There are many worthier battles to pick with AI, but I consider it a public service to tell the world that this is literally not true! Hobhouse wrote in his diary that Lady Caro fanatically "squeezed" Vestris! He even quoted Sappho after.

Evergreen meme, the only properly decent meme I've ever created.

An example. Cultural capital seems involved — I see these self-inscriptions on classical, opera, and what my own library categorizes as “classic pop” (Barbara Streisand etc.), not Madonna or Petula Clark. 😂

Treats for the last day of class: orange custard & cranberry tarts, an adaptation of Nigella’s bitter orange & blackberry tart (I’ve come to realize that Midwestern college students aren’t the ideal audience for mince pies), and my usual chocolate gingerbread trees topped with white chocolate.

Now that this place is quite active, I finally have an audience of semi-strangers for my bakes again. These are choux buns filled with yuzu creme pat (my Whole Foods actually had punnets of them!) topped with white chocolate, and earl grey creme pat topped with milk chocolate. Also, my cat Oscar.

A snippet from my current obsession, one of the diaries for my ch. on Victorian women’s spectatorship: the author’s collector father wages revenge against his collector son-in-law—both early donors to the BM—for eloping with his daughter by claiming that the SIL stole manuscripts from a university!

I think it’s time to admit that American students in the Midwest are not the ideal market for mince pies, but I do so love this end-of-semester ritual. (As always, I made chocolate gingerbread trees decorated with white chocolate for the less adventurous.)

My Thanksgiving dinner was from Whole Foods, but the pie was all me (well, the recipe was Claire Saffitz’s caramelized honey & brown butter pumpkin pie).

If you know, you know.

Georgina Hayden’s kolokithopita from “Nitisima,” topped with harissa-garlic oil and filled with roasted butternut squash, raisins, dill, green onion, and—because I wanted to add more greens—wilted spinach.

My 35th year is looking to be a good one because for the first time, I finally received the classic Greek coffee cup, 19 years after first visiting NYC (where I lived for seven!).

I’ve cleverly timed my COVID booster to enable me to spend Friday evening in bed, with Oscar, doing “class prep” by watching the greatest musical of all time.

In the absence of the Mets, I’ve taken gone a bit further south on the Acela Express. Let’s go Phillies!!!

I’m so excited to be teaching the dream ballet from “An American in Paris” tomorrow, which I somehow once thought was boring and cringe but now recognize as one of the greatest achievements in Hollywood filmmaking (and camp’s ascent into sublimity).

Weekend dinner courtesy of Georgina Hayden’s “Nitisima”: vegan keftedes, tashi (Cypriot tahini-garlic sauce), and village-style tomatoes with crispy capers. Because Saturdays are for deep frying.