PicoBlog

New here? Hi! If you want to get right down to business, scroll down for the video link and allllllll the way to the bottom for the recipe.When I asked y’all your opinions about what belongs in a chicken Caesar wrap, the responses were truly wild. Intentionally soggy lettuce? Grape halves? French fries inside? Chickpeas??? The passion was irrefutable. Whether I agreed or not—well, that’s another story. After many tests and a few tribulations, I landed on Chicken Caesar Wrap My Way™: Crunchy-gone- soggy-gone crunchy croutons, juicy diced dark meat chicken, something called a “lettuce hug,” blender Parm, a quality wrap, and, of course, the world’s greatest Caesar dressing.

You know it’s going to be a good time when Lucas Sin shows up. Not only that, but we’re celebrating one of my favorite chain restaurants: Applebee’s. Now, I know many of you are reading this and frowning, shaking your head and muttering, “Applebee’s? Really, Farideh?” Yes. Applebee’s. I also love Sizzler (so much so that I got the word SIZZLER tattooed on my body recently, but that is another story for another time).

Our recent mornings here have been beautiful—crystal clear, and not too hot. The benefit of our almost daily storms is these pristine moments, where everything is beautiful. So I’ve been trying to spend time playing with our baby chicks, who really aren’t babies at all any more. They’re almost fully feathered. I’ve been thinking about what it means to play chicken. The name has its origins in a game in which two drivers drive toward each other on a collision course.

(Listen to the radio version here.) Somewhere between 3,000 and 10,000 years ago, people in southeastern Asia started domesticating junglefowl—tropical members of the pheasant family. Today’s barnyard chickens are essentially descendants of the Red Junglefowl, but also, to a lesser degree, of three closely related species: the Green, Gray, and Sri Lanka Junglefowl. In nature, when any of those four species hybridize, their offspring are generally infertile, like mules, but DNA studies show strands of DNA from the other three species in some chickens.

There is a type of criminal that enjoys living a lie. Getting away with “it” every day. Even to their own harm. Typical is a young man dropping out of college, then pretending to still be in college, even ‘graduating’ and leaving every morning for his promising new job, then when a parent or spouse figures out he’s living a lie, he murders them in cold blood… because he’s worried about being found out.

There is a kind of hush that descends on the world just before the winter’s first snow: the earth, holding its breath. Not autumn anymore but not yet winter either, the world seems to teeter on the edge between seasons. And then the first flake parachutes out of the gray-white sky, spinning, sparkling, to touch the autumn’s last leaf, or the sleeve of a child’s jacket, with a tiny “tic” and the world starts spinning again.

Happy, happy (early) Valentine’s Day! I love Valentine’s Day because it’s a holiday somewhat in the middle🤞of what is an exceedingly long winter here in Wisconsin, and also because it’s relatively low-stakes, and also also because it celebrates love, and that’s something I can always get behind even if “Hallmark made it up.” (Truly: who cares?) Books for Valentine’s Day are a bonus, but they’re a pretty good bonus, if you ask me.

HAPPY WINTER, THE BEST OF ALL THE SEASONS! I know, most of you don’t agree with that statement in the slightest, but maybe you enjoy reading about winter, if not actually living in / surviving it? (Pro tip from a Wisconsinite: get outside and sport your way through it. It really does help.) I hope the following brings you some fresh new reads for you and your family and that if books are the only thing you find to enjoy about the season, you enjoy them to the very utmost 🩵

If you are reading this hungover still in costume from a halloween rendezvous, welcome. May I suggest a bowl of chili to cure you? And if you are perfectly sober and well, welcome. May I suggest a bowl of chili to cure you? Doesn’t matter what you’re going through, chili is the answer to all. And as you can see, the topic of today’s newsletter is another soup slay. And I call it a soup rightfully so, because that’s what I believe chili is.