The sequel to The Darkness Outside of Us. I enjoyed it! It's both interestingly different from the first book and is satisfying on the level of "I want more of this," which is exactly what one wants from a sequel.
Literally everything about this book is massively spoilery for the first one, including its premise. I'll do two sets of spoiler cuts, one for the premise and one for the whole book.
Comics Curmudgeon readers! Do you love this blog and yearn for a novel written by its creator? Well, good news: Josh Fruhlinger's The Enthusiast is that novel! It's even about newspaper comic strips, partly. Check it out!
Family Circus, 1/27/26
Look, we’re pretty mean to Jeffy on this website, and for obvious reasons: he’s pretty stupid, he’s very annoying, etc. Sometimes, though, we lose sight of the fact that he’s three years old, and those are in fact qualities that most three-year-olds share, so maybe we shouldn’t be so hard on him. On the other hand, he’s extremely smug. Look at that face! What have you got to be so proud of, kid? The finger thing? It doesn’t even make sense. It’s just not something you should feel good about saying. We definitely don’t feel good about hearing it.
Mary Worth, 1/27/26
Oh wow. That “go on” says volumes. This whole parrot business has been an excuse to force Ian into a struggle session about his many shortcomings. Additional parrots will be introduced into the situation until Ian’s mind is completely shattered and Toby can begin the long process of building him back up as someone who’s vaguely bearable to live with.
Blondie, 1/27/26
“I routinely suffer physical abuse that no worker should be forced to bear in a free society! Don’t you read this strip?”
Curtis, 1/27/26
That’s right, Curtis! You’ve killed your beloved! Now you must live with the guilt and shame … forever.
"Banks and brokerage firms hold a fiduciary responsibility to protect their customers, including from scams." — Carter Pape, American Banker, 11 Aug. 2025
Did you know?
Fiduciary relationships are often of the financial variety, but the word fiduciary does not, in and of itself, suggest pecuniary ("money-related") matters. Rather, fiduciary applies to any situation in which one person justifiably places confidence and trust in someone else, and seeks that person's help or advice in some matter. The attorney-client relationship is a fiduciary one, for example, because the client trusts the attorney to act in the best interest of the client at all times. Fiduciary can also be used as a noun referring to the person who acts in a fiduciary capacity, and fiduciarily or fiducially can be called upon if you are in need of an adverb. The words are all faithful to their origin: Latin fīdere, which means "to trust."
Mailing our census form back to the city turned out to be slightly more of a Shackletonian trek than I had prepared for, not because I had failed to notice the maze of sidewalks and driveways tunneled out of the snow-walls on our street or the thick-flocked snowfall that had restarted around sunset, but because I had expected some neighbor to have snowblown or at least shoveled the block with the post box on it. It stood amid magnificent, inviolate drifts. I waded. At 18 °F and wind chill, my hands effectively quit on me within five minutes, but even between their numbness and my camera's increasing preference not to, I did manage to take a couple of pictures I liked.
It is a sign of how badly the last three years in particular have accordioned into one another that my reaction to discovering last year's new album from Brivele was the pleased surprise that it followed so soon on their latest EP. I am intrigued that they cover the Young'uns' "Cable Street" (2017), which has for obvious reasons been on my mind.
I can find no further details on the secretary from the North Midlands who appears in the second half of this clip from This Week: Lesbians (1965), but if there was any justice in the universe the studio should have been besieged with letters from interested women, because in explaining the problems of dating, she's a complete delight. "Well, that's the difficulty. In a way, it means that I have to keep making friends with people because I can't find out unless I make friends with them and then if they are lesbian, there's hope for me, but even then there isn't hope unless they happen to take to me!"
If you haven’t started making your own Homemade Hummus, you’re totally missing out. It only takes about five minutes, you can adjust the taste to be juuuuuust the way you like it, and you can make a different flavor every week so that it never gets old! I promise, once you make your first batch of homemade hummus, you’ll never go back to store bought.
“Delicious and so dang easy! I’m kicking myself for not trying this recipe sooner. Like YEARS sooner. Still, better late to the party than never, I guess. ;-)”
Jooblie
A Homemade Dip That Beats the Deli Section
Hummus is a classic Middle Eastern chickpea dip (or spread) made with a handful of really simple ingredients. It’s something I used to just grab at the store without thinking twice, until I realized I can make it at home in the time it takes to find the lid to my food processor!
At its most basic, hummus is made with chickpeas, tahini, olive oil, garlic, and lemon juice. There are a million different things you can add to hummus, and I have posted my basic recipe below, plus add-ins for three flavor variations (jalapeño cilantro, roasted red pepper, and parsley scallion). I’ve also garnished my “original” flavor with a drizzle of olive oil, a sprinkle of paprika, and a few whole chickpeas. All of that is completely optional, but it does make the bowl feel extra fancy.
