You’ve probably already read a hundred reviews of the new Trek movie, and you don’t need mine. (Short form: liked the characters, winced at the baaaad science and coincidence-heavy plot.) But over at Danger Room, we find the take of a genuine military analyst.* The villainous Romulan ship pulverizes Federation vessels with volleys of torpedoes. […]

This is a street scene, sort of. It’s a view from the breakfast room of the Hotel Spectra, looking across the old Roman hippodrome to the Mosque of Sultanahmet, better known over here as the Blue Mosque. Beyond is the Sea of Marmara. I highly recommend the Spectra. It’s a small hotel with nice rooms, […]

On the tenth of April we came down from the Anatolian highlands to Bodrum, where we met the Aegean for the first time— we had seen blue water here and there, but we were never on the shore, and always en route to one place or another. Bodrum was the place where we ended up […]

Because I was in the mood to do something tasty and elaborate, last night I cooked a meal for our friends, Peggy and Kevin. For primi I made capelletti, “little caps,” in this case pasta stuffed with chicken, parmesan, parsley, a little nutmeg, and some cream to hold it together. You start with a 2×2-inch […]