We’re taking a break from cooking one more week. Enjoying time with family, simple dinners in, the familiar comfort of meals out in favorite places, quiet walks in our new neighborhood. The photo above was taken on one of those walks on Christmas Eve. Continue reading “Heading into a new year with hope and worry”
This has been a year. After almost two years of planning, working and hand wringing, we finally moved into our new old house. And even though literally anywhere I look in the house, I can still see something that needs doing, we love being here. Love it. But what with the gazillion projects we’ve tackled (or avoided), the finally getting around to taking road trips again, reconnecting with friends and just generally living our overbooked lives, we forgot to mark Blue Kitchen’s tenth anniversary last month. Continue reading “Happy holidays—and happy tenth to us”
The sign above says it all. For the first time since we bought our new old house more than two years ago, Marion and I are on a road trip. Not just a weekend getaway, but a bonafide, see-things-we-haven’t-seen-before road trip. Continue reading “Brief, kitchenless notes from the road”
So now we’re being threatened with taco trucks. “On every corner!” The response to this latest us-against-them lunacy has been deservedly hilarious. Talk show monologues, Facebook memes and T-shirts have all embraced the impending wealth of taco choices. Continue reading “Labor Day and the invasion of the taco trucks”
This kind of sums up our lives right now. So no recipe. But we’ll be back with a fresh one next week. Please ignore all the crashing crockery sounds.
We are a nation of immigrants. Appropriately enough, our eating on the 4th of July holiday weekend, a time that celebrates our nation’s birth, illustrates why this is a good thing. We started Friday night at Lao Beijing. Continue reading “Independence Day and food in the land of immigrants”
Unlike many things, moving doesn’t get easier the more you do it. If anything, it gets harder. As much as we love waking up every day in our new old house, life is still makeshift on a daily basis. Besides living among not always well-labeled boxes here, we’re still vacating our apartment of nine years. We’re working around the contractor finishing up things. We’re dealing with disappearing cats when the contractor leaves doors open (the cat was found—in a closed vanity drawer, of course). And we’re getting up and going to work every day. So instead of a fresh recipe this week, you’ll be getting a confessional post of sorts. Continue reading “Moving, cheats and getting food on the table”
Oscar Wilde said, “Work is the curse of the drinking classes.” We agree.
We’re working too hard and eating more than our share of takeout food these days. The big mystery project that has been consuming our lives for far too long continues. Happily, in the next few weeks, it should reach some sort of semi-completion, and we will be posting new recipes again. In the meantime, some random blathering. Continue reading “Again with no recipes”
Tuesday was the Illinois primary. Our polling place is in our neighborhood public school, which is predominantly Latino. School was starting as I cast my ballot, and over the PA system, two kindergartners from the bilingual program led the school in singing the national anthem. Then the assistant principal, Mrs. Trinidad Lopez, read the morning announcements. Friday is Pajama Day. Monday, the classroom with the best attendance for this week will be announced. I always feel very American when I vote. This time, I felt especially so. Continue reading “Voting, Polish sausage sandwiches and my very American day”
THESE ARE VICTORIAN DOOR BACK PLATES. Until very recently, they were buried under 120+ years of paint, so thickly coated that their exquisite patterns were completely obscured. Not any more. We got them off the doors, and Marion went at them with dangerous chemicals, brass brushes, rags and fierce determination. Continue reading “What we’ve been doing instead of cooking”