The end, dear friends, is nigh. After three and a half years of daily use — after tens of thousands of photographic exposures, and no small amount of detrimental exposure to flour, hot oil, and all manner of other kitchen nastiness — the trusty Twice Cooked camera, the little Olympus that could, is coughing, and sputtering, and well on the road to snapping its last shot.
Folks in the United States: I don’t know what you all did for the Fourth of July, but Sarah and I were in Philadelphia’s Washington Square Park — and then on the march — to support Restore the Fourth (#restorethe4th).
For folks who don’t know, Restore the Fourth is a grassroots, non-partisan, non-violent movement, the purpose of which is to demand that the government of the United States of America adhere to its constitutionally dictated limits and respect the Fourth Amendment. It was formed, in part on Reddit, in response to recent revelations about the National Security Agency’s domestic surveillance initiatives: the monitoring of telephone conversations, and the PRISM electronic snooping program that was revealed by Edward Snowden. And it has the backing of civil libertarians and libertarian libertarians, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Senator Rand Paul (not really a libertarian libertarian, but plays one on TV).
You may consider this, dear readers, act two in the three-act May drama that I’ve come to think of as rhubarb-stravaganza. The tragedy, or perhaps the ecstasy, of being interested in seasonal cooking is that when the window opens for an ingredient — especially if it’s a relatively short window — one must take advantage.
The rhubarb window is open, folks. And here I am, milking it for all it’s worth.
It’s been a little while since I’ve made a post that’s primarily an excuse to show you photos. But this past Saturday was the Manayunk StrEAT Food Festival. And excavating my camera and a couple of rolls of last year’s unexposed film from a growing layer of domestic sediment (and in the process, hopelessly disturbing the nascent fossil record that is my house) I decided to head down there to see what’s what.
If my 2012, folks, began with the afterglow of visiting Spain — with dry sherry, fresh seafood, and melt-in-your-mouth jamón — it has ended with the afterglow of Kentucky. It has ended with the memory of bourbon, amber and oaky, filled with notes of caramel and corn, vanilla, char, and spicy rye — with a […]
It’s been a few months since I’ve made a soapbox post — like this one about Kiva, or this one about Creative Commons. This post, I would say, falls somewhere between that, an impromptu pictorial, and free advertising for a Philadelphia business that I admire quite a bit, and that I patronize as often as […]
So this happened: I was away at the meetings of the American Folklore Society — in New Orleans, of all places — and well-sheltered from the storm. But Sarah was here in Philadelphia. And from my relative proximity, I had ample opportunity to worry — to imagine her ambling about a heath, blustering, with only […]
Note: the images in this post are best viewed large. And there are more illustrative images over on my flickr. So I got a new toy. It arrived in the mail, I’ve had a little time to play with it, and now I’m itching to talk about it. It’s not a kitchen toy — although […]
This seems to have become my week off from blogging. I didn’t intend it. I just sort of got busy with other things, and haven’t had a whole lot of time to cook or to write. So I’m going with it. But worry not. Twice Cooked will be back very soon with lots of new […]
In addition to grilling asparagus this holiday weekend, and watching Joe Biden deliver some of the most honest, admirable Memorial Day remarks of which I am aware (more on this later — maybe), I had the opportunity to get out of the house and peep about Philadelphia’s Eastern State Penitentiary. For those who don’t know, […]