Recipe Success Tips
I strongly advise against substituting tahini in hummus. While many people substitute either peanut butter or almond butter for the tahini, they have very different flavors from tahini, and this will definitely change the final flavor of your hummus. To get that true authentic hummus flavor, you definitely need to use tahini.
I suggest using a food processor to make your hummus. You can make homemade hummus with some of the more powerful blenders available on the market (like Blentec or Vitamix), but it might be too thick for many blenders to handle. If you’re using a blender, add a splash of chickpea liquid from the can to help it blend, and adjust the added salt. Water will also work.
Taste, then tweak. I always do a final taste and add a pinch more salt, cumin, or an extra squeeze of lemon as needed. Add more or less of any ingredient to suit your tastes.
Budget-saving tip: Dried chickpeas are usually cheaper per serving than canned chickpeas, but they need to be prepped first! Soak ¾ cup dried chickpeas overnight in plenty of water, then drain and rinse well. Simmer in fresh water for 60-90 minutes, until tender (you should be able to squish one easily between your fingers). If your chickpeas are older, they may need up to 2 hours. For extra creamy hummus, you can rub off the skins (optional). This should give you 1.75-2 cups cooked chickpeas for this recipe.
Roasted Red Pepper Variation (Total: $0.64 serving)
2whole roasted red peppersfrom jar, (drained) $1.19
base recipe$2.64
Parsley Scallion Variation (Total: $0.57 serving)
4green onions$0.48
¼bunchItalian flat leaf parsley$0.27
base recipe$2.64
Instructions
Base Recipe Instructions
Drain the chickpeas. Place the drained chickpeas in a food processor along with the olive oil, lemon juice, tahini, garlic, salt, and cumin.
Pulse the mixture until it is fairly smooth. If the mixture is too dry to process smoothly, add a couple tablespoons of water, extra olive oil, or liquid from the canned chickpeas.
Taste the hummus and adjust the salt, cumin, lemon, or garlic to your liking. Serve and enjoy! Or use the full batch of hummus to make one of the variations below by adding it to the food processor with the variation ingredients.
Cilantro Jalapeño Variation Instructions
Remove the stem and seeds from the jalapeño. Add the jalapeño to your food processor with the cilantro and a full batch of the base recipe.
Process until smooth. Enjoy!
Roasted Red Pepper Variation Instructions
Add the roasted red peppers (drained) to the food processor with a full batch of the base recipe.
Process until smooth. Enjoy!
Parsley Scallion Variation Instructions
Thinly slice the green onions and remove the stems from the parsley. Add the green onions and parsley to the food processor with a full batch of the base recipe.
*About 1.75-2 cups cooked chickpeas.**Tahini is like peanut butter but made with sesame seeds instead of peanuts, and it has a very different flavor. A flavor which is critical, IMHO, to getting an authentic hummus. Tahini has a slightly nutty, slightly bitter flavor that is totally unique. You can find tahini in grocery stores either near the peanut butter, near Mediterranean ingredients like olives and artichokes, or in the natural foods aisle.***Try using roasted garlic instead of fresh for a more mellow flavor.
Gather all of your ingredients. I’ve included the ingredients for all four flavor variations in this photo, but you only need the canned chickpeas, olive oil, lemon juice, tahini, garlic, salt, and cumin to make the base recipe.
Add to food processor: Drain one 15 oz. can chickpeas and add them to a food processor along with 2 Tbsp olive oil, ¼ cup lemon juice, ¼ cup tahini, 1 clove of garlic, ½ tsp salt, and ¼ tsp ground cumin.
Combine: Pulse the ingredients until they become smooth. If the mixture is too dry to properly purée, add a couple tablespoons of water, olive oil, or even the drained juice from the canned chickpeas.
Season and serve: Taste the hummus and adjust the salt, lemon, garlic, or cumin to your liking. And that’s it! That’s all it takes. You can garnish with a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkle of sumac or paprika.
Jalapeño Cilantro Hummus
To make Jalapeño Cilantro Hummus: Remove the stem from one jalapeño, slice it lengthwise, and scrape out the seeds with a spoon.
Add the seeded jalapeño and ⅓ bunch of fresh cilantro leaves to the food processor with your basic hummus and process until smooth. This one tastes great with a little extra cumin! You can also try roasting the jalapeños in the oven until soft and blistered for a more subtle flavor (don’t forget to remove the seeds).
Roasted Red Pepper Hummus
To make Roasted Red Pepper hummus: Simply add one to two whole roasted red peppers (from a jar) to a batch of plain homemade hummus and process until smooth.
Make sure most of the liquid from the jar is drained from the pepper before adding it to the processor to avoid thinning out the texture too much. This one tastes great with a little smoked paprika added to the mix!
