HERE IN THE CHRIST have you been for the past month? asked nobody. Except Rollo. And my mom. But the stats don’t lie—I know for a fact that upwards of 22 people per day have been tuning in, hoping to learn some new postapocalyptic cooking skill, like how to catch squirrels and what to do with them afterward. Well, the sad fact is that I haven’t been doing much cooking lately. I blame the Winter Madness.
During my two-year stint in Santa Clara County, California, I completely forgot how much I despise New England winters. It’s all coming back to me now. A concerned friend donated this Verilux Natural Spectrum HappyLite Mini Ultra, which is supposed to combat Seasonal Affective Disorder by flooding your eyeballs with HappyLite. (The gin is so that nothing will be left to chance.) She forgot to include the instruction booklet. It should be difficult to overdose on HappyLite, but it isn’t. After two hours of staring into this glowing idol, my eyes felt like they’d been flash fried by a nuke test and I wanted to weep.
It turns out you are meant to keep it sort of somewhere above and behind you for a half hour at a time, and only in the morning. I have never grasped this “moderation” concept. Now I’m afraid of the HappyLite and don’t want to try it again. I’m back to my old technique, sitting in a hot bath all day long with an aromatherapy candle.
So that’s my excuse. But I’ve still been eating all kinds of crazy crap, steeped in the culinary folkways of southern Connecticut. Come back soon for new recs and pics, dear readers!
