Blatty’s The Exorcist, when I was about 11. The old house creaked while I was on the “Tanzt Ihre Tochter gern?” scene with Karl. I had enough German to understand how disturbing the taunt was. Bolted off the bed and into the hallway in three steps before I was even conscious of being scared.

Score! Deep in research mode, I’ve found a phantom citation. Everyone quotes it verbatim. I’ve tracked it to a single source; before that, no trace of the supposed book in any library or bookseller catalog. An HL Mencken–style hoax? An absurdity? Maybe. But a little pseudobiblical treasure for me.

Trapped in the Mario Batali man cave, a searing question falls upon your ears: “You ever drunk Baileys from an—“

Morning tea, hot, in all weather. I’m sticking with the beer stein, but could stand to upgrade that sugar pot. What do you all use for a quick-draw, countertop sugar supply, the sort you’d reach for when dosing coffee or tea or when you need a small-ish amount for a recipe?

We braisin’ today. Short ribs, chunk-ass mirepoix (ugh, ok: mirepoix grossière pour braisage et feuilles de céleri), garlic, herbs from the garden, tomato paste, half a bottle of Grenache, and a liter of beef stock. Bring it up hot, then into the oven for a few hours, low and slow.

A “reporter-free newsroom” at PinkNews, you say? Then it isn’t news anymore. Call it PinkSlop, PinkSlime—take your pick. Another newsroom gone dark. With it, the remains of what alternative press once did so well: telling a community what was happening in its own streets.

New variety of figs in the tree. So spicy! My husband calls them “Hey, man. Hey! Don’t eat those.”

“Is that a proper history?” “It is.” “Mm. I dunno. I’m not convinced.” “Look. It’s got popes n shit.” “Oh, yeah, huh? I stand corrected.” Popes n Shit.™ Ask your editor if they’re right for your manuscript.

I don’t actually have the 80HDs, but I did just go into the bedroom for pants, read for 20 minutes on the history of mac and cheese, and emerge with no pants, at a loss to remember why I’d gone in there. So maybe, like, 10HDs. Even fewer, prolly. Anyway: new macaroni and cheese book just dropped.

Just wanted to say that I love that I can scroll my "Slightly Fewer Horrors" list here and when I see a mix of herbs like this I immediately thing, "Stop, that's a Rowley post" before I even see the name.

Afroman, who weaves words for a living, not ceding one millimeter of ground in testimony. Every substantive response is a reverse Uno. In the attorney’s brief silences, you can almost hear earth crumble beneath him.

Picked up a few things for one of the kitchen planters yesterday: Paul Robeson tomato seedlings, Italian and Thai basils, marjoram, a few bouquet dills, two or three cilantro plants, and a variety of spearmint boldly dubbed—and we’ll see about this—“The Best.” Put that one in a pot.

The words of Walton Goggins leap to mind: “If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you’re the asshole.”

The recipes I read so you won’t have to.

Husband wanted plants for his new offices. I took him to Terra Bella nursery in San Diego. The succulents along took up more real estate than any of the homes I’d ever rented.

Out here, picking limes before the sun gets to be too much. Forgot those bastard trees have thorns on the new growth.

Porch reading: The Melon (2019) by Amy Goldman. Profiles of 120ish heirloom melons with Victor Schrager’s portrait-like photos. All this garden prep for the spring every morning and I still haven’t settled on what to plant. But I’m circling in on one each of melon and watermelon (so no crossing).

On that note: On recipe sites becacked with pop-ups, autoplay ads, AI art, subscribe overlays, techbro cruft, and growthmaxxing detritus, I copy the recipe I want, paste a cleaned version into a Word doc (with a link, because im prone to documenting sources)… and never return.

The guy who wrote that I should soak this compressed block of coconut coir “5-10” minutes is the same sort of lying recipe writer who advises caramelizing onions for the same amount of time. No less than 30 minutes, likely longer. Have a drink while it’s happening.

I grow makrut limes for the leaves—but it’s nice when their knobby little fruits start coming in.

Talking to (Midwestern) mom this morning. At the grocery store last night, guy had a pint of ice cream. “I just had dinner at someone’s house,” he says, “but they didn’t have dessert, so I’m eating this at home.” “No dessert?” my incredulous mother asks. “How do they know when dinner is over?”

Beets left untended in the garden. I’d never let them go so long ignored, so they became a sacrifice to curiosity. All the orange ones: petite, tender, still good. Some of the reds: grown to the size of a pit bull’s head, hard as pine, inedible. Same word, two very different plants.

Shins for the win. Shanks for the memories.

Didn’t spill a drop. Yer man’s got priorities.

Reading this morning’s news. Well. Sure. Ok. Every morning’s news.

Fig progress 10 March 26 Panache, Violette de Bordeaux, Latarula, and Celeste all have new growth, no figs. Peter’s honey, Desert King, Flanders, and Corky’s honey all bearing little figlets. But Kadota is coming on strong with dozens of nearly full sized figs (still hard as apples though).

My brain doesn’t work the way it’s meant to. I struggle to speak. Aphasia. Some of you know this. When English fails me mid-sentence, I am prone to grabbing words and grammar from half a dozen languages. Nonstandard, odd turns of phrase, archaic use. Those “mistakes” I think make for better prose.

