I have returned. In reality, I never really went away, but I've been very busy and lurking on the site, hip-hip-hooraying every time the Style Editor and O-man contribute.

Speaking of meat-pies, I love them. It has become a family joke in some ways. I mean, what's better than meat covered in buttery pastry? Maybe meat stuffed with meat (like roast turkey with a pork stuffing?), but pies will do just fine. Yesterday, as a matter of fact, I went to my favorite neighborhood market in Methuen, Mass. to pick up some gorton (Quebecois spiced meat spread, a poor man's pate), two small steak and kidney pies, and a tourtiere pie. I'm feeling my Quebec roots. no? The smell when you open the market door knocks you over. Lovely. I miss it living so far away in Indiana. [Sigh] Pastie pies are lovely too, but I find them heavier in the belly than the French pork pies. Once upon a time, the O-man insisted that pies were New England culinary culture par excellence, and I poo-pooed the idea. Now I am reconsidering...

Since I haven't blogged in such a long time, I'm tagging myself. "Tag, I'm it!"

1. I met both Dan and Marilyn Quayle. I actually met Veep Quayle at Burlington (VT) International Airport as part of the "welcoming committee" that was ushered planeside. This was back in 1991-1992.
2. People have said, at various times (and obviously under the influence of something rather potent), that I look like Bucky Showalter, Audie Murphy, and/or Nathaniel Hawthorne. Get your glasses cleaned, please.
3. I like very cold beverages. Ice cold. No warmish British beer for me.
4. The last cd I bought was Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald singing Gershwin.
5. I have never been west of the Mississippi River.