In 1994, yours truly sat in a grubby apartment, roach-infested apartment, reading Laurie Colwin’s More Home Cooking. Building management suggested we purchase geckos to eat the roaches. Animals of the four-legged variety were not permitted. (Forbidden.) So a youthful version of yours truly sat in the chair she’d hauled in from the…

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Cardamom Hazelnut Cakes

March 28, 2017

  The quest to make breakfast appealing for John, no kind of morning person, continues. Expecting non-breakfasters to become lovers of the full English is unrealistic at best. Kind of like expecting people to voluntarily surrender their health care. The trick to an appealing John breakfast is simple, portable food: a muffin,…

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Lamb Chops with Sumac

March 24, 2017

  Should your fingers do this–that is, roll inward and sometimes lock–you’ll be forced to stop whatever you’re doing, put down/let go of whatever you might be holding, and unlock the offending finger(s) with your free hand. As you might imagine, this isn’t always a realistic proposition. One cannot stop whatever…

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Caregiver’s Noodles

March 15, 2017

You’re wondering what these are. These thigmajigs, scmetchiks, whaddayacallits, are a crucial part of a wheelchair user’s day–that is, if the wheelchair user has a “swing-away” style footrest on his chair. The above objects are called endcaps. Their job is to hold wheelchair footrests in place while allowing them to…

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Cauliflower Potato Soup

March 6, 2017

Before going any further, Congratulations to Annelies Zijderveld for the IACP member of the year award and to Naomi Duguid for winning the IACP Culinary Travel Award. I have the uniquely good fortune of knowing both authors. Congratulations to all the winners. — Cauliflower is having a moment. It’s the reigning…

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On Instagram

February 27, 2017

  This is my first camera. It’s a Minolta X-570. I got it in 1982, for my sixteenth birthday. Photography was an expensive habit in 1982. First you had to buy film, commercially available in 12, 24, or 36 exposure rolls. Unless you were truly serious and had access to a…

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If you want a recipe to fail, choose one you’ve been meaning to cook for at least a decade. Decide to cook it on a day when you aren’t home alone. A day when you must shop for ingredients before cooking. See chaos ensue. Of course you’ve chosen a recipe necessitating many…

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Citrus Marinated Pork Chops

February 8, 2017

Pork chops, The IK’s notebook reads somewhere around January 27th. Make again.  Lest you think this a gratuitous cat pic, know that all blog photography happens directly in front of that chair. The cat has decided to supervise. And the IK does wash that chair cover. Frequently. Some of the best meals…

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Braised Oxtail

February 2, 2017

Michael Franti wrote a song called “Everyday Life Has Become A Health Risk.” No explanation necessary, right? — So, food. It feels insane to discuss food right now. The United States is collapsing and we’re talking about oxtail? Well, we still need to eat. And we must escape, if only…

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What interesting times we live in. When not attending marches, mopping up after barfing kitties, tending husbands with neuromuscular disease who caught cold (a volatile and potentially fatal combination), your hostess took it into her head to mess with a pound cake recipe. (Kitty and husband are fine. You were…

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