Blog

Police Seize Boffers at G-20

Categories: Blog, Features, LARP

The Toronto police aren’t messing around. According to the The Globe and Mail, while providing security for the G-20 summit, the cops have nabbed all sorts of weaponry, from baseball bats and crowbars to boffers, yes boffers, the foam-covered arrows, clubs, and shields that LARPers use for combat. You know, weapons that are designed NOT [...]... Read More

Italian Foodists of New Jersey, I’m Calling You Out

Categories: Blog

My husband is a connoisseur of sandwiches. He loves wraps with veggies, baloney and cheese with his secret mustard-hummus tang sauce, clubs, melts and subs of all variety. But his favorite is the Italian sub, which he calls “the holy grail of sandwiches.” Unfortunately for him, we now live in New Jersey. Despite the state’s reputation [...]... Read More

Superhero For a Day: LARP fulfils cancer kid’s wish.

Categories: Blog, LARP

Meet 13-year-old Erick Martin, a/k/a Electron Boy, who lives with liver cancer by day, but fights the powers of darkness with light by night. Thanks to the Make-A-Wish Foundation, and to hundreds of Seattle-area volunteers, Martin fulfilled his wish of being a superhero. On Thursday morning Electron Boy awoke to a call from Spider Man letting [...]... Read More

Goodbye To My Boobs

Categories: Blog, Clips, Features
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Yeah, I did it. I amputated my healthy breasts at age 28 after discovering my sky-high chances of getting breast cancer. And I don't regret it one bit.... Read More

Harry Dresden’s Life Changes Forever

Categories: Blog, Creative Writing, LARP
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A sneak peek at the newest Harry Dresden novel.... Read More

Preserved: Fresh Salmon, Parts of My Body

Categories: Blog, Creative Writing
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Anyone who reads my blog is probably aware that I have an unholy obsession with preserving foods, and that in 17 days I will undergo a life-changing operation, a double-mastectomy with reconstruction done on my healthy breasts. I’ve always cooked, and frankly eaten (hello, new 20-lb gut), to deal with stress, but lately, perhaps because I’m [...]... Read More

The Alchemy of Corned Beef

Categories: Blog

The idea of magic, of alchemy, of starting with one substance and transforming it into a completely different substance has fascinated me since I was a little girl, and I couldn’t help but think of that as my husband and I used a mysterious solution to transform brisket into corned beef a few weeks ago. Corned [...]... Read More

My First Pâté

Categories: Blog

Last weekend, we decided to make pâté with a friend of ours, figuring that he wouldn’t be scooged out by the procedure, since he’s french and would therefore understand the desired result, even if we failed to achieve it. Our idea had been to make the pâté — what our cookbook charmingly calls “The Cinderella Meat [...]... Read More

Charcuterie is Like Child Rearing…

Categories: Blog, Features
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Some couples “practice” for children by getting a dog; my husband and I are evidently “practicing” with charcuterie (tr. “cooked flesh”), the art of making sausage, bacon, terrines, and cured meats. Like preparing for a child, charcuterie requires: a manual — an authoritative cookbook instead of a parenting tome items that the uninitiated would never have lying [...]... Read More

Silver Gin Fizz

Categories: Blog

I am in love with a cocktail. My husband and I have recently gotten inventive with our mixology, whipping up a tasty Orgeat syrup from scratch and daring to mix various liquors from our cabinet with mixed results. Equal parts of brandy, gin, and Frangelico do not a delicious concotion make. But on Saturday night, a [...]... Read More