Dr Ben Wolfe

I think I’ve eaten deep dish twice in the last 22 years:

Once was, oddly, on interview for grad school in Berkeley

Once was at UNO’s in Boston as a freshman. Having an eating contest with a friend. Who needed a distraction.

Raccoon rampage the arcade game

“This novice tried to pull one over on the Abbess. I am the Abbess’ Right Hand of Judgement. Let this be a lesson.”

A bugge nibbled by vampiric unfriends

There are absolutely bad versions out there, but this is one of the best effort to reward ratio recipes I know of.

chocolate puddle cakes Two perfectly-sized molten chocolate cakes that take under 15 minutes to both mix and bake, are flourless, mixed in one bowl, use ingredients you probably have around.

This is your regular reminder that the very 1990s chocolate lava cakes are both easy to make and delicious.

And you can swap the flour for cocoa powder if you want more chocolate flavour.

I use this recipe and just go for whatever adequately dark chocolate I have on hand.

Plate of steak, roasted potatoes, asparagus

Yeah, that made for a nice Valentine’s Day dinner for us…

Acceptable. However, heresy must come to Shadows of Buttstone

You must torment him more.

Phil and company are playing Shadows of Brimstone to raise money for the National Immigration Law Center.

You know… they want to be tormented for a good cause… and there are good options in the fundraiser for tormenting them!

A man’s lap, khakis, and a contented and unrepentant large white and tabby dingusbeast of a cat sleeping

This lump was so determined to have a lap that he jumped on top of my laptop which was in my lap being used at the time.

I have given in to his Himbo Chonk demands

My secondhand sense of that world is that it tends to be slightly odd

“Abi’s Right Arm of Evil”

A very disapproving white and tabby cat on a grey cylindrical ottoman

I'm in touch with a handful of university friends at this point, but we're all over the place

Not in touch with anyone from high school.

Then again, I have (1) given his wife a rubber fish with which to smack him to sense when he and I were postdocs, and (2) sent him a gigantic [4'] plush fish when he got tenure.

The latter resulted in his then-toddler son chasing him about the house shrieking FISHY LOVES YOU.

One friend (an engineer) after surgery managed to play with his enough that, as I recall his account, it was turned off because he managed to outwit whatever irregular algorithm it was using.

When he told me this, I was deeply unsurprised.

BODIES, MOTHERFUCKER, THEY HAPPEN

I mean, it's almost California asparagus season.

In general, just send me refs if there's something you're after. You've got my email.

You know the drill. Send me a citation and I’ll hunt.

Breaking colleague-friends for the best reasons is good

Blueberry fritter might as well be philbait

Which is to say I made a tart, brought it in and delivered an 0800 slice to a colleague who, in my professional opinion, needed it.

The hug I received immediately proved my point.

Not wrong.

I even forcibly administered tart for psychological reasons last week.

Omnomnom

I remember, at the beginning of grad school, applying for a fellowship, I had the line in there "all knowledge is worth having." I still agree with that 16 years later.

Some knowledge may be less interesting to me, and that's fine. But I do what I do because I want to reduce ignorance.

Oh good, my prescription for baked goods has been followed!

(no, I'm not that kind of doctor)

Illustration of 10 adorable bunnies in a burrow, text on image reads "there are tunnels underground where bunnies are safe - safe from emails" The original image comes from Peter McCarty's Bunny Dreams, which is just as adorable as you think it should be.

This you?