Recipe Stories: Baked Chicken Thighs
Nourishment, enjoyment, sharing, pleasure, life. Do what you need to do. These are thighs. Be sensuous. Get serious at last.
Dispatches
A Return to Evil
She is called the Blood Countess of Hungary, but the bloodiest part of her reputation is probably apocryphal; it emerged two hundred years after her death, during the vampire craze.
Why American Politics Are Sometimes Seriously Unserious
Let us take the recent case in point of Missouri Democratic Congresswoman Cori Bush who, during last week’s Republican comedy of errors entitled “choosing a new House Speaker,” called Florida Republican Congressman Bryon Donalds “a prop” when he was nominated for the Speakership and at one point received sixteen votes and even, in the giddiness of the moment, voted for himself.
How COVID Changed Your Personality
A new study found that the decrease in neuroticism had faded by 2021-2022, as normalcy seeped back into our lives. Now, though, there were small but significant declines in extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. But not for everyone.
Caretaking
Someone had called him a caretaker, which sounded admirable, but he hinted the role was lonely. I thought he probably had no affection or tenderness in his life, and maybe worse, no one ever stepped up to say, “I will take care of you.”
False Endings
When you are the one doing the work, trying to fix or make or create, false endings cease to be fun. Instead, they are dangerous, because they hold out false hope.
The Peril of Naming Our Flaws
Naming our flaws is a cruel and sinister practice. Women with soft cheeks were fine until they were told they had large buccal fat compartments. I was fine having pink cheeks until a dermatologist called it rosacea and offered me a prescription. Actually, I am still fine; I turned down the drug so I could save money on blusher.
A Real New Year’s Vow
As I have struggled occasionally in a time of disease, conflict, division, heartbreak, and financial precariousness, I have tried to understand what is necessary, what is still good.
Jeanne Dielman As the Best Film Ever?
Back in 1976, Le Monde hailed “Jeanne Dielman” as “the first masterpiece of the feminine in the history of cinema.” Today, that seems a little wry. Three hours and twenty-one minutes of housework, a little invisible sex work, and a surprising, violent ending comprise our first masterpiece? Yet it is one.
The Softer Sex
Somewhere between cottagecore and the hardcore expectations of the work world, there is an invisible fulcrum on which we wobble. Why is it our fault that softness automatically equates to fluttered-lashes femininity?