There’s a publication date (or dates) for my dear Mr. Lynch’s Republic of Thieves, and it’s Pi Day! I’m going to tell you my favorite clean joke. It goes like this: In the rest of the world, when they say Yankee, they mean somebody from North America. In North America, when they say Yankee, they [...]

I’ve been so damned busy I’ve been letting Friday night mixology inventions slide by without blogging them. Which means that once they vanish into the fortnight time limit of twitter tags, they could be gone forever! Last week (actually, on Sunday, during a birthday party for my friend Batwrangler) I invented the drink she named [...]

I’m on deadline (Steles of the Sky is due first week of March, and edits on One-Eyed Jack just landed) and my dear Mr. Lynch is visiting until the end of the month, which means we’ve been spending endless hours sitting and typing at one another. And I’m training for a half-marathon at the end [...]

I baked you a pumpkin custard.

This is what the roasted pumpkin looks like. (Click through to flickr for more photos of the beast, and the process of dis-assembly.) Basically, you roast it at 350 until it looks like that and is soft, then let it cool. Cut the top off, ladle out the inside, peel off the skin (it comes [...]

Yesterday, as previously mentioned, I read and signed at the marvelous Pandemonium Books in Cambridge. We had a fabulous time, and I’d really like to thank everybody that turned out. My friend who goes by the handle batwrangler took some photos: I’ve been slowly coming to terms with the realization that travel and public appearances [...]

This is a Hurricane variant, Yankee-style. In honor of the Frankenstorm, I decided that a cocktail was in order–and the cocktail in question was an obvious choice. I didn’t have any pineapple juice–and I wasn’t about to go out in this to get some. Leaves are slapping the windows like angry hands; the trees are [...]

The cookies came out. In honor of the Frankenstorm, I made cookies. “Bones of the dead” (Ossi di Morti) seemed appropriate to the day–as my housemate pointed out–although I tweaked the recipe a little. Brown sugar (because that was what I had), half King Arthur White Whole Wheat flour, and almond milk in place of [...]

Here’s tonight’s dinner about to go in the oven: It’s one of my latest adventures in Forensic Ukrainian Cookery. I call it Stuffed Cabbage Casserole. Because I love stuffed cabbage, but you know what? Peeling apart and steaming and then sauteeing and then mixing and then rolling and then… No. Just no. I could have [...]

(Yes, my work table is dirty. How good of you to notice.) I lost the morning to running errands (Halloween candy–a must: we live on the town common, and they quite literally bus kids in to trick-or-treat. Last year, the town provided socialized candy, but none has shown up yet this year!–dinner necessities, hurricane necessities–gas [...]