Thank you, unexpected minor surgery, for treating me to a summer’s afternoon on the sick bed I’ve constructed on my front porch, complete with a bulldog nurse and the best novel I’ve read all year. Literati, I recommend you dive into The Driftless Area by Tom Drury as soon as possible. It’s like Guy Noir […]
Tag: bulldog
Saturday Pancake Pie
‘Cause I’ve got a golden weekend! I’ve got a golden chance to make my way. And with a golden weekend it’s a golden day…. A Saturday morning at home has the verve of toddlerhood possibility. Of course, such freedom and possibility must start with a homemade pancake. An homage to Festus and Pancake Pie. Followed […]
Juicy Wine Cakes for my Favorite Dunce
“When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.” -Jonathan Swift, from “Thoughts on Various Subjects, Moral and Diverting” Happy 7th Birthday, Izzy, bulldog of mine. You and Ignatius Jacques Reilly, the fat buffoon protagonist of Jonathan Kennedy Toole’s Confederacy […]
Avocado Hollandaise on Poached Eggs on Rye
Glorious, just glorious. This is what my honorary grandfather Stanley says of everything he eats. His voice rang through my brain this morning when finally I had a breath of fresh time to make my own breakfast, slow, and with luxury. I sat with a full French press of coffee next to me on the […]
Cinnamon Swirl Bread and Human Training Wheels
I can think of few things for which I am more grateful than my mother coming to live here during my first two weeks of intern year, human training wheels. She has been busy sprucing up the dwelling, cooking meals, kissing my bulldog and mowing my stubborn grass patch with an impossible push mower—basically a […]
Emmer Tartine Bread and Bright Colors
Just before KP and I left Rochester, where we had painted our home fuchsia and lime, my grandmother Gigi sent me this evocative image by Brian Andreas* which spoke to the compulsion I have long since had ever after living in New Orleans—to splash walls (literal and figurative) with bright colors. To my delight, this […]
Green is Patriotic Too — 4th of July Spinach Quiche
Leafy greens. It’s what’s for breakfast…on my first day off, which just so happens to also be the 4th of July! There is a boat parade tonight on the St. Johns Bayou, my mom comes to town for an extended visit, and Izzy just can’t get enough costumes. This one is a patriotic number for […]
Brown Rice Bread and How We Survived the Move
It is fair to say we entirely underestimated the difficulty of moving from Rochester to New Orleans. Entirely. Usually the result of such misjudgments is panic, chaos, and discord. I am proud of the way KP and I have managed to keep cool and to move through the many upsets with grace. I think it […]
Chocolate Orange Hazelnut Biscotti
It’s a Stormy Monday. Mondays are best tolerated with cookies. For this I am grateful to my Sourdough Surprises group for this month’s prompt: biscotti. Biscotti means twice (bis) cooked (cotti). I was reading about how biscotti cookies were the preferred snack of warriors in ancient times because they kept so well. As I start […]
Bulldog Birthday Cake
Izzy the Tooth is six years old. I am aware that I photograph my bulldog more than I would a firstborn human. Izzy, however, is not aware that she is not, in fact, a firstborn human. I’m beginning to wonder if occasions like her birthday, on which she gets fed ample, extra portions of treats […]