Here you will find the remains of the FUSSYlittleBLOG. The only thing that might be surprising is that these words weren’t posted to this page sooner. No blog lives forever. Most just fade away. So let it be with the FLB. We had a good run. Thank you all for reading, sharing, and commenting over the years. I want to offer a special note of thanks for all of you who came out to any of the Fussy Little Tours. It was a pleasure to meet you face to face and eat with you around the Capital Region. As much as I appreciate all of those guest posts from the final days of the blog, I want anyone who ..read more

Happy New Year! Okay, maybe I’m a few weeks late. Converting the blog from a daily journal to something that’s updated only periodically isn’t quite as easy as I had hoped. I’m falling behind on a lot of stories and totally out of my rhythm. Thankfully, there are more guest bloggers than ever stepping up to help fill the gaps. So while I was fasting and praying for forgiveness, Greg was writing up his experience judging last weekend’s Schenectady Wing Walk. There are a lot of things I’m missing about life in the Capital Region. Friends. Friends are right up there. But after that, there are a t ..read more

Somewhere, deep in my distant memory, I recall what it’s like to cook. Despite my better efforts, over time, family dinners have taken a nosedive. Largely, that’s because the kids are growing up and their activities span more into the evening hours than ever before. Getting the entire family around the dinner table is now only possible four nights a week. Friday is shabbat, and we continue to observe our tradition of a rotisserie chicken, a loaf of challah, and some vegetable on the side. One night, we may have some variation on The Pasta of Infinite Blandness. One night is a dinner of conveni ..read more

Bread with butter is my favorite thing to eat. Sometimes hot from the oven. Sometimes toasted. But not all bread. And certainly not all butter. Perhaps one of these days, I’ll share a rant about the sorry state of butter in America. However, for the most part, it’s awful. It might be mysterious how we as a society have been able to drain all the flavor from luscious butterfat. But the more closely you look at our industrialized food system, the less mysterious it becomes. Bread shares a similar fate. Long time readers of the blog may remember the struggle I’ve had finding good bread, and my f ..read more

Did I mention there was a backlog? This is something that can happen when a daily blog converts into posting just two times a week after a longer than expected hiatus. Hopefully you remember Emily L. She’s been writing guest posts on the blog for several months, and today’s submission she sent in all the way back in July 17, after my final tour through downtown Albany. One of the reasons it took so long to share is that there was a factual error in the post. Emily and I talked about it in person, but let’s see if you can find it. I’ll let you know at the very end. The Albany Fish Fry by Emil ..read more

Correct me if I’m wrong, but there isn’t a single White Castle in the Capital Region. It’s not that the area is bereft of sliders. Over the years I became a big fan of Slidin’ Dirty, and if you recall, we had them cater my son’s bar mitzvah. Although once when passing through town, Jim Leff insightfully called out Slidin’ Dirty for selling gourmet mini burgers and not actual sliders. However, I’m not here to quibble about semantics. The year we were on sabbatical New Jersey, I was delighted to find it to be White Castle territory. However, despite my best intentions, I never made it into one o ..read more

Moving can be complicated. For those who were following the journey, we had a tree fall on our house and smash the windshield of our car. That involved filing an insurance claim, removing the tree, hiring roofers, and replacing the damaged garage door. Then there was a car accident that required the front end of the same car to be rebuilt. Oh yeah, and then the day before we moved, the car also required an unexpected brake job. Fortunately, things went more smoothly from that point out. Our first day on the road ended in Buffalo, where I got to enjoy two dinners in one night. There was beef on ..read more

Hello Ann Arbor! The FLB has been on vacation for far too long. It’s time to shake off the dust, and get back to the occasional business of writing about food on the Internet. For those who are still following from Upstate New York or other places around the world, Ann Arbor is the land of the University of Michigan. Almost everything here is colored maize and blue. The football team is the Wolverines. And “Go Blue” is the local battlecry. Even though I have spent precious little time in this city on the banks of the Huron River, I thought it might be fun to share some initial impressions. And ..read more

Well, we’re in the thick of it. The truck finally pulls out tomorrow. The car is almost fixed. The roof repairs are underway. A new garage door will be coming soon. And hopefully we’ll find someone to mow the lawn. It even looks like we’ve got takers for most of our old stuff. Did I tell you that a reader came and took away the chicken carcasses? Now we just need someone to buy the house. “Need” is a big word. Maybe we just keep a house in Albany. There are people who do the same thing in Manhattan but with apartments, when the rent is so cheap they can’t afford to walk away. Hey, maybe I ..read more

So much has happened this week. We’ve got roofers lined up, found someone to replace the garage door, brought the remaining car into the shop to be rebuilt, finalized arrangements with the moving company who will pack up the house, found movers to help us unload in Michigan, joined a reform congregation in Ann Arbor, and signed the kids up for religious school. Somehow, amidst all the chaos, I went over to Jon in Albany’s house for one last pizza feast. There’s some good pizza to be found in the Capital Region. I know because I’ve judged a lot of them with Jon in All Over Albany’s Tournament o ..read more