Author’s Note: When you want to cause a stir in politics, bring up government spending.  No one is right and everyone is wrong.  We are taxed too high, spending’s too low, too much money goes to parks, not enough on research… the shouting will never subside. If you want to stir up controversy amongst everyone else, bring up bread.  The ultra fit, meathead marathoners will tell you to eat as the cavemen did.  The le pain snobs will tell you about the ONLY boulangerie where you can find a decent baguette.  Then there are the folks who like their bread fluffy, airy and tasteless and would sooner eat dirt than multigrain. I loved this column because ever after 30,000 years, bread is still sexy as hell.  My lifelong love affair with it burns like the fire of a brick pizza oven.   I am not really a fan of dieting. I usually gain five pounds in the first week because my brain and body become convinced I am secretly conspiring to starve myself to death, so they conspire to send me into insatiable pizza and ice cream urges. But like it or not, dieting basically becomes a must at some point after you hit twenty five and everyone’s metabolism hits the wall. Whilst having dinner with friends last week, one of my dining companions regaled us with ins and outs of his newest low carb fad. The idea is to deny yourself of all carbs so on your one day off, all you want is strawberries for your cheat food. Thinking about it, I said that was pretty much how I naturally gravitate in my eating. I focus on healthy proteins and my indulgences are generally a bunch of grapes here and there. I sat...

For a brief period of time in college, I considered becoming a Rabbi. Don’t get me wrong- I’m not particularly religious- I was just fascinated by the role that ritual could play in heightening particular moments in a person’s life and the way in which our collective need for the infinite could cause it to manifest itself on earth. I was also tripping my balls off on two hits of unbelievable liquid acid that I bought from a trio of seedy hippies suspiciously named “Soy”, “Dog” and “Liz” (“Liz” – whatever. Like that’s even a real name.) Later that night, I also briefly considered joining the Animaniacs, not because I wanted to be on television, but because I was fascinated by the idea of living in the water tower at Warner Brother’s studios and writing a whole song about an obscure South American lake just so I could say “Titicaca” over and over again on a children’s show. Living the dream! In the cold light of day, with the drugs out of my system, I abandoned my rabbinical fantasies and made the hard-headed practical choice to stick with theatre (maybe not ALL of the drugs were out my system.) Still- I continue to be fascinated by the trappings of religion and, as a result, even though I don’t really believe in God, I still maintain certain Jewish rituals- like even though I don’t believe in Leprechauns and Democracy, I continue to eat Lucky Charms and vote (FULL DISCLOSURE: I actually do believe in voting, but only as a means to keep things from getting even worse, or at least, to slightly postpone the inevitable slide into Libertarian Theocracy. Speaking of- how sweet is it that Rick Perry cut the fire dep’t by 75% and...