links for 2011-08-24

Safety is one problem with keeping a stock at room temperature. Flavor is another. A reboiled three-day-old stock may be safe to eat, but it is now seasoned with millions to billions of dead bacteria and their inactivated toxins. It’s conceivable that they might add an interesting flavor, but more likely that the bacteria have feasted on the stock’s sugars and savory amino acids, the air has oxidized and staled the fat, and the stock has become less tasty.

LONDON — The former News of the World editor Andy Coulson received hundreds of thousands of dollars in severance pay from his former employer after joining now-Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservative Party as director of communications in 2007, according to a British Broadcasting Corporation report on Monday evening

Philip Mullins, a trustee, said, “I think the concerns that were raised were based on a feeling that the chairman and some other people on the board were trying to set up a fund-raising campaign for the governor of Texas.”