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Why does this happen to me every year?? Most of my friends that pay attention to this sort of thing have already finished their year’s-best-music mixes. I still have a list of releases I have yet to hear but suspect could be contenders, and a list of records I’ve heard, but need to listen to […]

I was hesitant to go CF because I was misled about how expensive the bulbs are. Here in high cost-of-living Boston, we paid $5-$6 a pop at our local drug and hardware stores. That means we can convert every convertible bulb in our household for under a C-note. That’s cheap enough that I will probably […]

I’m not exactly proud of this, but I enjoy really bad reality TV. Take Hell’s Kitchen (please). Between Gorden Ramsey’s not-ready-for-prime-time potty mouth and the crazy crosscuts that try to amp a botched risotto into a matter of LIFE! OR! DEATH!, it’s pretty much like mainlining fried mozzarella sticks drenched in bleu cheese.
I’ve even […]

I read this at least partly to challenge my own preconceptions about what kind of books I read. This is a non-cookbook about cooking — worse, French cooking, although I didn’t realize quite how meat-intensive it would actually be.
But it’s also a book about a crazy challenge — specifically, cooking every recipe in Julia […]

I’m a longtime fan of the Daedalus Books remainders house. I’ve learned about some of my favorite authors from their chatty, informative catalogs.
Every once in a while, though, I follow up a recommendation for a real dud. Hewson’s A Season for the Dead drew many comparisons to Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, because […]

or, why I may not click your YouTube link

Silver Pigs is a hard-boiled historical mystery set in ancient Rome, specifically, in the reign of Vespasian, just after the turbulence that followed Nero’s death.
I’ve frequently enjoyed historical mysteries, but they rarely succeed for me on both levels — either the period detail is compelling and the mystery is a bit slight, or the […]