First and foremost, let me apologize for the long delay in new posts. Visiting family for Thanksgiving left me sniffling and feverish for about two solid weeks; when I finally recovered, I got so wrapped up in my long reading list that I am only now convincing myself to part from my books long enough to get back to writing.
That being said, I have been reading a lot of awesome books and quarterly magazines which means I will have many excellent recommendations in the very near future. First up on my list, is McSweeney’s newest publication, Lucky Peach. I happened across issue two in my local grocery store by pure chance, and am incredibly happy that I bought it based purely on the magazine’s subtitle: “A Quarterly Journal of Food and Writing.” I rushed home and barely finished putting the groceries away before sitting down and reading the magazine from cover to cover. However, I will say this: the cover of issue two was definitely a little discouraging, but not enough to deter me from buying the issue anyway.
I rarely trust people who urge me to run out and by a whole series of books because I’ll not only be unable to put them down once I start reading, but I’ll be desperate to keep reading as soon as I finish these books. Today, however, I am going to be that person. Suzanne Collins has created one of the most engaging and though-provoking worlds that I have ever encountered. Add to this the incredibly interesting, somewhat unlikeable, and at times tragic characters that react so believably and yet often unexpectedly to the plot and the 
You have got to try this super decadent, melt-in-your-mouth, super sweet treat! It is finally starting to get chilly in South Carolina, and I decided to pull out all of the stops with the desert for the dinner party. You can make these in a variety of different ways, but there are some pretty standard approaches.
I grew up making bread. As I’ve been told, the first recipe I ever knew by heart was a cornbread recipe. But as I’m getting older, the sad reality is dawning on me that a diet entirely dominated by delicious bread and baked goods is not going to be very waistline-friendly. That being said, I still make bread all the time; now I just make smaller amounts of it, but that is not always an easy task given that bread recipes often do not scale easily/evenly. So this is a simple bread recipe that only makes 12 (albeit a fairly large 12) garlic knots. If you have a significant other, great, now you can split it evenly and distribute the consumption. If you have a significant other and kids/niece(s)/nephew(s)/neighbors/friends, even better. But I should warn you, you might not give these up so easily once you’ve tried them!
One of the first things I do upon moving to a new town is try to find my go-to Chinese take out restaurant. Sadly, it has proved more difficult than usual in Columbia, but I have found nicer sit-down Asian places to visit. So far my favorite is Tsunami, which is in the Vista. On my first visit I tried warm, kiwi-flavored Sake (something that I strongly recommend sharing with friends if you want any chance of getting home safely. (Don’t worry, my friend ordered it and I just had a sip because, goodness knows, I can’t hold my liquor.) During that visit I also decided to order a couple sushi rolls rather than a main course while everyone else ordered more filling meals. One of our friends is Jain and cannot eat anything requiring the death of another organism and he ordered fried cheese and spinach rolls of which I was quite envious.
. Admittedly, there are plenty of moments that caused me to cringe, but there was also a lot of interesting information to be gleaned about the insides of the restaurant business (at least as he portrays it).
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