Over the weekend I made a chicken dish with bone on thighs, backs attached.  It was $0.89 a pound so I purchased fifteen pieces.  After I tried to brown the first five pieces the skin fell apart so I removed the skin from the remaining ten pieces.  It was a decent pile of skin and I hate to waste anything so I decided to render the chicken skins to get chicken fat.  The process is simple: put the skins and trimmed fat in a pot on as low as it …

At our house I try and make everything myself, and that includes luncheon meat.  I prefer to roast large pieces of beef and pork with a heavily applied dry rub.  Cooking at 300F in the oven or the barbeque, even better the Big Green Egg, and you can expect about 20% weight loss after cooking.  So a five pound roast at $2 per pound becomes four pounds of sliced meat at $2.50 per pound; a whole lot better than the deli counter.

Above is a pork loin with a dry rub …

I attended the full first day of Wizard World, roaming the floor from 4:00 – 9:00 PM.  The exhibit hall was significantly smaller than last year and it seemed a better fit, less cavernous.
During my initial pre-show walk around I discovered an alarming dearth of retailers: at best it was five comic resellers set up.  Really only Wes Hagan had items of interest to me: he had purchased a large magazine collection that had a lot of varied material, covering every comics related magazine …

Originally published at Comic Book Daily under my Bound Together column.
The title says it all.  Fables: Covers By James Jean is a 9×12″ hardcover collection of James Jean’s covers of seventy-four monthly issues, ten trade paperbacks, one on-shot and one graphic novel.  If you enjoy Jean’s work then pick up this book.  Nuff said.

Wait a minute, that sums it up but it’s the details and package that make this a stand out volume not only because of the content but the way it’s delivered.  Let’s start …