PicoBlog

I've created more than a thousand evergreen notes in about two years. This has been very useful in my learning and exploration, without a doubt. However, I don't feel that the practice of taking evergreen notes significantly improved my mental ability to "connect the dots": After taking an evergreen note, the usual practice is to think what already existing notes are related to the new note, and link them. I often struggle to recall more than a single related note.

Hello! Hello! Priscilla Martel is my friend and my kitchen hero. If she ever decided to stop teaching and writing or creating great recipes or producing a terrific newsletter (sign up for it now!), she could start a helpline and I’d put that number at the top of my “favorites.” In the meantime, I count myself lucky that she allows me to pepper her with questions. Michael, too — Priscilla and her partner Charlie Van Over are ace bread bakers, and they can spot an under-proofed bread, a loaf that lacks enough hydration or one that wasn’t properly shaped at 10 paces.

Welcome to Home & Away. I want to begin by reassuring readers that neither Home nor Away will focus on Taylor Swift, although both could. Ms. Swift will soon embark on a tour of Asia (what the cognoscenti now call the Indo-Pacific) but will hurry back to Las Vegas in time to catch the Super Bowl. All this has MAGA types in a frenzy that she and Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce will announce their engagement, their endorsement of President Biden, or both that Sunday.

     The new rescuer of pro football’s lost cause, who is supposed to build a $4.7 billion lakefront stadium and win eight Super Bowls, alerted everyone on social media. “Wait till y’all see draft day suit and my ladies dress. 1 of 1s,” gushed Caleb Williams, with a laughing emoji, before he wore silver polish on his pinkies at an NFL Draft function.      “I feel comfy in my own skin,” he explained.

It’s not often you see a tiny little-faith based film featuring some notable names in the cast. “Not to Forget” must set some kind of record, boasting no less than five Oscar winners — albeit older performers filling in the background of the main characters. It’s a familiar theme for this genre: regret, resentment and forgiveness. A young man, Chris (Tate Dewey), is arrested for low-level con games, card tricks and the like.

I am not scared of cow’s milk.  I come from a long line of Dutch dairy farmers; if anyone were to have the dairy gene, it’s me. I can drink a tall glass of cold, whole milk and only wince once. There are usually bottles of milk in my fridge for yogurt-making, and I will contend that a tablespoon of half-and-half in drip coffee really is sublime. I also, unfortunately, have the unstylish habit of drinking half a glass of milk with a meal—breakfast, typically.

Welcome to Notable Sandwiches, the series where Talia and I trip merrily through the ever-evolving document that is Wikipedia’s List of Notable Sandwiches in alphabetical order. This week, a northern German favorite: fischbrötchen One evening in June, 2009, the late writer and neurologist Oliver Sacks arrived at the Roger Smith Hotel in midtown Manhattan to worship at the altar of one of his own personal deities: “Clupeus, the god of herring, whose annual festival is celebrated in late spring by herring-lovers the world over.

Welcome to the latest installment of Notable Sandwiches, the feature where I, alongside my editor David Swanson, stumble through the demented and mysterious document that is Wikipedia’sList of Notable Sandwiches. This week, greatly buoyed by your recent praise of the sandwich project, I tackle a Peruvian staple: the butifarra. It’s April Fool’s Day today and my personal life went to hell this week in some pretty spectacular ways, leading me to forget, until 3am Thursday, that I had a sandwich column due.

Welcome to the latest installment of Notable Sandwiches, the feature where I, alongside my editor David Swanson, stumble through the demented and mysterious document that is Wikipedia’sList of Notable Sandwiches, one essay at a time. This week: a Dutch favorite, the broodje kroket. My first thought upon seeing the broodje kroket, a Dutch fast-food staple, was not a very wholesome one. The pressed-meat cylinder in the bun looked, to me, like a sexual snapshot—coitus en croute.