Parsley Scallion Hummus
To make Parsley Scallion Hummus: Thinly slice 4 green onions and pull about ½ bunch of parsley leaves from their stems. Add the parsley and scallions to a food processor with a batch of the plain base recipe and process until smooth.
This dip is great with vegetables, as a sandwich spread, or even as a vegan pasta sauce!
What is your favorite flavor of hummus? Let me know in the comments!
Serving Suggestions
I love keeping a tub of homemade hummus in the fridge because it’s an instant snack for when I’m hungry but don’t want to cook. I usually toast some pita bread and use that for dipping. And if I’ve got some naan around, that’s a whole different kind of treat, especially warmed up for a minute so it’s nice and steamy. You also can’t go wrong with crunchy veggies (cucumbers, bell peppers, carrots), and I’m also a big fan of air-fried tortilla chips.
But don’t sleep on hummus as a spread. It’s rich and creamy and adds moisture, so I use it as a swap for mayo all the time in sandwiches and wraps. I also like adding a spoonful to scrambled eggs (it makes them taste extra rich), or using it as the “sauce” base for loaded flatbreads or quick pizzas with veggies on top.
Storage Instructions
In the fridge, homemade hummus will stay good for about 3-5 days in an airtight container. Since it doesn’t have preservatives like some store-bought versions, I try to only make what I know we’ll actually snack on in that timeframe.
And yes, you can freeze homemade hummus! Freeze it in a freezer-safe container (I like smaller portions) for up to 2–3 months. Thaw it overnight in the fridge, then give it a really good stir. The texture can be a little less creamy and separated after freezing, but a drizzle of olive oil and a quick stir brings it back to life. If it still feels a little dry, a tiny splash of lemon juice works too, but I usually reach for olive oil first so it doesn’t end up overly lemony.
Comics Curmudgeon readers! Do you love this blog and yearn for a novel written by its creator? Well, good news: Josh Fruhlinger's The Enthusiast is that novel! It's even about newspaper comic strips, partly. Check it out!
Wizard of Id, 1/26/26
I guess a running bit in the Wizard of Id now is that the titular wizard is encountering aspects of contemporary life one by one and commenting on them as an outsider, and, look, I’ll allow it if all we get is some mildly corny jokes about emo, but I have to draw the line at “the Wizard sees women wearing much more revealing outfits than he’s used to in his culture and gets horny about it.”
Rex Morgan, M.D., 1/26/26
Oh, man, it’s gonna be Buck, right? June’s going to get Buck, the soap opera comics’ biggest drip, who doesn’t have much going on beyond scouring Etsy for dumb nostalgic bullshit, to “cover” for her in terms of providing Rex with emotional reassurance? This is gonna be great. Rex is going to open his newly healed eyes only to lunge for the nearest scalpel so he can gouge them out and never look Buck’s stupid face again.
Dick Tracy, 1/26/26
Being a one-off ancillary character in Dick Tracy seems like a mixed bag. On the one hand, they get to wear cool outfits and have sexy, drunken adventures! On the other, they tend to stumble upon horribly mangled corpses much more than you or I would.
Hi and Lois, 1/26/26
“Plus Marky Mark is out there drowning somewhere! It’s a win all around!”
The snow has built a slice of six or eight inches against the glass of my office window, like the honeycomb of an observation hive. Out in the street it looks twice that height not counting the drifts which have crusted where the sidewalks used to be and swamped at least one car and its forlorn antennae of windshield wipers. I would have enjoyed more of the snowglobe of the day without the return of the phantom detergent which spatch could smell even through the storm as soon as he turned up North Street, but I took a picture early on in the snowfall. None of the needles are visible any more.
I can't believe no one has ever written a crossover between Mavis Doriel Hay's Death on the Cherwell (1935) and Dorothy L. Sayers' Gaudy Night (1935). It must have been unspeakably awkward for Oxford to suffer two unrelated criminal investigations in separate women's colleges in the same year. Just as Sayers modeled her Shrewsbury College on Somerville, Hay fashioned her Persephone College after her own alma mater of St Hilda's and then inflicts on it the discovery of the body of the college bursar by the same quartet of students who were meeting that afternoon to hex the victim with no expectation of such immediate or spectacular results. They plunge into the business of detecting with the same gestalt enthusiasm, a fast-paced, fair-play, often very funny blend of detective and campus novel as their amateur sleuthing attracts the competitive interest of an equivalent circle of male students as well as the police and the resigned relatives who starred in the author's previous Murder Underground (1934). Every now and then an appropriately chthonic allusion surfaces from the winter damp hanging over the river which loops around Perse Island and its contested territory to which an Elizabethan curse may be attached, but it's not, thank God, dark academia; the ordinary kind can be lethal enough. With its female-forward cast and its touches of social issues in the humor, it would have made a terrific quota quickie. "Undergraduates, especially those in their first year, are not, of course, quite sane or quite adult. It is sometimes considered that they are not quite human."
