Welcome

Hello and welcome to my blog. I hope that it will be of at least a passing interest to people who, like me, enjoy trying new things and observing the fascinating world we live in. I also hope this blog will urge me out of my comfort zone to find all the interesting things Detroit has to offer, be they the good, the bad, or the ugly (ugly-good like the beautiful derelict train station or ugly-bad like certain public representatives). I intend for this blog to be a journal in which I give my dilettantish impressions of not only Detroit but my life at this place in time, about which I discuss a bit below.

I like to try my hand at new things. I am growing tomatoes and corn for the first time, a big deal for a born-and-raised Las Vegan. I am making from scratch pasta, bread, pesto, tortillas, and anything else that looks tasty, with the help of some great cooking blogs I've found (and will link as soon as I figure out how). I will soon foray into fresh ice cream, and have the equipment on the ready. To the serious cook these are modest accomplishments but I am just getting started. I hope to amp my from-scratch cooking and eating, as I have recently read The Omnivore's Dilemma and sadly now "ruminate" over every processed corn-doctored food item I buy, yearning to some day declare independence from Kroger and their ilk.

I am a big fiction reader, but lately I've read some nonfiction, mostly dealing with growing and eating food (Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma) or planning weddings (don't really know who writes these). My current fiction books, after getting over a recent, near deadly Twilight obsession, are: Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi by Geoff Dyer, My Father's Tears by John Updike, The Appeal by John Grisham, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon, and The American by Henry James. I am in the process of reading all five of these right now, and will finish all of them, despite what my fiance says.

Other than reading, gardening, and cooking, I am hunting for work (and considering opening a business), planning a wedding, remodeling a 1950s era house, doing some volunteer tutoring, and in general trying to become a productive member of this country and planet.

My thought is that I will post my impressions of things: the books I read, my gardening/cooking/sewing progress, the movies I see, places I go in the Detroit area, perhaps with some job-hunt gallows humor thrown in. I don't have any agenda but to muse and have some place to put my musings for others to follow or not, to comment on or not. The name of the blog should alert you that I am no expert in any of the subjects on which I will expound, but rather an enthusiastic amateur, like most everyone else. Wow, thanks for reading this far.