From Scratch

As the graphic proves, everyone can be Irish today. Americans of all ethnicities are making corned beef and cabbage for St. Patrick’s Day, even though it’s not an Irish thing at all.
What?
Well, if you weren’t around last year at this time — and you probably were not, as this blog was only a couple days […]

My first blogoversary is only a couple weeks away, as the countdown widget shows, so I’m giving an early thank you to you, my regular readers and subscribers. Many of you take the time to leave comments, so now when you do, your feed will be checked and the title of your most recent blog […]

One of my favorite bloggers, MusEditions, is a fellow book lover and recently tagged me to take part in a fun little book-related meme. The rules were few: pick up the book nearest me, turn to page 123, find the fifth sentence and post the next three.
In truth, the book nearest me at the time […]

Say what you will about us Americans, but we never miss a chance to commercialize a holiday, even in weird ways. And this is definitely weird. Even for us.
The Piggly Wiggly supermarket chain, with stores in the South and parts of the Midwest, thinks a hunk of beef is a great gift for Valentine’s Day, […]

Please take this widget with you; you can even email it. After Super Tuesday we know two things: John McCain is the undisputed frontrunner for the GOP, in a comeback that was unthinkable last summer when everyone, including me, wrote him off. And we know the Democrats have a true contest, the likes of which […]

At long last, it’s Super Tuesday. You don’t have to be in a Super Tuesday state — or even in the US — to cast a vote. You can do it right here, just for fun. Only once, please!

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Christmas and New Year, that is. I hope your holidays are filled with love and joy…and cookies.
Like many of you, I’m taking the week off so I’ll see you then and leave you in the hands of that French chick with a ‘tude.

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I don’t even want to imagine how many millions of tubs of this chemical cocktail are sold each year, especially during the holidays. At some tipping point in our history of dubious foods, people began using it beyond its intended purpose as a topping and started adding it to cakes (from mixes), frostings (made with instant […]

Remember when Bill Clinton was running for his first term and Hillary, already controversial, said, “I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas…”? It was enough of a gaffe that, once in the White House, she released a cookie recipe and is said to have really made them. With her own two […]

I wonder if this store sells lobster for Passover?
As moonbeammcqueen said in the Comments, A new holiday -  Hamukkah!

 Photo from Seth Godin’s blog

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Had there been room I’d have called this Can I eat a turkey we’ve had for thirty years? It was a real question for the tireless turkey experts at the Butterball Turkey Hotline. For more than twenty-five years they’ve been on the other end of the phone during the holidays to answer our questions. This year’s […]

The first Thanksgiving was in 1621 and if we pretend it was observed every year thereafter, that would give us 334 years of Thanksgiving meals without green bean casserole.
For those outside the US, the five-ingredient side dish is built around a can of cream of mushroom soup and it’s estimated that it’s served in nearly 20 […]

That’s just my score for one session. Overall, it’s one billion grains and counting.
FreeRice is a recent website that is donating rice to the United Nations World Food Program with a multiple-choice vocabulary quiz. For every correct answer FreeRice will give 10 grains of rice. You watch your bowl fill up as you progress and if […]

From Midtown to Downtown, restaurants owned by or associated with chefs we’ve come know from television are sprinkled around Manhattan like dots on a map. Actually, they are dots on a map now.
Gridskipper has published a handy and typically irreverant guide to those eateries, complete with opinionated commentaries. It’s obvious immediately that there would be […]

Not far from Dartmouth College is a wonderful orchard on a road with the unfortunate name of Poverty Lane. I was in the area this week and decided to stop for some heirloom apples and the view. New England is renowned for its autumn foliage but this year the color is only meh and after several […]