if he was smart he’d have learned how to “jump through the hoops” by now.

If ‘every once in a while’ means ‘every week’ then we are very similar people.

Notting Hill is a perfectly good Friday night at home with a big bowl of popcorn and a bottle of cheap wine kind of movie. This may depend on your tolerance for Hugh Grant’s ‘quirky’ stuttering.

Where has this wig been for the past 17 years? What has it seen? Whose head has it caressed? What secrets has it learned?

Anyone who thinks a single hot sauce is adequate to enliven all the different foods of the world is someone whose opinion matters little to me.

A mere typo: I often find myself skipping endings of words when typing fast (especially ‘s’ ‘ed’ and contractions) and don’t always catch it. I just skipped the s in the word ‘endings’ just now.

Probably a little late to start from seed, but I love the Parisian Pickling Cucumbers from Seed Savers Exchange. You can pick them tiny for cornichon pickles but they’re great just for eating if you let them grow big. They are not burpless, however, and you get a mix of some with fewer, larger spines and others with a…

You just rocked my world. (But I do eat an admittedly hipster-level amount of kale, too.)

Personally, I would just go with pre-mixed potting soil and definitely go organic. Sometimes you can find potting soil specifically for growing veggies. Since all your plants have is that little bit of soil right in their pot you want it to be right: you can mix it yourself but I find it to be more hassle than it’s…

There are just as many crummy sanctuaries as there are crummy zoos. And often with less vet care and regulation.

I’ve done container gardening with solid results: japanese eggplant, cherry tomatoes (with globe basil planted around their base), bok choy, lettuce, and radishes (not the best use of square footage, though). Just be sure to buy large (deep) enough pots.

I love Wet’n’Wild Megaslicks Balm Stains. I’d say they’re more pigmented than typical balms or stains, but still very wearable and they last quite well. And they’re only $3.

It’s growing so fast, I chop it off and it quickly doubles in size. I’m in heaven. So much tabouli and chimichurri in my future.

“If you want to save an animal and their existence is threatened in the wild, put them in sanctuary.”

Oh yeah, I’m on your side and am generally pro zoo as I believe an in person connection to animals can be very impactful and help greater conservation efforts. My point was just that when you grow up with one of the best zoos in the world as your reference point, it can be easy to forget that there are some pretty…

Most plants should be just fine being checked on every other day. Tender greens (butter leaf lettuces, etc.) would wilt if it was especially hot, but the vast majority of plants do better with less frequent, deeper waterings. Seedling do need more attention as their roots are shallower and less established, but once…

As a VPP (Very Pale Person), I have trouble finding bronzer that is neither too orange nor too muddy nor so pink that it’s actually just blush. And, really, I’m not trying to look ‘bronze’ so much as just a little sun-kissed, relative to my very pale state. Behold: I have found the perfect VPP Bronzer: Kevyn Aucoin…

Also worth mentioning that captive breeding techniques (taking the young away and raising them with puppets) mean that the parents will often lay a second clutch per year, meaning the potential for twice as many born as there would be in the wild.

Not to mention that poaching and political unrest can render preserves/protected regions useless. And unless we’re prepared to invade sovereign nations and station military units to protect the animals, sometimes the best thing we can do is maintain genetic diversity in captivity and hope for the day those areas are…