Today's Special
Chicken Piccata for dinner tonight. A succulent, lemony dish, especially when you follow the Cook's Illustrated recipe. As it was cooking, I wasn't hopeful. It wasn't smelling so good. But, WOW, the taste. One of my best dishes so far. And now I know how to cook with capers. Can't wait until lunch tomorrow for the leftovers.

Editors on the Verge
I actually feel like things have calmed to a rolling boil at work. Which probably means I've forgotten something huge. As one of my previous colleagues used to say, "It's not life or death. Only publishing." Whatever it is that I've neglected, someone will definitely remind me through a snide email.

QCN
Stands for Queer Card Night, which I am hosting this Friday. I was telling my brother about it last night, and his first reaction was: "You should tape it and make a new reality series!" This coming from a bonafide jock, who is apparently interested in watching a bunch of gay guys talk shit and try to play cards while drinking wine and stuffing their faces. People really will watch anything, huh?

Today's Special
Sauteed chicken breasts from Cook's Illustrated with fresh broccoli. Nothin' fancy, but I think I've got the timing on the chicken down perfectly. I have a new cookbook on the way called How to Cook Everything, and I'm dying for it to get here! I saw him on From Martha's Kitchen. Speaking of which, check out this photo....you know things are going downhill when you start resembling Linda Tripp on a bad day.

Someone Pull the Emergency Brake!
This was supposed to be the year Amtrak was to be free of government support. Instead, they've gone and lost another BILLION dollars, in addition to the bilion they lost last year. Now they're begging Congress to give them another $200 million so they can dip into their frozen line of credit. Bottom line is that we don't need Amtrak anymore. Southwest gets you there more quickly for less money. Sure, keep the Northeast corridor open, but privatize it. A smartly-run business could make a killing shuttling people between DC to Boston. I bet they'd run on time, and people wouldn't have to stand on oversold trains....

Today's Special
Seeing that there is NO food in the house, and I didn't feel like cooking anyway, we had Domino's for dinner. A large pizza topped with ground beef and onions. Not terribly original, but adequate.

What's that SMELL?
All day long, I thought "It looks really yellow outside." Why is that? It's cloudy, hazy, remarkably cool, but Weatherbug isn't showing any cloud cover on its radar. Very strange. Then I hear that then entire northeast is covered by smoke from fires Canada. How huge must these fires be, to be sending smoke all the way to North Carolina??

Hi Ho Hi Ho
It's the end of my little summer vacation. After a week of doing just what I please, I'm only now starting to unwind. Oh, how I long for the days of having the entire summer off... I'm trying to pretend that I don't have to be at work tomorrow morning (it's not working, though). As if that's not bad enough, I'm out of coffee. Remember the scene in Airplane! when the passengers freak out because the coffee is gone??

Independence Day
I'm feeling very patriotic today, and rightly so. Having seen fireworks last night (and also because it's going to be nearly 100 today), I plan to spend the day indoors. My one goal for the day is to start reading John Adams by David McCullough. Here's a fascinating quote in McCullough's column in today's NYTimes. This was written by Abigail Adams in a letter to her husband, John:

"Posterity who are to reap the blessings," she would write, "will scarcely be able to conceive the hardships and sufferings of their ancestors."

She is right, we cannot begin to imagine the difficult lives our founding fathers (and mothers) endured. But this is why July 4th is so important, and why we should all pause for at least a moment to honor those who founded our great country.

Today's Special
A simple fruit salad, American style, with fresh blueberries, strawberries and cream.

Today's Special
I spent this morning in the kitchen making birthday dinner for my Mom. Lotsa home cookin' with meatloaf and macaroni & cheese. Can you believe Martha recommends topping this off with sour cream? For dessert, we're having homemade yellow cake with sinfully rich chocolate icing (thank you Cook's Illustrated!). All told, I used 8 eggs, 3 sticks of butter and 8 cups of cheese. Oy!

If You Can't Stand the Heat...
Stay inside! It's literally scorching outside (currently 97), and it's humid, too. To make things even more unpleasant, we're in the midst of a drought. Oh, how I wish it would rain.

Summer of the Snakehead?
Be sure to watch out for the ferocious Northern Snakehead if you're in the area. Perhaps this summer will be remembered as the Summer of the Snakehead? Almost makes last year's Summer of the Shark seem tame....