Weekends: Of Pigs and Gardening

Normally, Eric and I keep our weekends relatively unscheduled and open so that we can have a chance to spend time together and catch up on stuff around the house. The work week gets so busy and hectic that we really need the weekends to regroup. These past few weekends have been busier than usual, […]

Thinking Animal Emotion in the Midst of Teaching

The quarter is in full swing, which means that teaching has completely absorbed my time and energy. Amazingly, the class has remained full and the students for the most part all seem engaged. It is so exciting to hear their ideas about the readings and watch as their thoughts shift and evolve with the material […]

Thanksgiving Recipe Roundup

It’s already that time of year again…coming into Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving can be a stressful time for vegans (and new vegans especially). For one, it is incredibly depressing to think about the 46 million turkeys slaughtered each year in the United States for Thanksgiving day alone. That is a lot of individual lives taken for one […]

Enjoying Fall in the Midwest

This past week has been tremendously busy with teaching and other work and an exciting trip to the Midwest (Minnesota and Wisconsin). After class last Wednesday, I dashed home, grabbed my bags and jumped the lightrail to the airport to head to Minneapolis. My dear friend from college, Laura, lives in Minneapolis and I combined a research trip with a visit […]

Comfort Food and Saying Goodbye to a Dear Friend

I know that chanterelle season is coming up soon and I was hoping against hope that there would be chanterelle mushrooms at the vegetable stand yesterday. But alas, they have not arrived yet. I had had my heart set on making a chanterelle and kale risotto.  Instead, I found some shiitake mushrooms and spinach and whipped up […]

Gearing up for Teaching & Understanding Doublethink

School starts on Monday and I’m excited to say that I’m going to be teaching the course, ‘Animals, Ethics, and Food: Deconstructing Dominant Discourses’ again. I’ve tweaked the syllabus from last time and I hope it’s an improvement.  Last winter’s teaching adventure was one of the best experiences I’ve had at the University of Washington and […]

Sitting Quietly at a ‘Cull Market’ Auction

Every now and then, I’m deeply ashamed to be part of the human species. Last Wednesday was one of those days. I went to a cull market auction with my friend Tish, who kindly agreed to go with me and who, afterward, wrote a very nice post about buddy system research on her blog. We arrived […]