My Love Affair with Newsprint What's cooking? Spicy Avocado-Cucumber Soup

In the early days of my career, when I was a Wall Street researcher, there was a lot of talk among the analysts about the coming of the paperless office.  How no one would keep files in file cabinets, and everyone’s desk would be clean, clean, because there’d be no need for paper. So maybe I’m still stuck in the dark ages, but even with much of my work now in digital files and on the cloud (where God knows I hope it’s more organized than on earth), I still find myself surrounded by file cabinets and paper.

I also still read magazines on paper, as well as our local Austin newspaper and my all-time fave, The New York Times. And as much as I enjoy the ability to find past articles on the digital versions of these publications, I hope I hope I hope the physical versions hang around at least until I’m too ancient to read or care.

There’s something wonderful about spreading the newspaper out on my kitchen island, where the Sunday edition of The Times often remains for days, until I’ve perused the sections I most enjoy. And as newspapers now qualify more as commentary and sources of information than hot news, it doesn’t really matter how long that takes.

Monkey See, Monkey Do, or How I Overcame My Fear of Frying What's cooking? Thai Sweet and Spicy Wings and Turnip & Cabbage Slaw with Yogurt Dressing

It was the sort of comment you make without thinking. And for me, that always means trouble.

I was just forwarding a recipe to our friends, Bob and Laurie, who are avid fans of both chicken wings and Thai food.

“This looks good and really easy,” I emailed, attaching a link to a video in which a professional chef was featured making one of his restaurant’s most popular dishes. “I thought you might want to try it.” Then I added in a moment clearly without real thought, “I would even offer my kitchen up for the test...”

“Excellent,” came the reply. “I vote we pick one of our recipes and cook up a mixed batch and sample!”

So now I was stuck. Hmmm, how hard can it be, I thought. I’d only watched the video once and it did look easy. But when I went back to the site, it turns out that the only thing there was a video of the chef cooking it – no recipe, no measurements, no guidelines other than what the guy said as he blithely whirled away in his professional kitchen.