On Sprouts and Dooce

Reader, I am killing it with the oven-roasted brussels sprouts right now. My secret, which I will unsecret just for you: bacon fat. This is a better method than putting cooked bacon or pancetta in with the sprouts because the fat melts as they're cooking and just envelopes them in rich porky goodness. A little of this goes a long way--I use a few slugs of olive oil and then maybe a tablespoon of bacon fat doled out in pea-size dollops. Sprinkling of kosher salt, cook until browned and tender, with crispy bits and pieces. That's it. If you want to be fancy you can add shallots, garlic, sweet potatoes and carrots but just sprouts is great. So. Damn. Good.

I just did a key word search on my blog and discovered that I have written about some combination of brussels sprouts and pork products five times already! Which could lead you to conclude that I am either in the grips of early onset dementia or I know what I like and I like to tell you about it over and over. Okay, maybe a third revelation is possible--I continue to be amazed that a sprout, which I grew up eating steamed and therefore wanted to eat exactly NEVER, could be so delicious.

In an non-pork matter, I read today that Heather Armstrong of Dooce fame has separated from her husband. Both she and he wrote about it on their respective blogs. I was moved by his raw honesty of the sudden, harsh shift in his reality. Not that hers is so great either, chased by the dog of depression nipping at her heels, yet having the comfort and normalcy of her children, her animals, her home. There was something so painful in reading Jon Armstrong ask the internet to help him find a place to live, a place to work because of course, he can't work at their company, the one they built together, the one that is about them. Then through reading all of this, my unsettled feeling that their relationship or the unraveling of it is a private matter yet since they built their brand on chronicling the minutiae of their lives together, isn't private at all. The internet is weird.