Facets of Our Lives

I never met Michael Walsh in person. Our first connection was on LiveJournal, some time in late 2004 or early 2005. He was a friend of a friend, as most of my contacts on LJ have always been. His comments to a friend's journal piqued my interest, or my comments piqued his. In any case, we started reading the other's blog/journal, and this was how we got to know each other. I learned he was a librarian, living in Detroit with his partner in a house they owned together. He was originally from Ohio, and had an older sister named Ann. He loved food and sharing "food porn". He would take trips to see friends and it would be as much about what he ate as who he went to see. He was very social, and his companionship was valued by all who knew him. My view into his world and into the person he was came solely through LiveJournal at first, and then in 2008, through Facebook. I knew about his co-workers, the people he admired, the people he loved, the trials and tribulations o...

I'm trying to get back on track with regular entries here, but I am working again, so that has sapped some of my time. Also, some expansion is coming. To the left, you'll see links to my new podcast and my additional work on EmandLo.com , both of which are coming soon. Thanks for sticking with me and reading -- I really appreciate all the feedback, and I hope you'll enjoy the new work to come!

CNN recently aired a special by Anderson Cooper, Bullying: It Stops Here . Despite all the attention paid to the subject in the last year, bullying continues to be a major issue for US schoolchildren. But this special was excellent, and provided a lot of new information in the form of a study they performed using high school students at a particular school on Long Island in New York. I highly recommend you take the time to watch if/when it airs again. One of the key concepts to come from the study were the categories kids fall into: aggressors, victims, and interveners. The first two are self-explanatory, but the last category, interveners, represent bystanders who choose not to be bystanders, and work to diffuse the situation by defending the victim(s) and/or shaming the aggressor(s), among other methods. This topic hits close to home both because of what I went through in school, but because of my teenaged niece and nephew, who are living in the high school environment right now...

So I had an idea. I think it's a good idea, but it's also somewhat troubling. I like to cook - that's not a secret. It occurred to me that I could send out care packages this year. I have no idea what it would cost to ship food, only that I could effectively vacuum-seal things and everything would arrive as reasonably tasty as it was when I first made it. Everything could be prepared in the microwave or by putting the sealed bag in a pot of boiling water for 20 minutes. But then it occurred to me how many people might actually not only appreciate the gift, but need the food . And that's just... tragic. So I am contemplating how to make this idea work. I can't commit to feeding 20 people - my finances are stretched thin, too. I could certainly buy a quantity of food and whip up a bunch of things, but there is the shipping cost and special considerations for food. I'm not talking fruitcakes, but things like turkey meatloaf cordon bleu, spinach chicken pa...

This week's recipes aren't the healthiest, but I've done my best with them. Croissant dough is available in your refrigerator case in both name brand and store brand varieties, called by the more English sounding "Crescent Rolls". In fairness, these versions, while tasty, are nothing like their French counterparts: definitely more doughy, less flaky, less buttery. However, working with this dough is very easy, and lends itself well to various recipes. I've used the dough to make pockets full of chicken and vegetables, sweet breakfast treats, and of course, dinner rolls. The real problem with the dough are the fat and calories. Even if you buy the reduced fat version, they are 100 calories per crescent, and they're small . So if you're planning to use any kind of filling, you've got to be mindful of what you're using or you could end up with a very high-calorie, high-fat snack. Needless to say, for today's recipes, I have used the r...

Happy Labor Day Weekend! I figure since I have slowed down on my posting, I will go ahead and work this Labor Day and give you some recipes. "Americans love their mayo," a friend said to me when we were discussing baguette sandwiches I had enjoyed in Paris. The French do not use mayonnaise, but rather butter or margarine. Interestingly, I saw a program on the Food Network this weekend describing sandwiches that have both . The Dutch (and the Flemish of Belgium) use mayo with their famous french fries, and purchasing patat or frites , you select which fritesaus you'd prefer -- from a specific type of sweet mayo, to a peanut sauce, to a curry mayonnaise, to other local, delicious and diverse options. Ok, so why am I discussing this? Well, I visited my mother last week, and thanks to changes in her diet, she has little use for mayonnaise at the moment. To add further to her disinterest in the product, she purchased a low-fat or non-fat version of mayonnaise, which ...

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