Posts
Wednesday, December 17, 2025
Tuesday, December 16, 2025
It’s a reminder that to make sense of, to be at peace with this world, we have to find some path of solace or redemption that can coexist even with the abject tragedy and sorrow. Josh Marshall
Monday, December 15, 2025
Leave the impurities in there
Leave things lumpy. People want to know how the protagonist’s father’s dress socks looked against his pale white shins. People want to know the titles of the strange and eclectic books lining the walls of his study. People want to know the sounds he made while snoring, how he looked while concentrating, the way his glasses pinched the bridge of his nose, leaving what appeared to be uncomfortable-looking ovals of purple and red discolored skin when he took those glasses off at the end of a long day. Even if those lumps make the mixture less smooth, less pretty, even if you don’t quite know what to do with them, even if they don’t figure into your chemistry—they don’t have a place in the reaction equations—leave them there. Leave the impurities in there. Charles Yu
Sunday, December 14, 2025
Swim Hours Franklin MA YMCA
Christmas Eve Wed. Dec. 24: 5:30 am - 2:00 pm
Christmas Day Thurs. Dec. 25: Closed
New Year's Eve Wed. Dec. 31: 5:30 am - 2:00 pm
New Year's Day Thurs. Jan 1: 10:00 am - 1:00 pm
Saturday, December 13, 2025
The only thing that makes one an artist is making art. David Rakoff
It's rare that I'm not at work on some sort of craft project. I've often enthused about the need to make things; how it employs a unique set of muscles - physical, intellectual, spiritual - that I can attain a state of flow when making something that I almost never can when writing.
Delicious Big Green Soup with Italian and Chinese accents
I love soup because it's friendly even when it has scary sausage meat in it, (says the former vegetarian). But I love to occasionally use meat as a spice mixed with a jillion vegetables like in Asian cooking.
I had a fridge full of freshly purchased produce and a bunch of leftovers. This is what I did.
I rinsed and chopped two bunches of bok choy, I added 2 jars of bean stock saved from this week's home cooked chick peas and kidney beans and I had some leftover stock from this week's pressure cooked spaghetti squash.
I added 3 or 4 cups of leftover cooked Basmati brown rice, 3-4 cups of cooked kidney beans, 1-2 cups of cooked spaghetti squash.
Then I rinsed and chopped 3 bunches of kale (to shrink it) and cooked them for 5 minutes in my huge Instant pot with a dozen Paisano Hot Italian sausage links (from Price Rite), about 3 lb.
Then I added the cooked kale and sausage links to the big soup pot on the stove.
I added a few tablespoons of Maggi brand powdered chicken bullion, many generous bloops of olive oil, a whole knob of ginger, and a good amount of Chianti. I smashed and peeled a whole bulb of garlic and added it to the soup pot. Then I let it all simmer.
Toward the end of the simmer I decided to add a pound of cooked chick peas that I had cooked yesterday, originally intended for making hummus.
I also added the fresh lemon juice leftover from making hummus last time - a good addition. Then I added quite a lot of soy sauce. And for color and sweetness I peeled 4 carrots into ribbons and added them.
It's a fantastic soup!