Month: November 2013

I'm so excited about my latest project: curating a new, food-themed reading series in and around Pittsburgh. Those of you who follow me on various social media will likely have already seen this, but I wanted to gather all the current info in one place and officially introduce the series. Acquired Taste is a series … Continue reading Acquired Taste: A Reading Series →

Late autumn is upon us, and with it, the release of many Fall issues of literary journals. In the last week, I've received contributor's copies for two journals that contain essays of mine. One is the wonderful Gulf Coast, published out of the University of Houston (and whose faculty editor, Nick Flynn, is one of … Continue reading Fall Essay Season! →

Well, it was bound to happen. In case you don't know yet, I haven't always been the domestic ... mild success ... I am now. Growing up, I was a mashed-potato-blending, smoke-alarm-setting, crying-over-the-piecrust flop. Sooner or later, I was bound to try to make something to share with you all... and fail at it. The … Continue reading Tomato-Corn Pie and Mayo Fail →

We all remember those magical evenings when we were kids when our parents let us have "backwards" days, where we got the special treat of  breakfast for dinner, or "brinner". For you Scrubs fans out there, you know I didn't exactly invent the term brinner. Turk feels me. There are so many brinner possibilities. You can … Continue reading Brinner Grows Up →

I have a major soft spot for cranberry-orange flavors. The coffee shop just a few blocks from my apartment in Iowa sold cranberry orange muffins and for about a month one summer, I think I ate one nearly every morning. Once, my mother made an amazing cranberry spice cake and cranberry-orange bread that I ate … Continue reading Cranberry Pecan Bread →

If you've read the "About" page of this blog, or you've found your way to the site by reading some of my book excerpts, it should come as no surprise that this is the most frequently-asked question I encounter:How do you re-incorporate meat into your diet?A few years ago, when I was considering making the transition … Continue reading How to Stop Being a Vegetarian →