b.rox

Saturday night I found myself with a bunch of Pagans and other folks at an uptown synagogue, preparing food for the homeless. We whipped up some large batches of red beans and rice, salad, and watermelon. Then we took the food to a large encampment of homeless people and served it. I slopped out 130 [...]

With apologies to Suzanne Collins: This has nothing to do with that. It recently occurred to me that I am drowning in food. I have often remarked that during the Katrina crisis and the flooding of New Orleans, despite being displaced, I never missed a night’s sleep, and I never missed a meal. What’s even [...]

So for the last seven months I’ve been baking bread pretty much every week. It started on Lammas, also known as the Loaf-Mass, when Persephone and I baked mother and daughter loaves. After that I decided to keep baking for a while. Xy and I are in the habit of making sandwiches for lunch at [...]

We’ve had the habit for many years of constantly making stock. We are always saving any bits of vegetables left after slicing and dicing — carrot tops, onion skins — as well as the occasional bone. We save these in the fridge and, every few days, we boil them in water to make a stock. [...]

On November 11, 2011, eleven of us gathered at The 1111 Building, in parking space #11, and at precisely eleven minutes and eleven seconds after eleven o’clock a.m., we raised a toast — the No. 11 Cup. That’s eleven elevens, in case you weren’t keeping track.

A bit discombobulated and disconnected for this recent holiday. Perhaps that’s because I was traveling just before — the POD Network traditionally has their conference at the end of October, and this one was combined with the annual conference of the HBCU Faculty Development Network, and we mustered our biggest contingent (four) ever. Wouldn’t have [...]

Equinox It’s a precise moment that happens twice a year, when the equatorial plane of the earth intersects the center of the sun. That’s the equinox. This year it came at 4:04 AM (local time) on the morning of Friday, September 23rd. For this moment only, the earth’s axis was not tilted one way or [...]

Yes, a month after the fact I’m still recovering from Tales of the Cocktail. Here’s my fourth and final installment. I learned some fascinating stuff from Jeff “Beachbum” Berry. For example, I didn’t know that the legendary founder of the Tiki Craze, Don the Beachcomber, came from New Orleans. (Wikipedia says otherwise but I have [...]

Pistolette is quitting coffee for a couple weeks, so I thought I’d revisit the topic myself. I noted back in March that I’d started my eighth coffee reduction earlier than usual this year. Normally I wait until the weather gets hot, but this year I discovered the joy of dandelion coffee: roasted dandelion root + [...]

Probably my favorite thing about having a media credential for Tales of the Cocktail is breakfast. And of course lunch, but a good breakfast is essential. There’s a super-secret room where presenters, media and VIPs get to tie on the feedbag. Each meal has a different sponsor, usually a distiller. Cocktails are served, of course, [...]

Tales of the Cocktail isn’t all about seminars. There are also plenty of tasting rooms and other events. But perhaps best of all, you get to meet new people who aren’t a part of any formal program. Ryan Barker was promoting his handmade cocktail garnishes. These bourbon-vanilla cocktail cherries were sublime. They should be commercially [...]

Tales of the Cocktail ended last week, but it’s taken me this long to sort through all my photos and videos and notes. When I tell people about Tales of the Cocktail, they either get it right away or seem puzzled by the whole thing. To some, the idea of a conference on the subject [...]

Lammas is rapidly approaching. It was last year at Lammas that I began making an effort to observe each holiday in the Wheel of the Year with my family. Now that we’ve seen one full revolution of the wheel, I’m taking stock and reflecting on what it means. It’s my understanding that the Wheel of [...]

Last night Arnaud’s French 75 Bar hosted a blogger’s reception to kickoff Tales of the Cocktail, sponsored by the Bureau National Interprofessionnel du Cognac. Naturally I was there. It’s fascinating to me that blogging still seems to be on the ascendant. I met a number of local bloggers, including people I hadn’t met before such [...]

If you pinned me to the wall and demanded to know my favorite cocktail, the first word I’d blurt out would be probably “Negroni.” (In the event that you, Dear Reader, are not familiar with this wonderful aperitivo, I urge you to have one before your next meal. Equal parts Campari, sweet vermouth, and gin; [...]

I recently got in touch with Wayne Curtis, author of And a Bottle of Rum. I was astonished to learn that he 1) lives in New Orleans and 2) reads this blog. Blow me down. He was even aware of my work with FOLC. I was momentarily disconcerted, embarrassed and abashed. Upon regaining my composure, [...]

Tales of the Cocktail is just over a week away. One seminar I’m very much looking forward to is The Journey of Artemesia Absinthium, which aims to explore the bitter and mysterious herb more commonly known as wormwood. This will be most familiar to people as the (formerly) forbidden flavoring in absinthe, but there’s more [...]

Let’s see. My last post got us most of the way through Saturday. We arrived in Vero mid-afternoon and checked in at the Driftwood. Longtime readers may recall that Xy and I took a vacation here back in June of 2007, a week of lovebugs and lovemaking. We suspect our daughter was conceived in Vero. [...]

I got my media credential, so happily I will be attending Tales of the Cocktail this summer for the third time. There’s a host of interesting events at Tales. I find myself drawn to programming around particular spirits (or categories of spirits) and particular cocktails (or categories of cocktails). Your palette may vary. Here are [...]

See what you missed? Not to mention the maypole. This was our second May Day party. I enjoyed last year’s so much that I wrote, “I’m already imagining what it might be like to do it again next year.” So, boom, now it’s a tradition. In fact our celebration last year represented our first observance [...]