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 […]
A few years ago, the EU declared that in today’s digital search landscape, individuals have the right to be forgotten. Essentially, our full digital histories should expire and we should be able to remove ourselves from the record for reasons of privacy and crafting personal natives. You might be surprised to learn that, as a […]
My name is Robin Reich and I am a historian, hobby cook, and lizard person masquerading as a human. I am currently a ffifth-year PhD candidate in History at Columbia University, where I study medieval Mediterranean history. For my professional experience, see my CV. For updates on my research, see my Scribi posts. Now in […]
When I moved from New York to Minnesota for college, my greatest culture shock was the bread. I remember the first time I ordered a sandwich on rye, knowing full well that the cafeteria deli counter could not possibly have what I grew up calling “Jewish rye” – a crusty, slightly dense and squishy loaf, […]
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 […]
Buzzfeed recently reported that a new service will transform Wikipedia entries into “real” academic papers so that students can cite them in their work without getting penalized by their teachers. Teachers are, understandably, up in arms about this. After all, we have spent at least the last decade trying to explain to students why it’s […]
This week is the start of my winter quarter, which means that as part of launching my courses for the term, I am setting up meetings with students to discuss their academic accommodations. As with most aspects of academic professionalization, instructors are given almost no guidance for how to meet the accommodations students are entitled […]
I briefly posted about the game Heaven’s Vault on Facebook when I first heard about it, and now, thanks to the Steam summer sale, I’ve played it! *Note: because I did not do a lot of screenshotting while I was playing, images of the game in this post came from promotional images and mostly show […]
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 […]
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 […]
A friend recently asked me how to explain to a group of normal, reasonable people that the ancient Greeks didn’t invent science, and I immediately realized what a massive question that is to answer. I think that our whole approach to intellectual history is wrong – we like to teach secondary school students that all […]
Do you ever get a taste in your mind? Like you just imagine a flavor that you’ve never had before and you wonder whether you can make it happen? That’s how pretty much all of my cooking projects come together. Call it my particular form of synesthesia. Read More As far as I’m concerned, there […]
Amid the Coronavirus scramble that has left my local Costco completely bare of hand soap, sanitizing wipes, and tissues, I had the completely irrelevant thought this morning that I haven’t washed my hair in weeks. I’ve done plenty to care for my hair – cowash, conditioner, combing, rinsing – but I haven’t used shampoo in […]
It’s hard not to mock the classic “hang in there, baby” sign, or it’s recent equivalents in rose gold calligraphy. It’s so vapidly upbeat, oblivious to the complicated obstacles that stand in the way of happiness or success, as if finding fulfillment is a matter of telling yourself to do it. And yet, here I […]
