YO, fellow downstate Illinoisan! Monical’s is my instant go-to when I think of what people are now calling “tavern-style” pizza. So many great memories of parties and celebrations and just Friday nights at my small-town Monical’s. All meat for me. Give me those squidgy middle pieces that are like. 1.5 inches square,…

Huzzah! Welcome back!!!

Our Farmer’s Market runs Wednesday and Saturday mornings in the summer, and because of my previously busy schedule, I rarely made it over there. Now, my new office is a block away, so Wednesday mornings, before my 9 am meeting, I have been able to wander over and check things out. The stalls are spaced out, everyone…

Aw. As a 2008 Fit Sport owner, that makes me sad. Good to know that I can still upgrade to a newer used model when I run the wheels off of this one, though.

My office has very few people in it right now, and everyone goes home for lunch except for me, so I do what I want. I sanitize everything before and after I touch it, then take it back to my desk (after washing my hands thoroughly).

Back in the day, my friend’s mom bought those cheap rectangular “chocolate” covered graham cookies and we did s’mores with those. So very good.

Grew up in southern Illinois, and we always grabbed a stick of butter (margarine, growing up) and set it out on a saucer. Hot corn on corn holders (yes, the corn corn holders), and spin on stick until buttered to your preference. Yes, this left us with a weird concave stick of butter, but my mom would always just…

Absolutely not. And honestly, it will have to be a year after a proven vaccine is widely available before I do. As much as I love seeing movies in theaters, it’s not worth the risk. Eating at a restaurant, inside or out, is also on that list for me.

Whenever I step foot in a grocery store now, I have a low level panic attack every time. I had to go to a Meijer today, and there were so many people without masks, coughing, invading my space, even as I go out of my way to stay out of theirs. More than two people in an aisle almost guarantees that I’m not going to…

I love slow cooking pork loin with carnitas spices, orange and lime juice and zest, shredding it, and dishing it out over weeks and months from the freezer. No one I’ve served it to enjoyed the spices and the citrus, and all wished that it was barbecue pulled pork instead. Now, I make two, and season them separately,…

Ah, the classic meal prep menu. Some great ideas here! Is this a new feature, because I am super excited to see more like it!

I hadn’t heard about this dish until Andy from Bon Appetit went to learn how to make it.  Now, I want to try it SO MUCH.

My roommate and I embraced Galentine’s Day a little earlier in the week, going for brunch and manis with friends, and then we watched all of the Galentine’s Day episodes of Parks and Rec along with P.S. I Still Love You. Then, when she left to visit family, I finally finished The Witcher. It was an excellent…

I’m 100% down for this. Now, I see all of the bro trolls in the comments lamenting the prospect of a female centered cast, or even the faux concern ones who are all “why not do something NEW instead of another Fast and Furious movie!” (Idk, bro, you’re going to see FF9, not me.)

I’ve been wanting to try experimenting with dried beans lately.  Thank you for giving me the nudge to do so! (And to order expensive beans)

Yes, and you’d be shocked at how much pear juice is in stuff.  Hopefully, they’re looking into using the waste from those processes.

Back in 2006, a bunch of friends and I were heading to the prom. It was my senior year, so we decided to cruise a half an hour to the nicest local restaurant before heading back for the dance. There were seven of us, so we split up. Four of us in a sibling-owned Ford Taurus, including me, and three in a restored ‘69…

My dad was always out in the shop doing something, and it was one of the only times we had a chance to bond without my mom around. From the time we were welding floorboards into a 70-something Franken-Ford firewood hauler to trying to hunt down electrical gremlins in an ‘82 Eldorado, we had the chance to bond. I’m…

I have such vivid sensory memory related to Dunkaroos from my childhood. My sister and I built a “clubhouse” that was little more than a few 2x4s nailed to a couple of trees, and I would go out in the woods, sit on our crappy construction, and eat my Dunkaroos while the barn cats swarmed me trying to get a taste. It…

I was living in Terre Haute when this pos came to the maximum security prison there, and I happened to drive by as the media vans were lined up by the side of the road. His fangirls were there too, all with handmade posters and t-shirts. I wanted to vomit.