I knew a Jay Gatsby. We were in grade school in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and stayed close through high school. It probably wasn’t until junior high when I saw this trait of his — simply put it’s a person sure he can buy friends with money. But that is so simple it sounds sociopathic, when …
Author Archives: Ben
Bread Gone to Pot
If New York Times food columnist Mark Bittman ran his “Minimalist” piece “The Secret of Great Bread: Let Time Do the Work” in November 2006, then this has been my go-to method week-in week-out for 6 1/2 years. I began baking bread in about 1989 so I’ve tried lots of recipes. Bittman “discovered” Jim Lahey of …
Running Down Pressure Cookers
I’ve used pressure cookers for 25 years. My current beauty is this “Fagor Splendid” 4-quart model. We eat delectables from it two or three times a week. My pressure cooker is unlicensed, and it’s gonna stay that way. The gummit better keep its cotton-pickin’ hands off it and out of my kitchen. How did I get …
Steve and Steve, Paul and John
Steve Wozniak of all people showed up in Fayetteville, Ark., for a campus speech Sunday night. He spoke engagingly for a senior status wonk-nerd-geek — he is 62. Is there humility in a guy like that? Yes, after a fashion. “Woz” is certainly an electronics genius following a childhood as a certified math prodigy (literally, he …
Regarding Roger Ebert
Now let’s regard Roger Ebert this afternoon. What his passing yesterday, Thursday the 4th of April 2013, can mean. Like any death that strikes your radar, knocking it off the table, you feel a need to inventory yourself. Most of what I could say I chiseled nearly two years ago, when I presented him, by …
Bowled Over
February flies by, and not just because it’s a couple of days shorter than other months. Here in Arkansas the weather at the end of the month is worse than the beginning, marked by the Super Bowl on Sunday the 3rd. Like the other 49 states, prit’ near all of us watch the game, or …
Chasing a Tale
Book report: A Dog’s Journey: Another Novel for Humans by W. Bruce Cameron, 2012 Bruce Cameron’s novels make me scream. I read novels, not as many as I would like, maybe one and a half a month. Literary novels — the popular ones far more than ones from small publishers, I’m afraid — and the …
Euphonium Rocks!
Unemployment during the Good Depression is no time to be extravagant. I tend to be stingy during good times as well, but blowing a fair amount of money for top seats for The Who on Valentine’s night in Tulsa was crazy-right. The stop was on their Quadrophenia 2012–13 tour, playing through that double album then …
As Good As It Goetz
The conversation began with me telling the handyman, who remembered I was some sort of writer, that I was going to report on Friday afternoon’s state legislators’ forum. Both social media and some news media noted that a likely topic would be the proposals to expand where concealed handguns could be carried, specifically colleges and …
Skillet Squash
I love roasted vegetables, but to me they’re a nuisance. Fill two cookie sheets with chunks of veggies, after tossing with oil and herbs in a big bowl, bake nearly an hour, returning to toss a few times, and you get at most three servings. So finding comparable flavor in Mark Bittman’s “Panfried Pumpkin” inspired …
