One last thought, on why I think I was so conflicted at the end of this experiment:

Seriously, the more you cook, the more opportunities you have to fuck up. I guess there are some people who perform with ballerina-like grace in the kitchen, but I'm not one of them. I cook a lot. I'm a great fucking cook. And I make a huge, hideous, splattery mess. The harder I try to adopt a manner of Zen-like calm,…

Guys, immersion stick blenders exist for this reason. Did Gwynnie not mention that???

Would anyone be interested in my similarly-themed DIY article, "Everything I Fucked Up While Trying To Act Like Anthony Bourdain For Most of My Twenties"?

When you're putting something hot in the blender just remove the little plastic circle thingie in the middle of the lid and cover the hole with a dish towel.

I'm not even done reading yet, but this? "I twisted the blender to disengage it. Instead of coming off intact, the glass pitcher unscrewed from its base, sending soup gooshing out the bottom. I screwed it back tight as fast as I could. There was soup in my shoe. I was so hungry."

OK I haven't read through all this yet because I had to stop and mention how much I cracked up at "I have no idea. I don't know how long you're supposed to cook chicken at a million degrees."

The Gorgonzola look for the bathroom is another nice touch.

How is this industrial shit relaxing?

Rihanna is way cooler than I am, and I'm definitely partial to the woodsy cottage type of housing, so my opinion doesn't count for much here.

Ireland didn't regulate pharmaceutical trials until 1987. So apparently these luckless children were just fair fucking game.

It all looks a bit... chilly. I'd sleep the shit outta that bed though.

I suppose most of them are dead. And, we can only hope that they died slow, painful deaths gripped in terror for the destiny of their immortal souls while they remembered the faces of the little children they helped to kill when they were charged by their god to love them.

These home babies lived their very short lives never knowing what it felt like to be held, to have their little faces kissed and told that they were loved. This entire thing breaks my heart.

There's a reason the Pope didn't apologize for covering up the rape of children until it broke open in the US. Canada, Ireland, Brazil and many other countries in South America had huge scandals before the US stories broke but it wasn't until the money was threatened that the fucking Pope even deigned to mention it. …

It says "Irish" not "Catholic". Do I know it's Catholic? Yes. Does that change the fact that they're whitewashing the Catholic role in the deaths of these children? No. It doesn't.

This is why Catholics in Ireland have abandoned the Church in greater numbers and more quickly than anywhere else. They know what's happened and they are going after the Church and the perpetrators. I don't think there is a lot of hush this dirty laundry type attitude there any more at all.

And this is why religion is not an adequate substitute for government.

I was raised in a Catholic extended family. Occasionally I go to church with my grandpa and like the art/music/homily or hear something good from the pope and think "maybe I could be Catholic".

My mom was in a Catholic home for unwed mothers in Chicago in the mid seventies. She was pressured everyday by the nuns and priests to give up my sister for adoption. My mom was stubborn and kept the baby, but most of the girls and women surrendered their babies out of guilt for having no husband (many of them had…