The Curious Cook

My dear friend Jeannette made and sent me this lovely apron to wear in my new home. Notice the clever way I am taking advantage of every inch of available countertop (the better to use every plate and pot in the house)(no wonder it took several days to get everything clean and back in the cabinets).

Things that went wrong on Thanksgiving

Although I followed the directions, the turkey was not cooked in the middle;

Paula Deen’s potatoes would simply not mash (my mother said I should have relied on Mark Bittman instead, which is true, especially given that I have met him and supplied the rest of the family with HTCE);

The stuffing tasted good but didn’t hold together;

The sourdough bread was delicious but was frozen in the middle (I blame this on Wholefoods because again I followed the directions);

The salad was wilted (luckily, no one seemed interested in salad);

The items my mother prepared – her special spinach and sour cream apple pie – were delicious.

I made the first fire in my fireplace and it set off the smoke detector – and the home security system! (yes, I should have waited until the chimney man came to look at the flue; now I know it really does need that missing lever);

I swear I used every plate and every pot in the house, which was a problem because

The brand new disposal resented all the potato peelings and sent them back up the other side of the sink - every time I ran it or used the dishwasher;

The rod in the coat closet (a nice wooden one) broke due to the weight of the coats;

There was more, but these are the highlights.

Luckily, my parents are the opposite of critical, and didn't even complain about the frigid house.

Harvard - Yale

It was cold but sunny day for the Harvard-Yale game with fellow Kirkland House alum, Lamar Flatt, and his lovely family. Yale's men fought to the end but Harvard won.

The Mockingbirds by Daisy Whitney

Alex is a junior at a prestigious boarding school, a dedicated musician, and the sort of person that rarely pays attention to the daily gossip and chit-chat of school life because she is so focused on her long term goal, which is Juilliard. All that ends when she is date raped by a classmate she barely knows, and becomes the unwilling subject of gossip and slurs. Although Alex wants to go on with her life and avoid being a victim, she has many questions about what really happened to her that night and to what extent she was complicit (if she was).