I don’t think I peeled a clove of garlic until I was at least 21. It wasn’t because I didn’t prepare my own food. I cooked through most of college and acquired all kinds of ingenious, makeshift cooking skills using a gas-ring fueled by a penny meter in a narrow kitchen with no oven, no fridge and that I shared…
It was the Gert Loveday review of Rancid Pansies (it’s an anagram) that set me off to read James Hamilton-Paterson’s trilogy of comic novels that chronicles the outlandish misadventures of Gerald Samper. Part Henry Wilt and part Bertie Wooster with a touch of the growing pains of Adrian Mole, Gerald Samper – of the Shropshire Sampers – is his own…
It’s been a bit quiet on the R and R front this Fall but I’ve not been entirely idle. I have a piece coming out in Intrepid Ed News next week so that’s something to look forward to along with Thanksgiving. It takes a rather jaundiced eye on the topic of DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) and how our obsession…
Coming out of the Irish government this week is a truly helpful definition of “gender”. So for all you folks out there who think gender is nonsense – educate yourselves and learn. It’s from the CRIMINAL JUSTICE (INCITEMENT TO VIOLENCE OR HATRED AND HATE OFFENCES) BILL 2022. So now you know. Clear as a peat bog in an Irish mist. …
“I like to show the beauty of things that no one looks at twice.” — Eliot Hodgkin In a letter written to Brinsley Ford in 1975…
Digging into the women writers of WW2 led me to the short stories of Anna Kavan whose life and work brought to mind Gertrude Abercrombie whose art is often said to be influenced by Giorgio Di Chirico who wrote what John Ashberry called the first surrealist novel – Hebdomeros – that some have compared to Anna Kavan’s novel Ice that…
February came and went. As Februarys do. As we approach the anniversary of “the year of living hunkered” in what we call our gilded cage, I’m reflecting on the month. We had snow. Lots of it. Then more snow. This made for some icy walks and some muddy walks and early morning vistas of pink and white. The head beam…
This is a shout-out to all the farmers, staff, and administration at the Poughkeepsie Farm Project (PFP). Thank you for all the great produce this year and for making the weekly pick-up of veggies the highlight of the hunkered week!. COVID-19 be damned. Veggies A to Z: A Shadorma Chain for the PFP Acorn squash and baby bok choy, cilantro…
This is not really a book review, although I did re-read, and enjoy The Lonely Londoners as part of the #1956club. It is rather an excuse to pull out some quotations, share some research and images, and post a quite remarkable documentary. Along the way my journey took me deep into the North Kensington of the novel – a part…
So many parallels between our current pandemic and the plague that swept through London in 1665, at least as described by Daniel Defoe in Journal of the Plague Year. It’s a novel, written many years later in – 1722 – by a remarkably talented fabulator. So always good to take it with a shovel of salt. But here’s one big…
Mustn’t Grumble We mustn’t grumble We have wireless and cable And there’s food in the shops. Beyoncé had a birthday and the game is on tonight. We have work to do. And all the really bad things like weather and politics are a long way away so we don’t have to worry. And there’s always pizza delivery. We can still walk…
Novelists and film makers often struggle to find the right period details to anchor their work in a particular era. And when it’s a much mined time and place – London in WW2 for example – it often results in rolling out the same set of shorthand cliches. You know the drill – the air raid siren, a gas mask…
No snow where I am at the moment but here’s a poem to enjoy now and also tuck away to use on snowy days. And on the topic of words for snow and Eskimos it’s good to read about The Great Eskimo Words for Snow Hoax that’s been perpetrated on several generations of the educated. I was fed it in…
Some culinary disasters can be repurposed. Here is Glen Baxter on polenta: And then there are times when you just have to cut your losses. Some poems just write themselves. Here is Carolyn Kizer writing – ranting and venting might be more accurate – about a Craig Claiborne recipe she tried from the NY Times. It probably didn’t help her…
It’s the first day of Fall and here’s the perfect dish – pappa al pomodoro. And it’s simple to make. Tomatoes are still abundant, tasty and fresh and the frost has not bitten the basil yet. While you are at it – make a couple of extra pints to freeze for the dark days ahead. You’ll be glad you did one…