I started my tomatoes last weekend and each variety (there are 14) has had at least one germinate, so Garden '14 is off and running. Meanwhile, the peppers, onions, and cabbage seedlings that were started a few weeks ago are looking incredibly hale and hearty under the grow lights; I can't remember a year where we've…

Happy delicious birthday!!

That sounds like a whiskey buck, but with bitters. So I suppose "gimme one then fuck off" is as good a name as what convention's already given to it.

Low - Laser Beam
Mark Lanegan Band - Crawlspace (from Canal Sessions)
Danny Baranowsky - Betus Blues (Ch2 Light World) (from the Super Meat Boy soundtrack)
Pelican - Spaceship Broken - Parts Needed
Low - Death of a Salesman

You know, I only recently had someone introduce me to the notion of having garlic included as a pizza topping. It blew my mind, both with its deliciousness and its obviousness. I'm more than a little ashamed that it took me 37 years to figure out that you can even do that. But I will never go without garlic on my…

It's spring rolls for dinner tonight, because I'm going to eat like it's nice out whether it actually is or not! Anyway, I've taken stock of my canned-goods pantry as we're creeping ever closer to fresh vegetable season, and I need to get cracking on eating this stuff up. So spring rolls seemed like a great way to…

Happy birthday, you oldster!!

How was the Tinariwen show? I'm seeing them next week, and kind of know very little about them other than "Tuareg guitar band".

I can't decide which of the two cocktails I made this week I liked best. The first was a Boulevardier (bourbon, Campari, sweet vermouth, cherry garnish), and the second was a Horse's Neck (bourbon, ginger ale, a dash of Angostura bitters, twist of lemon). I should probably make a few more rounds of each, for further…

Thanks for posting that link — I love quinoa, but am generally really uncreative with it. (My go-to treatment is to just cook it plain and stir in some minced preserved lemons at the end.) One recipe I recently stumbled across that is now consuming me with curiosity is this one: Guacamole Quinoa. The name of the…

Last weekend I dug out of the freezer three pounds of strawberries and a pound and a half of blueberries that I'd frozen last summer, and made jam out of them. Prior to sampling the strawberries (I had to make sure they'd survived the freezer edibly, right?) I was feeling kind of okay with it still only being March. …

And happy birthday to you too!

Happy birthday! Sounds like you were celebrating in delicious, delicious style.

Creature With The Atom Brain - "Blackened Roses, Same Ol' Doses"
Sleepytime Gorilla Museum - "Sleepytime (Spirit Is A Bone)"
Mike Patton & Secret Chiefs 3 - "La Chanson de Jacky"
John Zorn (Moonchild) - "Possession"
Wires Under Tension - "Coded Language For"

I've had a fairly significant and demoralizing change to my job description in the last two weeks, and while it's an "interim" thing, it's also for the time being an indefinite one. It's sucking the air out of my entire life.

The only benefit of not getting the predicted giant snowstorm this past Monday and losing out on the snow day I'd been promised is that we didn't end up with another 4-8 inches of snow to eventually melt into my house's ancient, decrepit septic tank. We've already had to have it pumped once this winter, during a…

I'm naturally inclined to be nocturnal, but have, over the last year, forced myself into an early-rising routine. 6 am on weekdays, 6:30 on Saturdays, 8:30 on Sundays. I refuse to go to bed earlier than 11 on weeknights and 12:30 or later on weekends, so I compensate with lots of napping. Napping is definitely my…

I'M TRYING!

As I was walking out to my car this morning I thought, "Wow! The sun's shining, the birds are chirping, the 12-foot-tall mountain of plowed snow in front of my garage is shrinking, and it's actually warm out." Then I started my car and the dashboard display told me it was 26 degrees. So that's what this winter's…

Oh thank GOD there's a "calm down" in there. My panic levels have been off the charts lately because Amelie hasn't been calming me.