Not-yet-published pieces, stories, essays, rants, and random strangenesses

In 2006, I wrote a blog piece about the Legend of the Black Turkey. Every year it seems to get more random Internet hits. Last year, a...

I was watching an epsiode of The Dog Whisperer this morning. A fellow in a wheelchair was having trouble with his dog who, though...

I have officially achieved coffee Nirvana. A couple of years ago I stumbled upon Raven’s Brew Coffee Roasters, a marvelous coffee company...

I did it, at long last. Made an authentic miso soup. It may be the best thing I’ve ever eaten. My recipe needs tweaking a bit, though I...

Disturbing dreams last night; in fact, they rattled me so much that I remember ordering the dream to stop at one point. Mom and Dad and I...

In two days I’m heading out of town for the holidays. When Dad died in 1982, Mom and I couldn’t bear to celebrate that first Christmas...

I’ve been waking up lately with my head crammed with a bunch of disjointed thoughts. That in itself is not unusual; my head is a...

My nephew makes a mean Bloody Mary. Everyone loved this year’s Craignog (which, after years of perfecting, I tweaked once again), but...

Yesterday was Day One in several significant ways. The Great Funeral Trip is done, and Mom is resting with Dad in Maryland. Now I have an...

Florence stands halfway between New York and Miami and, more importantly for me, halfway between Palm Bay and the D.C. area. I have...

Bread and I are coming to a parting of the ways. I don’t know if I have a wheat allergy, or I’m sensitive to gluten, or if it’s those...

A friend writes: I hadn’t been to a Burger King for months if not a year. So I was flabbergasted today when I saw that they actually now...

In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), health is defined as being in harmony or in balance. If a body is healthy, it is able to resist...

I’d like to say that the origins of CraigNog are shrouded in myth. And perhaps one day they will be, if I’m lucky. It has garnered some...

Put my girth together with my love of wordsmithing and you might surmise that I am a fan of gastronomic literature. And you’d be right....

For several nights running at the end of January, I had a disturbing dream. I’m sitting in a fairly dark room at a desk (not my regular...