Hey, who’s hungry for dirt soup?  Remember a few months ago when I made dirt soup from a smoked pork shoulder and some split peas?  Last week I managed to do it again with a dried nine-bean assortment, some fresh…

How can a child be so adorable one second, and an absolute terror the next?  For starters, they don’t understand when a joke goes too far.  We’ve met people like this:  chuckle over an anecdote about Aunt Marge, then they’re…

Back in October I took an artist to task for her horrendous illustrations in a children’s book.  Rightly so, her work had no place among the truly gifted artists doing work for children’s books.  My wife recently bought a couple…

It was a grand idea, really.  A half-day expedition up into the mountains with a friend and her daughter.  The two girls could wander through the meadows, Sound of Music style, picking flowers and spinning in ecstasy.  As we packed…

It’s Friday, which means a new installment of the Winter War book.  Chapters 16 and 17 are up on the writing page.  Click here!  Just kidding.  You actually click HERE.  Okay, okay, last time.  Here. In other news, I ran…

As part of my recent food conversion, I’ve switched from shopping the center of the grocery store to buying along the perimeter.  More recently I’ve found I’m hardly going to the regular grocery store at all, and instead get most…

Toddler Harbat has been telling me recently, when she’s feeling especially happy, “You’re my friend.”  I’m putting all these in the bank for the times when she’s a teenager and yells, “I HATE YOU!”  My wife thinks it won’t come…

It’s a shame I didn’t try this earlier:  sourdough pizza crust.  I’ve been cranking out dozens of loaves of sourdough bread, but still relying on a no-knead partial whole-wheat pizza crust recipe.  No more!  My rationale for the no-knead is…

I’ll admit that I watch Parenthood on NBC.  We’ve got episodes queued up in the DVR ready waiting for a slow night.  At first view I was dismissive—they’re all beautiful people living in beautiful houses in Berkeley!  But then the…

Head on over to the Winter War draft in the writing tab to see what’s happening with the Hakkinen family in Finland. If you haven’t been following along, I’m posting, in serial form, a historical novel I’ve written set during…