STIR IT UP NOW HAS ITS OWN E-MAIL ADDRESS: wrsfood@gmail.com. Send Anne your gustatory comments, culinary complaints, and cooking queries. Suggestions, puzzles and hot tips all very welcome.

To find out more about porc laineux - also known as mangalitsa, visit www.woolypigs.com and read Michael S. Sanders’ article in the New York Times.

For some rather poignant reading for Mothers’ Day (May 10 in much of the world) Anne steers us towards Ruth Reichl’s new memoir Not Becoming My Mother, Julia Glass’s novel The Whole Wide World and Meghan O’Rourke’s online series on grieving in Slate magazine.

For some Mothers’ Day bruch feasting in Switzerland, check out:

• Chaesalp’s wonderful buffet spread. (It’s outside Zurich, near the zoo.)
• La Cézille, in Vaud, for a spit-roasted cochon de lait (milk-fed pig) lunch
• La Ferme de Merlinge in Gy, outside Geneva for a splendid brunch that ranges from soup to home-made bread to eggs.