With my newfound freedom, I went to a cooking class with one of my friends from Baylor, another rogue Texan. We went to a class on cooking fish without panicking a while back, and this one was on cooking with current farmer’s market produce. Now, this is basically how I cook all the time–go to […]
Welp, I’m free. Graduate school is through with me, and it will probably take all summer to fully recover. So far, I have browsed at a used bookstore and purchased random books mostly based on their covers, cleaned for half the day, and gone a whole day afternoon hour? without worrying about grades. That much. […]
Hi kids! No recipes today (and that means no work for you). Just sit back and check out these photos from a day out in Boston. Saturday there was a Food Truck Throwdown on the Greenway in Boston. Nine trucks came from New York and nine represented ye olde Boston towne. There was voting, but […]
Notice: Untraditional post to follow. Includes: Random photos I like, trivia, friends, and a fun award! For one of my projects this week, I presented on Alison Bechdel, author of the graphic narrative Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic and the long-running comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For. I read about the Bechdel Test, a […]
On Monday, after the tragedies at the Marathon, I thought there was no point in posting photos of food or blithering on about the merits of roasting garlic in the skin or slicing meat on the bias. It seemed so unimportant. On Wednesday, after the explosion in West, TX, just miles away from my fiancé […]
Thinking about Boston today, a city I’ve come to know and love. Keeping all of the people affected in my heart.
Spring is here, and so am I! My last semester as an MA student (fingers crossed) is in full swing. After a relaxing weekend on Long Island with the Roomz’s wonderful family, I spent a whirlwind week preparing for the ACIS conference in Chicago. I just got back from Chicago last night, and the twilight […]
When I was a kid, I thought that ice cream sandwiches were born. I never thought about how things were made. “Chicken nugget” referred to a crunchy, dippable entity that had no relation to the hens I had seen pecking around at my friend’s ranch. American cheese arrived in slices. It wasn’t cut from blocks, […]
A couple weeks ago, Teju Cole, author of Open City (2011), came to Boston College to talk about his novel, his photographs, and his relationship with cities. He is one of those writers who seems to be professionally cool. Cole returned from the Congo only a few days before his visit to BC, and he […]
I’m signed up to attend a massive writing conference in Boston this week. These “literary events,” as I have dubbed them in my head, are one of the major things I’ll miss about ye olde Beantown. I’ve never been in a more literary city–including Paris, though I was only there for three days and visited […]
The first summer I arrived in Boston, a Baylor friend who relocated to the blustery north a few years before I did told me of the mythical New England winters. How cold are we talking? I asked. Give it to me straight. I could only trust another Texan, with equally thin blood running through her […]
Rogue Blogger! You heard me. I’m blogging from campus instead of doing readings or grading papers. I guess you could call me a snackademic. Perhaps one of you knows the truth behind this claim: my coworkers tell me that in France, exposure to sunlight is protected by law. In other words, if I lived in […]
People. I don’t care about football, and I’m not afraid to say so. I’m not one of those who doesn’t know anything about it and comments on their uniform designs asks what the lines on the ground mean. I’m even learning about the little flags and two-point conversions (maybe), but I can spend a remarkable […]
Or, Academia: A Love Story. In grad school, every reading, every discussion, every low-stakes assignment is designed to make you feel like an ignoramus. Not true, but it does make sense that we can’t do our best work if we’re too complacent with our own intelligence. I think the atmosphere is designed to put you […]
Happy Sundays. I’ve been listening to Macklemore all day and trying out a few recipes. My friend (and maid of honor!) gave me Deb’s smittenkitchen cookbook for Christmas. Since I first flipped through it, I’ve been meaning to try her popcorn cookies. If any of you read smitten kitchen, you know that Deb has this […]
