I’ve got a surprise especially for you, something that both of us have always wanted to do. – Two Tickets to Paradise With our anniversary looming on the horizon, Robie started hinting around about how 29 years of wedded bliss should count for something. By this, he meant he should be in line for a … More The one going down the low-cost carrier rabbit hole
You cannot trust people who have such bad cuisine. – French President Jacques Chirac The best part about British cuisine are the names. While Italians love their women with pasta alla Norma, pizza Margherita and the indelicately named pasta puttanesca, France offers less appetizing fare that sounds like rat patootie (ratatouille), Coke in a van … More The Great British Marketing Scheme
Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. – Winston Churchill I apparently hadn’t thought things through. Because when I asked my sister to walk the Camino de Santiago with me, the reactions I got were, well… bizarre. First, Cheryl didn’t respond to my invitation. Instead, she left the question … More It’ll be grand! *
This book is dedicated to all Yankees in the hope that it will teach them how to talk right. – How to Speak Southern Before I moved to Texas, I read Steve Mitchell’s helpful little handbook How to Speak Southern to explain why my new neighbors pronounced “eye” like “ah,” said “Ahmoan” when they meant … More Lern Yerself Scouse
Tradition, tradition! – Fiddler on the Roof Robie and I don’t have many traditions. We don’t have annual Christmas rituals (though we do have a handful of must-watch Christmas movies that include Die Hard, A Charlie Brown Christmas and Trading Places). We don’t cook a roast lamb recipe passed down through generations at Easter. … More For us Friday night means only one thing
I got nowhere else to go! – An Officer and a Gentleman When people asked, “Why Liverpool?” I couldn’t help conjuring Richard Gere’s soulful cry in the pouring rain when he refused to drop out of officer candidate school. While Robie tried to explain the choice in terms of language (English predominantly spoken), size (a … More Never say never: When we didn’t plan to go to Liverpool
All places, no matter where, no matter what, are worth visiting. – Paul Theroux I used to avoid reading travel narratives. I just couldn’t stomach following someone else’s voyage down the Amazon or trek across the Himalayas. Not when I so desperately wanted to be the protagonist in a far-off adventure and reading their … More The Pillars of Hercules
So how as a nation can we sit around and eat Mexican food and drink beer and make friends? That’s the question. If we can do that on a broader scale, I think we’ll come out of it all right. – Supreme Court Judge Sandra Day O’Connor Interior décor at Los Magueys in Inverness, FL … More One Bite riff II: A tour of Mexican restaurants across the American South, con’t.
Mexican [food] is perhaps the most misunderstood cuisine on Earth. – Anthony Bourdain Spinach quesadillas at Manny’s Uptown Beef fajita nachos at Mi Cocina [Warning: this post may induce cravings for Mexican food and/or TexMex.] After cheese, Robie and I believe Mexican cuisine and TexMex are the two most important food groups on the pyramid. … More One Bite riff: A tour of Mexican restaurants across the American South
Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth? – Rush Hour Willie Dare, Perpetual Alien sat on the examination table looking at his right hand with disbelief and fearing that this time his cultural curiosity might cost more than he was willing to lose. As Willie continued staring at his swollen … More Willie Dare takes a trip to the hospital
Reid & Robie 