest your information for sales pitches when you enter the accompanying sweepstakes) to Marcal paper products (who point out how much paper we waste in an attempt to sell their new recycled line of paper products) is out to 'sell' us on what a good job they are doing for our fragile planet...and cash in big time. Ay, ay, ay...next thing you know, we'll see an Earth Day festival sponsored by Enron or Cargill (and don't even get me started on their ads about how they love and support the small family farm...what a crock!)

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So you might be asking yourself—and if not, I’ll ask it for you—what sort of puzzles does a puzzle addict solve?

I shall tell you. Sit down and grab a snack, this is going to take a while.

First and perhaps most obviously, I solve the New York Times crossword puzzle every day. I don’t get the paper itself—I subscribe to the puzzle online for $39.95 a year. I’m not a wicked fast solver, at least not compared to my friends, but I can do the Monday and Tuesday puzzles in less than five minutes. As for the Saturday puzzle, famed for its devilish difficulty, on a real good day I can conquer it in twenty minutes or so. On a bad day—well, we’re talking hours, and I might have to leave a few squares blank.

I used to also solve the New York Sun puzzle, which in every way met or exceeded the quality of the Times crossword. Alas, the Sun has folded, though the crossword editor is trying to bring his puzzle back online.

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The Penguin employee book club chose a poetry collection this month in honor of National Poetry Month. The club read Love Comes First by Erica Jong and submitted these questions to the author. The resulting Q&A is here:

1. Where do you get your inspiration from when you write?

Inspiration is a very mysterious thing. Poems usually come with a first line or image and then I begin scrawling them in my notebook to see if they lead anywhere. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t.

2. What is your poem writing process? And how does it differ from writing a fiction novel?

Writing poems is very different than writing fiction. With fiction you can push yourself to write the next chapter, whatever it may be. With poetry, you really have to wait for inspiration.

3. Are your poems written over a long period of time or did you specifically sit down and write poetry to be in a book?

The poems in Love Comes First were written over a 10 year period and I chose the very best of that period and left out others. Sometimes I’ll notice there’s a poem about a certain subject and then I’ll try to write about that subject, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.

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The first Earth Day, in 1970, attracted participants in the millions across the United States. Environmental activists, who were inspired by the anti-Vietnam War protests, wanted to create awareness about the environment. Today, Earth Day is celebrated around the world and participants are believed to be in the billions. National Geographic has a feature on the history of Earth Day here.

The things you can do to help the environment can be small or large-whether you turn off a light when you aren't in the room, or start composting in your backyard-every "little" action can help contribute to being less wasteful. The Earth Day Network has some ideas on what you can do this Earth Day here.