Recent Posts

Valentine's Day is upon us once again. A celebration of love and romance, it is also the only holiday I know of that makes everybody miserable. Everybody. I've yet to meet the person who looks forward to this day. V-Day is hardly the only holiday that imposes a sense of obligation upon people (hello, Christmas!), but it's unique in the way that nobody seems to get anything out of it, either. Either your expectations are met, which is boring, or they aren't, and everyone gets upset. [more]

One of the great things about being married to a Southerner is the rich food traditions he brought to our marriage. He is by far the better cook between us, growing up with a dad who did much cooking and working his way through college in restaurants. Sweet tea, fried okra, Carolina pork barbecue, Low Country Boil, and banana pudding are just some of amazing culinary creations of the South.

Another favorite southern fare is Corn Spoonbread. While I normally like to cook all my food from scratch, this recipe uses an easy shortcut--a box of cornbread mix--to help make this dish a snap. [more]

I had a big post planned for today on family meetings and making house rules, and on how to motivate your child to follow house rules. And I had three hours in my office set aside to write and work, and to complete some piles of teaching-related paperwork that have been shifted to one side of my desk. And then I ended up buried under a few a textbooks that a publisher sent me to preview. None of those other things got done--not a one (although I did push some papers around a bit when I was trying to find a pencil). [more]

Apparently we've all* been doing it wrong. Blowing our noses, that is. Researchers at the University of Virginia conducted CT scans and other measurements as subjects sneezed and blew their noses. Any guesses as to what they discovered?
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Every now and then I stumble upon a recipe that sounds oh-so-appealing, but I'm just not sure how it will turn out. I actually feel this way about most of the crock-pot recipes I try out. When I'm cooking the conventional way, I can usually tell as I go along how the thing is going to turn out. As I mix and chop and knead and the different cooking smells rise up around me, I can almost taste the final product with the ends of my fingertips. There's something about the process of cooking that is almost as good as eating the results. [more]