Sometimes oranges in the garden have manky, scaly bits where they’ve rubbed against a branch or had some other injury. No matter. I trim aggressively and feast anyway. Delicious d12.

Tonic mixers coming in fine. Just need a little gin and we’ll be set. Maybe rum.

Follow up to a comment a few days ago about stationery shopping in Tokyo. I particularly like buying notebooks when I’m in Japan. Japanese makers can be finicky—in the best possible way—about the quality of their products. Here’s a short video showing how Life makes their notebooks.

Louie and Ralph. My father seemed ontologically incapable of giving simple directions like “Turn right” or “Turn left.” It was forever “Hang a Ralph” or “Hang a Louie.” Here I am, 40 years later, those same clowns knocking around in my head as I dress, dad humor that has outlasted the dad.

I wrote 680 words yesterday for a book section that should probably only be about 200. Felt like I was just getting warmed up. Spent the next two hours exploring self publishing options for a 10-13k word stand-alone, John Thorne-style chapbook expansion.

Cheers to sleepy last night me who ground rice and canela in the blender and left it to soak overnight so that sleepy morning me can have horchata.

Me every single time I see this on a menu or in a cookbook: “Very Good/Girl Friend. Yes. Naturally. That makes perfect sense.”

So this was a cool presentation I haven’t seen in the US. Bar Logue, Shinjuku,Tokyo. Lemon hemisphere rested on a jigger. Sugar sprinkled over its cut surface. Hit it with the torch. Caramel. While it’s still liquid, place a bamboo skewer on the caramel. Wait. It hardens. Lemon-caramel lollipop.

Same bar today with 12 pages that needed edits. Was going to do my regular head-down iced tea red pen quiet work. Sat next to a cook from Sinaloa. We talked for an hour and a half. Told me about a Oaxacan treatment for the *exact* thing I need to edit. Get out. Meet people. It makes life better.

Welp. The rosemary bush didn’t make it. But my compost bin smells fantastic.

I situated nine fig trees near a south-facing fence to catch more warmth than they would out in the garden proper. Some fig trees in the garden are just starting to show green tips. Those against the fence? Already pumping out figs.

Woke at 5am. Began reading the news. It’s too much to take today. Picking up last night’s reading to see if I can get a handle on homemade Maltesers/Whoppers/malted milk balls. Not desserts that incorporate them—the actual confections themselves. Or a passable DIY. Hit me up if you have a recipe.

Getting salad beds ready for spring. Fortifying the soil with city compost (a result of our compulsory yard/kitchen waste program), coconut coir, and vermiculite. Blood meal later. At the base: citrus branches I trimmed two years ago, now obligingly collapsing into themselves. Hugelkultur, baby.

As an author whose works Anthropic stole to build its business, I say: let ‘em fight.

This morning’s reading: more from Potato Europe. Swedish restaurateur Stefan Ekengren’s (2024) Potato Total. Tight book from Gestalten, about 190 pp., 85–90 recipes. Includes the deranged notion of bringing a bowl of hot spuds to the table with a ricer so diners can press their own à la minute.

I have over 3,000 cookbooks at home and a well-equipped, well-used kitchen. A friend who’s known me nearly 15 years came over for porch whiskey. He tells me about his week. He: I wanted tomato soup, but I didn’t have a recipe, so I asked ChatGPT. Me: He: <sips whiskey> Me: You f*cking what?

Cookbook friends (particularly in Ireland and the UK): I'm hoping to verify some language in Maura Laverty's Cookery Book (1946). I have come up empty-handed hunting for a digital copy. Would anyone with a copy be willing to share whole-page images of her griskins recipe, including any headnotes?

Writers and editors (who still edit print copies): what pen works best for your edits? I’ve long used whatever red pen was handy, but I keep returning to the Pilot Precise V5, 0.5 mm very fine (I tend to plug in lots of margin and interlinear notes). Restocking soon—what brands/models hold up?

Planter emptied. Dirt removed, sifted of roots and rocks (there’s a French drain at the bottom with loose drainage gravel). Drain replaced, landscape fabric lain over the rocks. Riddled, improved dirt back in situ. Yer man’s tired. Lotta effin work for the convenience of kitchen herbs just outside.

Fire In The Mouth: a pousse-cafe (of sorts) from Marinetti’s preposterous Futurist Cookbook (La Cucina Futurista). Not meant for consumption. Like my own Bitter n Glitter, a Jägermeister and Goldschlager shot.

Meal planning from the San Antonio Light, Sunday, August 7, 1938. Make what you will of the meals, but I cracked a smile at the illustrations for each day of the week. The bear feels a little shaky for Tiw’s day but Thor, Woden, and the rest are spot on.

Cutting through alleys en route to a haircut when suddenly

Drifted off to sleep on a couch. Husband laughed when I woke with a start at the first chords of Pink Pony Club. He: I didn’t know you were such a Chappell Roan fan. Me (50+, 10 kilos overweight, full of pork, whiskey, and potatoes, having just snored myself awake): Haha. You know me.