Recently, my medievalist cohort and I got together for a few sessions with the Center for Teaching and Learning to talk about how to write a syllabus, and all my frustrations about TAing came crashing down on me at once. Read More Homemade gyros, a la my mother-in-law. Read More Pregnancy, like any major life […]
The problem with spanakopita is that it’s a large, flavorless lump of cooked spinach in a soggy phyllo crust … can you tell I really don’t like it? Spanakopita triangles are often great, but usually just because they’re mostly phyllo. If you want a spinach pie that is actually good and still tastes like spinach, […]
As far as I’m concerned, there are two ways to make vegetable soups. Method one is what I call the Ina Garten method – take all your vegetables, roast them, then mix them with stock and puree. Method two is the Jane Brody method – saute your aromatics, add your vegetables and stock, cook until […]
Disclaimer: I am not a doctor, I am not offering medical advice. Last week I had the all too familiar experience of a shockingly well-targeted ad popping up in my facebook feed. This one was a video promoting an app to help correct diastasis recti. My reaction was a mix of excitement and suspicion, and […]
Homemade gyros, a la my mother-in-law. Read More Cheese and yogurt waiting to be stirred. Enchiladas are a labor of love, so I keep coming up with lazy methods for getting the same flavors and textures. Read More This is a recipe most easily prepared with two people, although my mom made these weekly by […]
It might sound like I’m making a value judgment here, that traditional is better than historical. Really, I’m arguing for an awareness of context. There are some traditions that don’t exist anymore. There are some things that really are gone. But it’s not as much as you think. Participating in history, appreciating history, shouldn’t come […]
It might sound like I’m making a value judgment here, that traditional is better than historical. Really, I’m arguing for an awareness of context. There are some traditions that don’t exist anymore. There are some things that really are gone. But it’s not as much as you think. Participating in history, appreciating history, shouldn’t come […]
As a progressive in 2020, you’d have to be willfully ignorant to think that there are no problems with Thanksgiving. But unlike, say, the former Columbus Day, this holiday isn’t just a day off. For a lot of Americans, myself included, this day has been one of the most important yearly events of family gathering […]
There is a conflict bubbling between professional and amateur historians over directly addressing current social issues when talking about history. On one side, people who enjoy hearing about topics like the ins and outs of the Roman Empire claim that there is an unbiased way to present history, without judgement from the present. On the […]
My mom has a bit of a problem with experts. If you asked her, my mom would tell you that the problem with experts is that they don’t have to justify their opinions on the basis that they have implicitly earned that trust, and, in the reverse, other people who are not experts have not. […]
Or why I study the Middle Ages and dress like the 1940s. If you run in vaguely historical or vintage fashion-oriented circles online, you’ve probably run into the Vintage Egyptologist (whose work I can’t condone) or maybe, more recently, the Overdressed Archaeologist (whose work I absolutely encourage you to check out). These two women combine […]
In the Passover seder, there is possibly no more controversial section than the Four Children. As the seder sets up a series of conversations and pedagogical devices around the Exodus story, the Four Children is the most explicit set of instructions for parents to teach their children how to internalize the preferred message. The four […]
My name is Robin, and I have email anxiety. Ok so some of this (dare I say) fear of my inbox comes from a reasonable place. While I was writing my dissertation and applying for jobs, emails were often life-changing, soul-crushing, and heart-rending. There were also times that I missed extremely important, time-sensitive information because […]
