I’ve been busy with work, Max, and lots of life lately. Walking this morning, I noted some life lessons which grow out of food and related stuff.

Life Lesson No. 1: Tools Matter. For most of my life I’ve heard about tools. They’re necessary for success, even if they’re not always sufficient. And for an overlapping period of time, roughly, I’ve been making pizza. For many years, the act of making pizza from scratch was enough. “You made that. From scratch?” For a long time how good it was mattered little.

Then, as pizza improved, I had to step it up. Forty years ago my tools were a bowl and a cookie sheet. And now? There’s a scale, measuring

Moving Day! The Scalia post is written, but it needs to leaven just a bit. I’ve never forgotten the adage that “if you don’t something nice to say, be quiet.” It’s a good lesson, generally, and my add-on—for those times when something less than nice is appropriate—is “it’ll keep for a bit.”

So last night—the 8739^th night I resided at my home—called for pizza. I’ve never counted the number of pizzas I’ve made at 5900. (My friend PGR does keep a notebook, with hydration rates, flour mixes, quality ratings, etc. Alas, I’m not that organized.) I’m pretty sure the number is not less than 30 per year, which gets me over 700. Here’s the last one.

The Curator will

Thank you Facebook, for bringing to light Holiday Hodgepodge, posted at Mark Rubin Writes exactly one year ago. Chocolate Whisky Cake appeared in the New York Times, courtesy of food columnist Melissa Clark. About the cake I wrote “One heck of a cake, and I’ll report on results just as soon as I bake it.” And no one saw another word about the cake … until today, when I finally baked it. (More on the cake soon. I promise!)

Over the past 365 days MRW has 15 posts about food. About 5% of all posts, and far fewer than I would have expected. Why?

I’m pretty sure the anticipated food writing went to the same undisclosed location where 15-20

Comfort food has a Wikipedia page (So, actually, does one of my clients, but he pitched for the Milwaukee Braves and Houston Astros for nine years.) Wikipedia describes comfort food as “traditional food which often provides a nostalgic or sentimental feeling to the consumer, and is often characterized by a high carbohydrate level and simple preparation.”

Baloney. Comfort food is tasty food you like, made simply and easily. For me, recipes are a distraction. If instructions are required, I’ll eff them up and ”easily” won’t be part of the mix. (I had my tech guy come by to make two DVD players work. One new DVD purchase later, I’m watching DVDs on my laptop. No matter how