It delights me deeply that my mother regards the young Mel Brooks, as pictured c. 1949 in a recent edition of the Globe, as a snack.
Current Music:Dry Cleaning, "Cruise Ship Designer"
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for January 26, 2026 is:
oaf • \OHF\ • noun
Oaf is used to refer to someone as big, clumsy, and slow-witted.
// The main character starts the movie as a tactless, bumbling oaf who is constantly causing offense to everyone around them, but eventually learns a valuable lesson about kindness and courtesy.
“Let me give you a rose. Well, just an imaginary rose. ‘What?’ ‘What’s the occasion?’ ‘What for?’ Because I want to participate in an act of kindness. ... It’s impossible, even for a blustering, clumsy oaf like me, to ignore the positive effects of a rose in hand.” — Anthony Campbell, The Advertiser-Gleam (Guntersville, Alabama), 24 Oct. 2025
Did you know?
In long-ago England, it was believed that elves sometimes secretly exchanged their babies for human babies—a belief that served as an explanation when parents found themselves with a baby that failed to meet expectations or desires: these parents believed that their real baby had been stolen by elves and that a changeling had been left in its place. The label for such a child was auf, or alfe, (meaning “an elf’s or a goblin’s child”), which was later altered to form our present-day oaf. Auf is likely from the Middle English alven or elven, meaning “elf” or “fairy.” Today, the word oaf is no longer associated with babies and is instead applied to anyone who appears especially unintelligent or graceless.
Comics Curmudgeon readers! Do you love this blog and yearn for a novel written by its creator? Well, good news: Josh Fruhlinger's The Enthusiast is that novel! It's even about newspaper comic strips, partly. Check it out!
The Phantom, 1/25/26
Hey, remember the Sunday Phantom storyline that started like eight months ago when a city kid visiting her Wambesi country relatives crossed a mysterious and ominous boundary known to local lore? Well, a lot happened after that, and I can’t remember what happened to that kid exactly, but it turns out there’s a weird Time Travel Zone where a World War II-era German plane just kept circling by over and over again and almost crashing before disappearing until our hero flew up there and rescued the American saboteur onboard and delivered him to a modern world that will no doubt baffle and horrify him, where he’s stuck forever. “Good luck, Major Bauer!” the Ghost Who Encounters Time Travel But Doesn’t Really Understand It said, before retiring to the Chronicle Chamber and writing an entry for his successors that says “Time travel, boy, I dunno.”
Rex Morgan, M.D., 1/25/26
Oh, man, oh man, Rex is going to be wheeled out of eye surgery whining about how he’s been inconvenienced and then find out his kid had to have his appendix out, and he’ll know he’s not allowed to want everyone to feel sorry for him but he’s still going to want everyone to feel sorry for him. He won’t complain but I predict we’re going to see levels of Rex Morgan Pissyface scientists previously believed to be impossible.
We have one non-negotiable rule at our dinner table: there must be something green on our plates! When time is tight, and I need a quick, affordable veggie side, this Air Fryer Broccoli is one of my tried-and-true favorites. It’s crisp on the edges, tender in the middle, and ready in minutes (no need to boil it first!). With a handful of pantry staples and an air fryer, you can turn a humble head of broccoli into a super-satisfying side dish that pairs with just about anything. This easy air fryer broccoli recipe proves that eating more vegetables doesn’t have to be complicated, expensive, or boring. You’re going to love it!
Easy Roasted Broccoli in the Air Fryer
The seasoning I use here is simple but so good. A little olive oil helps the edges of the broccoli crisp up and brown, and the garlic and onion powder keep it cozy and savory. But it’s the soy sauce that makes all the difference. It adds the best salty, umami flavor to the broccoli, and helps this simple veggie taste FAR from bland. If you love the crisp edges of oven roasted broccoli, you’ll get that same roasty flavor here, but it cooks in literally 6 minutes, and I don’t even have to turn the oven on!
Recipe Success Tips
Lay the florets in a single layer. Give them space and keep them mostly in one layer in the air fryer basket so hot air can circulate around each piece. I find the edges of the broccoli crisp up better and more evenly this way.
Work in batches if needed. If your air fryer basket is on the smaller side (or you’re doubling the recipe), cook the broccoli in batches, so it roasts instead of steaming. Overcrowding = softer broccoli and less browning.
Want it crispier? Add 1-2 minutes. Every air fryer runs a little differently. If you like more crunch, air fry the broccoli florets for up to 8 minutes total, checking near the end so they don’t burn. