
Right now I'm sitting with Tracy Woods, owner of the Art for the Soul Gallery.http://your.host.name/path-to-blog/atom.php' [...]

In his masterpiece, Das Glasperlenspeil, Hermann Hesse describes a game, the "glass bead game," in which all the insights, noble thoughts, and works of art that the human race has ever produced are converted into intellectual values which the Magister Ludi, the "Master of the Game," [...]
My usual soup--I've blogged the recipe here before--with my usual pumpkin oil garnish, snipped fresh parsley, and Lan Chi Chili Sauce with Garlic. As long as its cold, I'll keep eating soup every other day.
Today I cooked some brown rice and scratched around for something to put on top of it. I had a jar of Patak's curry paste, so I made a quick curry by sautéeing a shallot and some sliced mushrooms, adding a couple of spoonfuls of the' [...]
My usual salad of romaine dressed with olive oil, lemon juice, sea salt and coarsely ground pepper. This one was also topped with strips of "chicken," chopped walnuts, and some cubes of stale bread all sautéed in the same iron spider.
Ali made this soup, and it was full of vegetables, but beyond that I can't say much about its creation. I jazzed it up with a typical Italian garnish of butter, Parmesan, and fresh parsley snipped from my garden...plus a dusting of cayenne pepper. I ate' [...]
Leftover soup today, plus a salad of romaine, grape tomatoes, hot red peppers, a hard-boiled egg, olive oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and pepitas.
This is a small red onion and a shallot sautéed in butter, then some thyme, parsley, tarragon, snipped sundried tomatoes in olive oil, vegetable bouillon and water added; the whole thing simmered briefly, then topped off with heavy cream.
Fabulous Mattunes concert today...Tamara Volskaya and her husband Anatoliy Trofimov from New York City, playing Russian folk instruments. She plays domra, a type of lute, and he plays bayan, a type of accordion. They're among the most accomplished musicians in the world today, comfortable at Lincoln' [...]
Veggie burger, Yukon Gold potato, asparagus, grape tomatoes, hot red peppers.
One of my favorite places to shop is Tran's World Food Market in Hadley, Mass. It's open seven days a week, from early morning till wicked late, and carries an unbelievable assortment of Asian foods. It's my source of Lan Chi Chili Sauce with Garlic, masaman' [...]
My father was one of those laconic Yankees who would sometimes go for the whole day, or for several days, without saying much more around the house than "ayup" a couple of times. He was almost fifty when I was born, and I think he was [...]
This is pretty much an English breakfast--veg version. A fried egg, toast, "bacon," broiled tomatoes, mushrooms, and coffee. No beans, though. And maybe I should have made that last one tea with milk.
Today was clean-up day for all the odds and ends of vegetables in the drawer. I sautéed a half-dozen scallions from the Oriental Grocery, where they sell them with lots of green tops, three ribs of celery, a big clove of garlic, a couple of very [...]
This is a pizza covered with marinara sauce, lots of black olives, capers, marinated artichoke hearts, mozzarella, Parmesan, basil, and a drizzle of olive oil.
Romaine lettuce, sautéed "chicken," Brie, grape tomatoes, toasted walnuts, a dressing of olive oil, lemon juice, sea salt, and pepper.
I made this soup by sautéeing onions, green and orange peppers, celery and cabbage in olive oil. Then I dumped in about a pound of yellow split peas, a couple of spoons of barley miso, salt, pepper, thyme, and three bay leaves. I cooked it all [...]
Today I made some fried dough for Ali. That's nothing but hunks of bread/pizza dough dropped into hot fat and turned once. When I was a child, we used to buy this at the Italian feasts in the South End of Springfield...there were three spaced out' [...]
Recently at a farm market I picked up some beautiful peppers of several varieties, some hot and some sweet. So I made this stirfry with a few of them. It's an onion, the peppers, some bean sprouts, and some tofu. I ate it over noodles.
Villanelle: The Psychological Hour
Thai chili noodles with tofu, broccoli, onions, garlic, ginger syrup, toasted sesame oil, light soy sauce.
Ali and Lindsay made spaghetti with "meat" sauce today, but it was way too bland for me, so I jazzed it up. I fried an onion, a green pepper, and a serrano chili pepper in olive oil, then added some Bulgarian hot pepper sauce and a [...]
Still not much appetite today, so I had just a peanut butter and banana sandwich and a cup of tea for lunch. Pretty self-explanatory.
I was under the weather today, and had no appetite. I decided that if I ate anything at all, it might as well be nutritious, and so I thought of these bran muffins.
By this time of year, I'm thinking of any excuse to light the oven or set a simmering pot on the stove. Or both.
This is what happens when you have too many cooks in the kitchen.
This is a veggieburger on a toasted English muffin with mayonnaise, two slices of "bacon," melted Cotswold cheddar, romaine, tomato, and serrano chilies. The salad is romaine and celery dressed with a mixture of Bulgarian hot red pepper sauce (looks like marinara) and mayonnaise.http://your.host.name/path-to-blog/atom.php [...]
In the interest of using up the oddest odds and ends, I made this stir-fry for lunch. It's Thai chili noodles topped with the first few ingredients I pulled out of the refrigerator and pantry. It's a red onion, sliced, a clove of garlic, chopped, four [...]
I thought an omelet would be nice today for a kind of Sunday brunch. I had some brie which was getting too hard to spread on crackers, so brie omelet it was. Fruit is nice with brie....I thought about frying up a Golden Delicious apple I [...]
Tonight was the Krakus Festival at the Basketball Hall of Fame, an annual dinner and celebration for the Polish Center of Discovery and Learning in Chicopee, Massachusetts. I went over early to help and didn't bother to eat before I left, so I guess I can [...]
Here's a pizza made from scratch with homemade dough. I topped it with homemade marinara sauce, marinated artichokes, black olives, capers, sautéed mushrooms, and mozzarella cheese. I made another one with homemade pesto instead of sauce--because I didn't have enough sauce and because pizza doesn't need [...]
This is a salad of romaine, avocado, tomatoes, olive oil, lime juice, sea salt, pepper, and some chopped fresh serrano chilies.http://your.host.name/path-to-blog/atom.php [...]
This is a couple of toasted English muffins spread with mayonnaise and topped with two slices of fake bacon each, thin slices of pricey but heavenly Cotswold cheddar, sliced tomatoes, and sliced serrano chilies. The salad is avocado, coriander, serranos, lime juice, sea salt, and pepper.
To make this vegetarian chili, heat some oil in a heavy pan (I use an old pressure cooker with the guts taken out, or a cast iron pot). Add a sliced onion, cook a bit, and then add a clove or two of sliced or chopped [...]
Persian food is very labor-intensive, and though I used to cook almost nothing but, and was pretty good at it if I do say so myself, lately it's rare that I make a Persian dish. And when I do, I don't make it in the traditional [...] 
To make this soup, I cooked a sliced onion in butter till golden, then added a dozen or so mushrooms, also sliced. Then a couple of diced potatoes and water just to cover. I simmered this with a bit of savory, thyme, parsley, salt and pepper [...] 

Sometimes I like to have breakfast for lunch. I bought Portugese rolls on purpose for this. I had to let them sit around for three or four days to get properly stale. Today they were ready.
Pizza dough from scratch is ridiculously easy to make, but pizza dough you buy in the deli is even easier. One bag, which cost me $2.31, made two freeform pies. I had homemade marinara sauce on hand, so I used that. I sliced half an eggplant [...] 
To make this omelet, I sautéed a few mushrooms in butter and oil, then added a couple of handfuls of rinsed (but not dried) spinach and a pinch of nutmeg and cooked just till the spinach was wilted. I removed the spinach and mushrooms from the [...] 
The sun is shining, the Mercedes is humming, the mortgage is paid. It's the weekend of the Ashfield Fall Festival, which means it's also the party of the year up in Goshen at Richard Richardson's, and you're invited. For the price [...]
This is a recipe I found in Yankee Magazine years ago. It's supposed to be made with chicken, but I use tofu in its place. I thought of it when I saw little bags of ready-to-eat peeled, cooked chestnuts at the local job lot for an [...]
This is what you do with too many ripe tomatoes. It's a Persian dish.
Today I was on the set of Edge of Darkness, the Mel Gibson movie that's filming in Northampton right now. Alma, her daughter, Rebecca, and I were anti-war protestors in today's shoot. Rebecca had carefully done her hair and makeup in preparation for her first movie [...]