For most summers, Brick has included reportage from the annual conferences of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. They were long, even when broken into several posts per weekend. Reporting this year’s, in Hartford, Conn., was tricky because I left my seat and note-taking repeatedly when called away to troubleshoot. I know I know. Heavy […]
Author: Ben S. Pollock
Why write more when my home page
will distract you from the real me.
E-mail me here: (written out to reduce spam) ben(at-sign)benpollock(dot)com
Zapping Ethics
This is a retail dilemma, drafted as a timeline. In writing out the end, a wicked solution crystallizes, It would be wrong, but I want to. Disclaimer. No retail dilemma ever is a real problem, not with poverty, injustice and threats to democracy always looming large. But this quandary can be solved. April 2013 — […]
An Omnivore’s Manifesto
We’re trying veganism, My Beloved and I, now in our 11th week of cutting the ovo-lacto from our comfortable vegetarianism of over two decades. Look Out For That Bus! It’d been a year since my last fasting cholesterol blood test. The results so floored my doctor a week ago — total dropped from 244 to […]
Sportin’ Life, Eh, Old Sport?
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]