I’m one of those people who has willingly and delightedly eaten whatever was offered in 44 different countries, but can’t stand cilantro. I deal with it in three ways: 1. staying away from Chipotle, which puts it in everything, 2. not ordering anything that the menu straight out tells us has the nasty stuff in it, 3.…

“The street isn’t going to disappear in the 5 minutes that it takes to turn into a parking lot and turn around.” True, unless you’re driving in DC. I have driven with aplomb all over the world - Paris, Calcutta, Seoul, London, Athens, etc, etc, etc - and it was only while living in Northern Virginia and having to…

My cooks all over Asia used the stovetop method and I have done the same for decades since. It is way, way simpler than your instructions say: rice and water in a 1:2 ratio, bring to a boil, stir once, clap on the lid, slide it to the back of the stove, and do other stuff for 20 minutes, at the end of which the rice…

A minor quibble: Indonesian/Malay does use the ordinary Latin alphabet.

Two things:

I use paper towels for this, too, then when the produce is used up, just drape the towels over the edge of the container to air-dry, then use them again. Mine last for months, and many, many changes of contents.

I use paper towels for this, too, then when the produce is used up, just drape the towels over the edge of the…

Exactly what Jarod wrote. Every big complicated job is actually a collection of small, one-step jobs. This was exactly the way I went from normal shuffling-stuff productivity to serious productivity, and what I teach in time-management classes. It requires a fair amount of discipline (for example, if I open an email,…

Travelling with someone else can provide a serious test for the relationship. If a couple can do it and survive/thrive, that’s an excellent sign.

If you drive, beware of different traffic laws as well. For just one example, in France cars entering a traffic circle have the right of way. Beware, also, of driving norms: I can’t tell you how many American tourists have come to grief by driving the ‘American’ (and therefor, to them, ‘correct’) way in another…

Both lemon and lime juice work. I wipe a few drops on an avocado half then just set the thing uncovered on the fridge shelf for days; no browning.

SO true! I’ve used all the excuses, and when I made myself sit down and write, it wasn’t always the best work, but it was black on white and that’s what editing is for. Many wonderful ideas in first drafts have been spoiled by being published too quickly. Also, sometimes when I finally nailed myself to the chair, the…

I vividly remember my first anthropology class. It was an evening lecture at JHU, where I was picking up a few credits a year while working full time. The professor was so low-key as to be a sleepwalker, his tone was a drone, and most of the other students couldn’t help nodding off. And me? I realized that I had…