Sunday Trigger Warnings!

I'm cooking eggplant parmigiana today for company, so if you're offended by eggplants this is your official "trigger warning." If, for example, if the word "eggplant" triggers upsetting memories of Christopher Walken and Dennis Hopper's viciously racist extemporaneous scene in TRUE ROMANCE, or perhaps you still subscribe to the old English belief that eggplants cause insanity, then please, let me deeply and profoundly apologize in advance. I am trying to be more sensitive to the precious snowflakes who, upon hearing even the slightest dissenting viewpoint, seize up, fall on the ground and begin frothing at the mouth and shaking like Little Richard wired up to a hand-cranked generator.

Oh crap, now I need trigger warnings for making an unfortunate reference to people who may suffer seizures, other people who are drawn to or frightened by Little Richard and my insensitive reference to American torture at Abu Ghraib. And crap, if "crap" offends or frightens you. Man, this is hard!

Anyway, I'm planning on using a Mario Batali recipe (trigger warning — frightened by Italians), with some baked ziti on the side. And the Stinking Rose's bagna cauda roast garlic (trigger warning — for people who believe they are or might be vampires). I'll serve wine, and heaven knows who I'm offending with that!

After a week at the Cody Museum, I'm convinced that I actually need to shoot matchlocks and wheellocks, just to get a feel for what that must have been like. I've shot flintlocks and percussion guns, of course, but nothing farther back than a replica Kentucky rifle, if you don't count the hand gonne that set me on fire in England. That was entertaining. Wheellocks are fascinating beasties to me…clockwork guns.

By the way, I wanted to send a shout out to my friend Iain Harrison's RECOIL Magazine website, which is absolutely excellent, If it's not on your regular read list, it certainly should be!