JMGarciaIII

 New Orleans is one of my two favorite cities for a quickie getaway with She Who Decides. Great food -- if you're delicate of palate, you have my pity -- sensational people, great bars, and just a Glorious Vibe. Even the stuff you never think of (pizza, say) is shatteringly good.

If you look around online, you'll find shaving experts offering their suggested shaving starter kit. Aye, 'tis a good kit, too. So, in the interest of variety and all that, here's my everyday rig, although you new kids would do better to stick those guys' suggestions, since they are Professionals. Anyway, here's mine: Gillette Adjustable DE safety razor . Contrary to popular opinion, I far prefer the slim handle, with the year codes I through N. The loss of heft is more than compensated by the added maneuverability. You should also find what setting works with your choice of blades and quit futzing with it. With the blades listed below, I am at #6. Israeli Personna “Super+” (aka “no-name” or "Crystal") DE razor blades . These truly kick arse, at a ridiculous price. You can also score them on eBay. Vulfix #2234 badger shaving brush I even got it to match my scuttle. I can get my geek on just as impressively as anyone else, sue me. Proraso/Bigelow shav

The lovely & gracious Kim introduced me, on Twitter, to the equally lovely and similarly gracious Ruth. Twitter, alas is the social media equivalent to HFCS. If you really want to know what happened to my blog, just visualize it being hacked into neat-ish 280-character chunks and fed to the Blue Bird. But I digress. Anyway. Ruth is an evangelist for good-and-good-for-you foods. Her merely saying "Quinoa tabbouleh" (granting the lovely and gracious Badger may have previously come up with such a concept even if she didn't get a chance to brand it as snappily) altered my worldview. Among the gospels of her evangelism is no-knead bread. This is what prompted Kim to introduce us, as æons ago, Kim was asking (again on Twitter) for thoughts on same, and I leapt insomniacally up and sent her my version, which involves a TINY bit of kneading (a riff on CI's, itself a riff on Leahy's original) and she loved it so much she wept profanely in joy for hours. So! N