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A lot of my favorite vegetables are green, and while I don't eat them often brussels sprouts fall under both categories. Maybe it is because they are bite-sized, or because there is a slight crunch even when cooked, but it's so easy to eat one right after another.

The farm that supplies vegetables to my community supported agriculture (CSA) gave us brussels sprouts the Tuesday before Thanksgiving this year. We received probably a pound of them, so there were not that many. But I was determined to make them, and my CSA was great in supplying an easy recipe for roasting brussels sprouts.

Thanksgiving is over and the leftovers are all gone. One of the things I wish that I had made more of, or at least not eaten so quickly, is the mashed potatoes. I don't remember when I first tried making them with turnips, but ever since I can't imagine mashed potatoes without them. It adds a really interesting flavor that borders on spicy. I feel like there is more to describe about it, but I can't place my finger on it. All in all, it is just really delicious and a must-have at the Thanksgiving meal.

Thanksgiving is usually just the two of us, and of course it is the one day of the year, besides Christmas and birthdays, that I spend hours in the kitchen. I just can't help myself, and our kitchen is so small that I protest my husband cooking at the same time. I prepared all of the following for our afternoon meal (except for the bread which he made, and he was in charge of the dessert - I'll post about that later).

Henry Montgomery wrote to his children from the deck of the Southern Cross. "Remember," he told them, "that your father visited all these islands, and that his heart went out to the dwellers among these lonely scenes, praying ever that they might be brought to know their Father in His son Jesus Christ." He reminded his children that they were special. "You have all been taught that we must be true and pure and upright because we are Christ's disciples; but next after that reason there is no incentive to live nobly which is so powerful as the possession of a great family tradition. You come from a family of 'gentlemen'; you know that word does not signify mere outward refinement: it tells of a refined and noble mind, to which anything dishonourable or mean or impure is abhorrent and unworthy."

-The Shark God by Charles Montgomery

When I choose a book to read it is usually based upon its description on some online store or in little catalogs that I get in the mail, so suffice it to say I did not really know what to expect when I chose The Shark God. I did expect ghosts and a bit of the paranormal, but it wasn't really about those things. It was more about running after the ghosts of the past. It was atheist Charles Montgomery's journey into Melanesia inspired by his missionary grandfather who had traveled there long ago to convert the locals to Christianity. Charles went looking for magic, but he mostly found religions jockeying for position and a steady supply of kava. Kastom, or local custom, was sometimes hard to come by and often the display of it was more for theatrics. He ran into so many varying levels of belief and Christianity that by the end he was frustrated and confused, yet trying to force meaning where none was to be found. To me it felt almost like reading an anthropologist's account of a personal spiritual journey - educational, but not quite what you want to read.

I am still in the midst of reading The Shark God by Charles Montgomery, so I decided to share the results of this weekend's baking: vegan banana bread. This is a recipe that I make every couple of months or so, and have found it to be easy to make, delicious, and perfectly moist. For those of you who are vegan or who are trying to lay off of eggs, this is a great replacement for standard banana bread that uses eggs.

Stopping off for gas, I realized that I had not yet fulfilled part of rule #11: beef jerky, so I spent five bucks on a large bag of Oberto brand jerky. It looked like tree bark but smelled like a dead animal that had been left outside for a few weeks. I hadn't tried the stuff in years, actually, since it's expensive, and to be honest, I always associated beef jerky with the suburban/redneck element of my hometown, which was an element that I had spent most of my postsurburban New Yorker-subscribing life distancing myself from. Still, on this morning I was hungry, the sack of jerky was on the passenger side, and with Rush blaring on the car radio, I decided to try it. And Oh My Ever-Loving God. It went straight to my bloodstream. I was flying. This was the best thing I had ever tasted! If this was what conservatives ate, I was ready to sign up for the John Birch Society right then and there.

-Conservatize Me by John Moe

When a book has me visibly laughing or weeping while on the subway, you know that it has grabbed me. I try to maintain a normal composure since I am in public so as to not seem like I've lost my mind (at least for my own benefit), so laughing usually winds up being more like smirking. I smirked often throughout Conservatize Me. I tend to be more left-leaning myself, although I wouldn't consider myself a complete liberal, so I respected John Moe's self-inflicted month of immersion in the politically conservative culture.

It had been my plan to carve a pumpkin the night of Halloween this year, but a combination of laziness and getting home later than normal prevented me from actually following through. After thinking about it for a bit I decided it would not be a bad thing if I carved a pumpkin a little later than everyone else, and so yesterday I grabbed a smallish one and today I took a stab at it.

I first learned about National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) about three or four years ago when a friend was vowing to participate. It sounded intriguing, so I decided to try my hand (or brain) at it, but stopped pretty much before I got started. The idea of trying to write a novel in a month (November, specifically) is still a great one to me, and I salute the book-lovers and word-smithers who came up with it.