‘Bouchon’: Thomas Keller’s French bistro cookbook
A few weeks ago, while buying a book I needed, I added this one, which had been sitting on my wish list for a year or so. Thomas Keller’s Bouchon, published in 2004, is pretty hefty for a cookbook. It’s about a foot square, weighs almost six pounds, and...Twitter it away
There has been quite a lot of Internet buzz in the last month or three over Twitter. It’s a Web 2.0 service that encourages you to publicly post (via Web, IM, or text message) very short descriptions of whatever you happen to be doing at the moment. The craze...Joseph Campbell: Hero’s Journey, Power of Myth
Joseph Campbell: Hero’s Journey, Power of Myth Follow your bliss. If you do follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while waiting for you, and the life you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see...‘In Spite of Ourselves,’ by John Prine and Iris DeMent
Here at the homestead, we’ve kinda considered this our theme song for about the last six years or so. The complete Sessions at West 54th Street show is on a VHS tape down in our basement somewhere, but I stumbled across this John Prine YouTube clip this morning,...The grace of Elizabeth Edwards
Back in October of 2004, my wife Amy was working at the Maidenform store in Pleasant Prairie’s Prime Outlets shopping center. One morning — October 21st, to be exact — Amy phoned home to tell me that there was some unusual activity in the parking lot. There were...Growing flowers from seed for hummingbirds and butterflies
Long story short: Since the experiment below back in 2007, we have decided that starting seedlings in windows is unwise. Because they bend toward the light, you have to constantly turn them, trying to keep them upright — and even then, they become too leggy and...St. Patrick’s Day: Irish breakfast, Racine parade, Irish stew recipe
I’m not even a little bit Irish, but I love St. Patrick’s Day. I love Irish history and literature and music — especially James Joyce and Van Morrison — and for me, St. Patrick’s Day is the official threshold of spring. The peaty smell of the thawing...Erik Mongrain: “AirTap!”
I just stumbled across this clip on YouTube while monkeying with stuff on my Google homepage. It’s Erik Mongrain, from Montreal. I’ve never heard of him before, but I imagine we’ll be seeing more of him from now...Keith Olbermann’s ‘Special Comment’ on Condoleezza Rice
I continue to enjoy Countdown with Keith Olbermann every weeknight. There are a few bugs in the show that I would fix — for example, there’s way too much talk about American Idol — but overall, it’s a very refreshing hour and an entertaining downshift from...
