I can’t get Lebanese food off my mind. Maybe it was the visit to London last weekend that included TWO visits to the excellent Ishbilia in Kensington), maybe it’s the genes, maybe it’s that Lebanese food is delicious and we can’t get the real deal here in Bloomington. Whatever. I have a friend and fellow…

Hey, remember me? Sorry for the blogsilence but I don’t multi-task well under the best of circumstances, and lately blogging added just one chore too many for my beleaguered brain. Besides, I’ve barely cooked a thing for days and I haven’t read a food blog in months.  The “why” is Home Grown Indiana – finally…

This semester opened with a bang and I am already behind. Between classes (first exam already tomorrow!), Bloom (met deadlines by the skin of my teeth), Home Grown Indiana (missed deadline, had to beg extension), and planning for KTR revisions (those deadlines stretch well into 2008) I haven’t even paid the September 1 bills –…

It is the tail end of watermelon season here in Indiana and I am stockpiling memories of crisp sweetness to get me through til next July. I was never too much of a watermelon eater as a kid because, frankly, it seemed like way too much sticky mess for minimal reward – all that dripping…

Maybe I should rename this blog My Crate or Yours — lately it seems to be as much about dogs as food, and God knows I’m nuts about them both. Last Thursday night I thought I’d have another sad dog post to write. It was late in the evening when I called the vet because…

I’ve found the perfect food. It is elemental and primal –- so soulful, so creamy, so sweet and pure, that the first time I tasted it I cried. I know it’s only a pot of curdled milk when all is said and done — but the baked ricotta on the Bar Menu at Restaurant Tallent…

Thanks so much to everyone who wrote to me about Gina, or commented on the last post. It’s been a hard week, but the memories are warm and sweet. Last night we visited the Blue River Café, on the Blue River, in Milltown, Indiana.  Until yesterday I wasn’t really aware of either river, or town,…

Sorry I don’t have much to say about food right now, but I am not feeling very hungry.  This afternoon we are saying goodbye to our darling Gina girl. Regina Marie Puppy, if you want her full name, but always Gina to us. She is 14 and very sick and it’s her time, but oh,…

Sorry you haven’t heard much from me lately. I am in the final stretch of getting research and writing done for Home Grown Indiana, the book Scott Hutcheson and I have coming out next year with IU Press. With all the racketing around and general panic, blogging has somehow fallen by the wayside. As I’ve…

I’m not much of a movie-goer. I think I have some sort of brain defect that prevents me from sitting still for long periods of time while recorded images unfold before me. At the tender age nine I got up in the middle of My Fair Lady and walked home from the theater alone and…

Fregola Sarda No, it’s not a curse from the new Harry Potter book (doesn’t it sound like one, though? “Harry pointed his wand at the robed figure that launched itself from the shadows and hollered ‘Fregola Sarda,’ just as the green light hit him and the world shattered into small pieces of pasta.”) Anyway, it’s…

Ooooh, I am such a bad blogger. Many, many fun food things have been happening in my life and I have not had time to post about them. No, not so – I have had time but not enough to craft the perfect story, so I have posted nothing at all. So, in lieu of…