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Monthly Archives: February 2016

Buffalo china: A sad American story

I wish I knew much, much more about a now-defunct American company named Buffalo China. Yep — they were in Buffalo, New York. The company started about 1901, making a mishmash of porcelain products. In the 1920s and 1930s, they started marking commercial porcelain dinnerware for restaurants and institutions. For decades, they made incredibly excellent […]

Pasta salads

Are pasta salads more a summer thing? Pasta salads were never in my repertoire until recently, when I hired a caterer for a political event and one of the dishes was pasta salad. It was good, so I resolved to add pasta salad to the competencies of the abbey kitchen. One of the cool things […]

Sinning more safely, at home

If you don’t love hot dogs, there’s something wrong with you. But of course you also know that hot dogs are one of the nastiest foods we can eat. I’ve been making alternatives to hot dogs for 40 years. Some alternatives are convincing, others not. But here’s a way to have an authentic hot dog […]

Update: Oratorio in Ursa Major

During the fall and early winter, the beta readers read the first draft of Oratorio in Ursa Major. I discussed the draft with each of the readers, gave a lot of thought to their ideas, and undertook revisions. I’m flattered that none of the beta readers suggested any major changes in Oratorio. Rather, from the […]