Skip to content

Category Archives: Bloggity Blog

Blog-like blogs here. Short, even prattle. Hence, this folder of brief miscellany.

Mosque, Ow, on the Hudson

Friday, August 6, 2010

Some blasts from the vuvuzela. I used to play instruments, not just blow my own horn. While avoiding graven images, there’s no writ against craven puns. Mosque, ow, on the Hudson? Saying where houses of worship do not belong raises all sorts of red flags, no matter the neighborhood, no matter the religion. How could [...]

Also filed in Vuvuzela Monologues | | Comments Off

Vuvuzela Monologues – Ads

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Here’s some vuvuzela blasts to advertisements of the you-must-be-kidding sort. Virtually all of these are from the Sunday newspaper coupon sets. Because these go a long way to paying my salary, please buy every one of these. They’re fine products at honest prices. • • • Del Monte has a new campaign for its canned [...]

Also filed in Vuvuzela Monologues | | Comments Off

Vuvuzela Monologues

Monday, July 5, 2010

As long as soccer’s World Cup has made the vuvuzela stadium noisemaker a common word in America, Brick wants to horn in on its ubiquity for a new series of short takes. Today, it’s skin and drama. • • • Speaking of vuvuzela, one rash has come home to roost, on my left forearm. Until [...]

Also filed in Vuvuzela Monologues | | Comments Off

Ratatouille Not Twee

Sunday, July 4, 2010

The Fourth of July calls for red, white and blue. But if it’s independence we’re celebrating, why not red, green, yellow and purple? Ratatouille is a southern European, mid-summer, vegetarian casserole, ideal for when you return from the farmers market with way too much. The chickpeas make this a one-pot meal; bread crumbs are to [...]

Also filed in Kook Cooks | | Comments Off

Japery and Ivory

Saturday, April 24, 2010

DATELINE MIRTHOLOGY — You expect government to be naive sometimes, but some prominent research universities — that’s you, Cornell — treat animals like birdbrains. This week, they formally gave up on finding the ivory-billed woodpecker. This was reported in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, which for a half-decade has kept a special projects team just for hard-hitting [...]

Also filed in Birdberg Blotter | | Comments Off

Absence Makes Blogs Shorter

Monday, December 7, 2009

Brick has been sporadic for some weeks. With luck, it will be more active in December. Want an excuse? How about National Novel Writing Month. It’s 50,000 words to create a first draft of a novel (around a 200-page book) in 30 days. November is the one. My third try, and I went past 50,000 [...]

Also filed in Technical Difficulties | | Comments Off

Gazpacho Summer Soup

Friday, July 31, 2009

Every summer growing up in Fort Smith, Mom would make Summer Soup a few times. The recipe was from her best friend Isabel, and when we ate at her house, she’d also have Summer Soup. (Isabel also served her own dill pickles, the world’s best.) That recipe, at bottom, will take you back to the [...]

Also filed in Kook Cooks | | Comments Off

You Say Ganouj, I Say Ghanouj

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Or baba ganoush or baba ghanoush. Baba ganouj is a first cousin to hummus dip (mashed spicy chickpeas), but with eggplant as the base. For shmearing on pita wedges or vegetable sticks. Mollie Katzen in Still Life With Menu likes it as a pasta sauce. Any kind of eggplant works; the common jumbo globe has [...]

Also filed in Kook Cooks | | Comments Off

Granola, Better Homemade

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Using two cookbooks for one oft-used recipe, mainly the penciled notes in each, finally got old. It’s time to write it out. Is it mine, or theirs (see footnote)? A now-retired newspaper food editor once told me not to worry: “At conferences, we all agree, if you change more than the amounts of salt and [...]

Also filed in Kook Cooks | | Comments Off

Turning the Economy Takes Time

Friday, May 1, 2009

Apparently, it’s not just the banks. It’s not just the automakers. Not just the newspapers. This, from today’s Wall Street Journal: Shoppers continue to pare back spending even on basic household staples, resulting in lower-than-expected sales for Procter & Gamble Co. and Colgate-Palmolive Co. The consumer-products giants are responding by raising prices to keep profits [...]

Also filed in | | Comments Off