Lately

You may have noticed that my postings around here have been a bit “lighter” lately.

In part it is because my book, “Girl Hunter,” is due in 7 weeks and I have squirrel on the mind. I’ve been holed up beside a lake in Arkansas typing away. And sometimes drinking a bit of whiskey on ice. Because Hemingway would approve. And conquering 20 pounds of crawfish from time to time… like this evening for example.

I have also been studying this thing they call King Cake in honor of Mardi Gras, and when I say studying, I mean eating a lot of it… because when one side has a filling of strawberry jelly and one side has a filling of chocolate, and somewhere in the middle they converge, it requires investigation.

I have also been testing some final recipes… squirrel dumplings, squirrel brunswick, squirrel putak, jugged hare, buttermilk fried rabbit, stuffed quail, braised quail legs… and tomorrow I am going to dive into the wild turkey parts.

But mostly my distraction has been because…

…I am technically homeless. Not to say that I don’t have family and friends in all four corners of the earth, and not to say that I don’t travel constantly anyway (I think several hundred planes in the past two years by my last count?) but last week I took it to a whole new level.

You’ve watched me wander everywhere in the past two years… from England… to Alabama I think that perhaps I’ve stepped foot on the soil of almost every state recently.

There are times when I actually wasn’t quite sure which state I was in. It became too much to keep track…

Can you tell where this is for example?

This may help a bit…

How about now?

This may make it a tad easier…

Brownie points if you can guess the airline too ; )

Aah, the sweet golden arms of the runway.

But I digress.

I have squirrel on the mind, I am eating crawfish, drinking whiskey, trying to finish my book, am totally homeless save for this lovely lakeside house I’m staying in, all of my personal belongings are in a cold dark storage unit somewhere far away… and thus I’m distracted.

Particularly with the task of collecting dinner ingredients to test for my book.

If you’re wondering what that white thing is under my gun it’s a bedroom sheet. Yes, it’s perfectly normal to bring a bedroom sheet into a snowy woods with you, why do you ask?

I also have been preoccupied eating barbecue.

For example, did you know that there is a place in Little Rock that serves barbecue with 7, seven different barbecue sauces?

It required intense study to identify my favorite. I was so exhausted afterward I had to nap for a week.

Did you also know that Bill Clinton put the utensils from this place in his time capsule?

Did you also know that I visited the Oval Office?

Holy Little Rock.

So I’ve been distracted. But I promise you, that after I push this book out, find a home, stop investigating barbecue sauce, quit drinking whiskey, refuse to eat any more crawfish, and receive all of the things from my storage unit into my open arms… I will be back to normal.

Oh… and I have another bit of exciting news. My book “Food Heroes,” was nominated for a very prestigious IACP award yesterday. I was trying to write when I found out so it gave me a nice little kick in the pants.Thank you for all of your support, lovely people.

I’ll be back soon. And in the meantime, if you have any suggestions for things like… where I should live…for example…shout ’em out!

xo