culture

Weep No More

December 10, 2012
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If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know that He Who Will Not Be Ignored is named after Miles Davis. What you may not know is that I’m named after Dave Brubeck. As friends sent me condolence emails after his passing last week, I was reminded that my family has its own Brubeck story. When [...]

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Thinking Differently

October 6, 2011
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Steve Jobs changed my life. It was a gradual process that began in the fall of 1984, when I first interacted with a Macintosh. I had moved into Castle Moose, a house full of game-playing Harvard graduates and later the location of some of my culinary milestones, including the legendary pumpkin pie story. In addition [...]

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Goin’ to Chicago

July 29, 2011
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Starting tomorrow, She Who Must Be Obeyed, He Who Will Not Be Ignored, and I are taking a well-deserved vacation. We’re driving out to Chicago by way of Cleveland (Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame, Lola restaurant), spending a week sightseeing and eating (Next, Publican, Boka, and various hot dog emporia), then returning by way of Buffalo [...]

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I Don’t Have to Show You Any Stinking Badges!*

June 15, 2011
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Iwas a Boy Scout, but I never worked my way up the ranks to Eagle scout. That achievement required at least 21 merit badges, a few of which (swimming, lifesaving) were mandatory requirements completely beyond my physical capabilities. It should come as no surprise that I did acquire the cooking merit badge before I gave [...]

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Vespers

March 21, 2011
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I used to be a Catholic altar boy, long enough ago that one Mass every Sunday was still recited in Latin. The ecclesiastical Latin I had to memorize back then has been more useful than I expected, first in my biology training (learning how to read Linnaean taxonomy), later in my appreciation of classical music [...]

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Baby’s First Hydrocolloid Kit

March 9, 2011
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Today I had a revelation: My fascination with food and food chemistry began when I was a child, and it started with a toy. While my friends all begged their parents for Creepy Crawler sets, I asked for – and was given – an Incredible Edibles set. Both of these toys worked on the same [...]

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What I Say

April 29, 2009

We’re back from our London vacation. I was reviewing some of the video footage we shot, and found this, taken by Diane at the British Museum: We were concerned that Miles would be either bored with or overwhelmed by the amount of information at the museum. As you can see, our fears were unfounded. Not [...]

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Monkey Tuesday

February 3, 2009

I work at home, in an office on the top floor of my house. I listen to music non-stop while I work, but from January 3, 2006 to March 2, 2007, I listened to a radio talk show. Penn Jillette, of Penn and Teller, hosted Penn Radio every weekday afternoon during that year and a [...]

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Burns Night

January 25, 2009

Today is the birthday of the great Scots poet Robert Burns. It will be celebrated by true Scots everywhere with the traditional Burns night supper, a meal that features a haggis for the main course. Although I will not be observing Burns night this year, I did for the first time three years ago, made [...]

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