Sadness

Lucille Clifton, you will be missed. You were truly an amazing voice in American poetry, and you have had a great influence on me. I will always be grateful I had the chance to see you read. Maybe in another life I'll get to ask you about that fox.

On Cooking

I frickin love it. I've been pseudo-foodie lately, trying out every dish I can think of. My Thanksgiving dinner was out of this world. As I took a bite of my pumpkin pie (for which I didn't use a recipe, thank you very much), I proclaimed in a falsetto singsong voice, "I am a goddess!" My grandfather, a notoriously picky eater, told me it was the best pumpkin pie he's ever had. I mean, the man is my grandfather. He's had a lot of pumpkin pie.

Wednesday night I made my first homemade tomato sauce and wanted to make the same proclamation.

I float my own boat sometimes, but other times my culinary adventures end in disaster. The pumpkin pizza anyone? The attempt at pan-fried chickpeas? The reeses pieces brownies that turned out like sheetrock - which is apparently what happens when you scale the recipe down by 4 but spread the mixture in the same size baking sheet?

The point is, I've got some real talent, but I need lots of training.

Anyone know of a good vegetarian culinary training seminar? I'm looking for about a week, anywhere is fine. It won't do me much good to learn how to bone a duck if I'm never going to use that skill, you know?

Things that give me a happy, busy afternoon at work edition

the assaulting, scrumptious aroma of an orange after your thumbnail punctures its skin

and Olivia Ruiz singing "La Femme Chocolat":