If you are interested in regional Chinese cooking I highly recommend Fuchsia Dunlop’s books. This week I made yuxiang eggplant (鱼香茄子）and it was great! Just like what I ate in Sichuan.

I grew up in the Midwest and moved away over 10 years ago. Every time I’m back for a visit, I’m internally screaming “why can’t anyone just say what they mean?!” the whole time.

Equating “hard-working” with White isn’t racist? She lived in the South long enough to learn how to subtly employ racism. Her campaign against Obama had undertones of racism the whole time. I remember being grossed out by it at the time. Here’s a good summary:

Eight years ago, when she was running a not-so-subtly racist campaign against Obama in the primaries, she was happy to brag about her support from “hard working Americans, white Americans.”

My mom is a retired Midestern white lady lawyer in her 60s, a solid moderate Dem for many years, and she and all her like-minded friends cannot stand Hillary. These are the ladies that sould be her base, right? I’m convinced that she cannot win a general election. Even people that should like her don’t care for her.

Glad you enjoyed my comment. Have a good friday!

This post is a little twee for my taste, but one thing I always bring when I’m traveling/backpacking is a few cheap, oversized lightweight button-down shirts (I usually get them from the men’s section at Goodwill). They are useful for keeping out of the sun (if you are a pale person like me), they dry quickly, and can…

My cat doesn’t really meow, just sort of grumbles if I’m slow about moving the food to her bowl.

I’m firm believer in not believing in jet lag. You get to your destination, you immediately get on board with the local eating, drinking, and sleeping schedule. If you find yourself trying to think about “what time is it in my hometown?”, immediately re-direct your thoughts. You’ll have maybe a day of discomfort. I…

I’m from southwestern Michigan. You might feel differently when you experience the lake effect, but probably not.

I spent the last few years living and working in a sub-tropical climate, in a part of the world where AC is not yet a thing (other than in fancy malls and stuff), and I loved the people, the food, the everything... but the heat fucking was intolerable. My (mostly) Irish genes were not made for this shit, though of…

I thought it was revealing in terms of how imperfect murder prosecutions are IRL. But apparently lots of people didn't get that message and think he just deserves a new trial, which gives me pause.

I’m all about my hand-me-down plain gold band. The fact that it was free is a bonus.

100 percent agree!

Thank you. This is the kind of shit that Jez used to mock the hell out of.

That’s what I figured. It’s still a thrill to see it on a big stage, no matter where you are.

This summer I was at Hampton State Beach in NH a bunch of times, and I saw loads of naturally pale teens frying themselves pink! I wantend to run around spraying suncreen on all of them.

The photo thing can be a pain in the ass. Most people these days don’t want to waste their 30 min lunch brakes to go to CVS to get a shitty passport photo, and then spend more cash to get a passport. Especially if they have no plans to travel internationally in the next 10 years.

Back in high school in the Midwest, I had the whole cast CD of Rent memorized before it toured to my conservative hometown. It’s cheezy as hell, but I still love that show.

To be fair, it’s really pretty expensive and more time consuming than getting your DL renewed. I have one, because I worked overseas recently, but my younger brothers don’t have them. They’re not rednecks and not poor, and would probably love to travel someday, but they don’t have a lot of vacation time.