Aloha and Happy New Year, friends! I spent my turn of the year in a plane over the Pacific–how about you? I’m checking in just before my flight back to ye old Bostontown. Since I talked to you last, I spent a week in Maui (!) and a week back in Waco working at this […]
It’s time for some balance. I wish it were true that as soon as the spiral of finals ended, I was immediately back in the kitchen at home, trying out recipes and figuring out how to use this camera. Instead, after staying awake for forty-eight hours writing about George Eliot and Virginia Woolf and taking […]
I know I just shared a soup recipe, but this one is too good to pass up. You should know that I’m not sick of kale yet…or leeks. I could have taken pictures of leeks once and been reusing them for all you know, but that is not the case. I retake the leek photos […]
As I sit poised on a ledge between two gut-busting holidays, I offer a healthy, hearty supper that will leave you feeling warm and cozy. As I mentioned, the descent into madness has begun. Grad school is on the offensive. I heard a dapper-looking undergrad say on the phone this morning in a debonair voice, […]
I knew this day would come. I involved powertools in dinner prep! To make a holiday side dish, no less. Who would have thought? I’m back in Texas for the week, and I’ve already gorged. More later on shrimp taco salad, my signature guacamole, and the infamous, ubiquitous chile con queso. For now, here’s a […]
They say that nothing good happens after midnight. It’s “the witching hour,” according to the Roomz. I guess I’m just going to take a risk, though, and write my TENTH POST(!) in the wee small hours of the night. I’ll wait to post it till mid-Saturday, for your viewing convenience.I’m two weeks into the grad […]
Okay, this week has been everywhere. Last Sunday, we were preparing for a hurricane–filling the bathtubs and all our pots with water, stocking up on candles and matches, eating all the perishables, hoarding non perishables, moving the cars away from the trees. We were lucky–nothing but a few branches down on our lot, and all […]
When you buy a polarized filter, you can take pictures of trees that look like flames. These trees are like candy to me, but I won’t bore you with my photo experiments for too long. I can still justify myself, though. Last week it was Wallace Stevens authorizing me to go on and on about […]
Fall shmall. My friend put an article from the Onion on Facebook last week about the obnoxiousness of fall-lovers. And I get it. You’re sick of our sweaters, our leaves, our pumpkins, our apples, our molasses, our mugs of steaming spiced lattes. Men wearing cardigans. Woolen booties. Black-rimmed glasses. I guess I’m getting sick of […]
As promised, I spent last weekend in New Hampshire at the Redhook Brewery’s Oktoberfest in Durham. If you want to understand New Hampshire, know this: country is country, whether it’s up here in the Arctic or down in Texas. I expected the drive to be nothing but fall foliage, occasional ocean views, and pastoral scenery. […]
Okay, this is the first and last post with a French title. I promise! (maybe one can only hope wouldn’t rule it out?). Fall is in the air, folks. Don’t worry! I’m not going to go all sissy, sappy, American-Beauty-oh-the-electricity-in-the-air-can’t-you-see-it-in-the-plastic-bag on you. I do want to talk about autumn, though. If you’re from Texas, “fall” […]
Sometimes your weekend is good. Sometimes it’s too good to write about on your blog. Fear not, dear reader, I shall attempt to depict the personal joy, then move on to border/comfort food. It involves this happy fellow. I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me take you back to Friday, September 21st. 6:40pm – Crandle […]
Although today’s recipe will continue my recently established pasta trend, I’m going to take a moment to explore a complex topic that is very dear to me: pizza. I have a lot of internal conflict on the subject because I am loyal to a certain place in the south. And I think this is the […]
When I say “Southie,” is this what you think of?Me either, but here lies a segment of West Broadway. Once again, I’ve had to face the fact that watching Good Will Hunting twenty-three times has not made me an expert on this city. I’m sure some real locals will tell me that I wasn’t actually […]
Anyone who has ever started blogging knows what the first post is like. In your head swirl petty concerns–will I come off like a sweet, charming, young blogger? Will I come off like a demeaning loser? Will they get that my header is a joke? Will they get any of my jokes? Will too many […]
