personal
June 6, 2019

Sausage and Mushroom Risotto

Ingredients 1 Tbsp olive oil 1/2 pound Italian sweet sausage 1/2 pound cremini mushrooms, diced 6 cups chicken stock (use the best quality you can get) 1/4 cup (1 stick) butter 2/3 cup chopped white onion 4 garlic cloves, minced 1 cups arborio rice 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese Instructions In a saucepan, heat the chicken stock until it’s simmering and then keep warm over low heat. While that’s warming, heat the olive oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Remove the sausage from the casings and break it up as you add it to the pan. Brown for a…

Pirate
May 16, 2019

We Are Not Things

No matter what your personal opinion is, whether or not you would have an abortion or not – you should always support creating a healthy environment for a person debating abortion to make that informed decision. As states try to legislate away access to abortion or birth control – please stand up for those who deserve the right to make the decision for themselves. It’s well and fine to say that putting a child up for adoption should be an option – we do not have the infrastructure in the US to do that. Not only that, pregnancy can be…

The 2019 Clarkson Cup winners, the CWHL's Calgary Inferno
personal
April 8, 2019

The Impossible Road for Women’s Pro Teams

The Canadian Women’s Hockey League folded suddenly this week. They had literally just had their championship game – the Clarkson Cup, where the Calgary Inferno defeated Les Canadiennes de Montreal. It came as a surprise to everyone – especially their star players, who were all on their way to Finland for the IIHF Women’s Worlds Championship. There will be a number of people wanting to talk about what the next steps are. Or how this is a sign that women’s hockey or women’s professional sports are bound to fail. I’m going to address the last part. Because that’s a bold…

food main course personal recipes
March 13, 2019

Pork & Peanut Noodles

Since I was diagnosed with Crohns disease, I started making a lot more dishes from Asian cultures – a lot less dairy to be found. One of the things that I’ve come to appreciate is that many Chinese recipes are very quick, fairly healthy – and don’t require a lot of energy to make. I call them cut and dump recipes. This recipe is all my own, and came from a couple of different recipes I’ve learned to make – a peanut noodle recipe and Shanghai noodles. So, enjoy!

Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper performing Shallow at the 2018 Oscars
Pirate sexism
February 28, 2019

Assuming the Worst: Lady Gaga & Bradley Cooper

All I’ve heard for days were rapturous fans going on and on about Lady Gagy and Bradley Cooper’s Oscars performance of Shallow from A Star is Born. Fair disclaimer: I haven’t seen the movie. Having seen two different versions of the movie, I felt like it’s a story I’m pretty familiar with. The performance was fine, and ending with the two of them on the piano was sweet. Which is why I was surprised to see every female oriented site and most of the women in my feeds insisting that the performance proved that Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper are…

personal
January 30, 2019

Being better about Latinx advocacy

In recent months Gina Rodriguez has come under fire for repeatedly putting her foot in her mouth when it comes to advocating for better wages for Hispanics, as well as more roles for Hispanics in media. And I’m sure there are some advocates who don’t know what you’re supposed to do in order not to offend people. So Gina tweeted something like ‘where’s our Black Panther?’ when Black Panther came out and that was a huge mistake. First, it was stepping on what is a huge achievement for the African American community. No matter where their lineages hailed from, the…

personal
December 31, 2018

The Dallas Stars: An Exercise in Bad Management.

Two days ago, the internet blew up. The Dallas Stars, one of my favorite teams, have been in a slump the last couple seasons. They either ran out of steam as playoffs approached or caught on just too late. They are on their third coach in as many seasons – Lindy Ruff giving way to Ken Hitchcock, Hitchcock retiring (as brief as that was) to make way for Jim Montgomery. This season has been frustrating. Most of the major players in the Stars roster have been injured – leaving an ever revolving door of talent coming up from the Texas…

appetizers food personal recipes
December 26, 2018

Burekas? Maybe now they’re just Tomato & Eggplant Pastries.

So. I’ve been absent a bit, but I promise I will write about all of that soon enough. But before I forget, I adapted a recipe that was SO good – I needed to document it for all posterity. This was adapted from a burekas recipe from the NYT, mostly to make it easier (using puff pastry instead of making my own dough – rolling it out would be hard right now) and then I made the swap of cheeses based on what sounded good at the moment. (So I don’t know if these can be called burekas anymore)

entertainment Geek personal Pirate
July 22, 2018

The Problem with Cancel Culture

Cancel Culture. Even if you don’t know the term, I’m sure you know what I’m talking about – a celebrity is terrible online and we declare them cancelled. Most of the time, it’s a worthy target. A continuously gross celebrity (like Roseanne Barr) who spews intolerance and hate. Someone’s who has proven that over the years they haven’t changed and remain just as gross, if not worse. Sometimes though, you run into a situation where someone said or did a lot of stupid things when they were younger – but have grown up and apologized for what they’d done/said previously…

entertainment Geek movies personal
July 4, 2018

In defense of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Watching the Indy marathon on the Paramount Channel, I’ve come to a realization. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull isn’t as bad of a movie as we’ve decided it was. …first things first, I am not defending the stupid alien subplot. I will never defend any subplot that implies that the people of the Americas could not have build their cities, temples or structures with the technology and knowledge they had at hand. That is ridiculous and I will forever be mad that the rest of the movie was tainted by this. Tainted? Oh come now, Whitney. It’s the worst of…