Welcome to the KansasCornDodger blog. This blog will mostly be about food, but I'm sure music and things I'm reading will creep in. Politics will likely creep in from time to time, especially if McCain and Palin manage to somehow steal this election.

Right now I'm enjoying cooking foods with fall flavors like the braised short ribs and oven roasted potatoes I made for dinner last night. Most of the periodicals I read relate to food. Right now I subscribe to the Art of Eating, Saveur, Gastronomica, and the Journal of Food, Culture and Society. Outside of food writing, I read the New Yorker and have been a subscriber for many years. I catch the NY Times on line and try and get the Wednesday food section pretty thoroughly read every week. I am also a wine fan, though not a cork dork anymore and drink pretty much all over the wine spectrum. This summer I drank quite a bit of un-oaked Sauvignon Blanc, but red wine season is just around the corner.

I usually listen to music as I write, mostly jazz and classical, but other things creep in. Jazz piano trio is my favorite, but I like solo jazz piano and combo work like the Modern Jazz Quartet. Bill Evans and Oscar Peterson are favorites as are Keith Jarrett and Paul Bley. I also like classical music ranging from Mozart, Bach and Telemann to Arvo Part and John Adams. I am also currently listening to a lot of New Orleans music in the Preservation Hall and Dirty Dozen Brass Band veins. Chet Baker is playing as I type this.

Mysteries are my main form of fun with fiction and currently I am reading lots of Scandinavian writers like Henning Mankell and Arnuldur Indriosan. Ken Bruen and Ian Rankin are also favorites of mine. I usually have a non-fiction going too, right now I'm reading a book on the immediate post-Russian Revolution era in Europe, The World on Fire: 1919 and the Battle with Bolshevism and A History of Venice by Norwich.

I'll try and keep you up to date with what I'm doing and post some pictures as I become more adept.