It was October when I was at a great Southern Pines, NC bookstore called The Country Bookshop with a coupon, so my choice of Cooking for Wizards, Warriors and Dragons by Thea James (co-author of the award-winning The Book Smugglers fanzine) was not just about enjoying fantasy books nor just about me having a project…
Being transparent here, when I received a triple-diagnosis on a random, summer day, I stuck my head in the sand for a few days. It seemed like a lot. I’ve had back problems my entire adult life, but when the doc said he didn’t expect to see much on the x-ray, I was blind-sided by…
Yes, yes; it’s a bit late for this year, but I have two bits left to review from my Thanksgiving reading. They are a short story of sorts and a poem. The first was recommended to me and the other I found looking about for things to share with my middle grades students. “Turkey Remains…
I have a new favorite food writer and—like my other favorite food writer, Bert Greene—she is someone you don’t hear about every day. She whisked into my life with an aroma of days gone by and required me to do a little searching for her titles. (I still have one last Greene book that I…
During the stay-at-home and safer-at-home orders, I have been adding one Home Wishlist item to the grocery haul, every two weeks. I have also been using all of my otherwise pretty useless “allowance” on things from my own Wishlist. In this way, I have acquired a number of cool things (a fountain pen, a crepe…
I don’t actually ever stop acquiring cookbooks. In the past year, I have averaged one per quarter. I have also re-possessed a few cookbooks that were in the garage, in the very last of the boxes to be unpacked (from moving three-and-a-half years ago). I have spent hours and hours reading these books, perusing them,…
I am picky about what cookbooks I buy, so my cookbook reviews should mostly be positive. Deep Run Roots, the much-anticipated book by Vivian Howard, is a hefty, pretty thing with an IACP Cookbook of the Year emblem on it, as well as “New York Times Bestseller” emblazoned across the top. Still in doubt? The…
the starving artist 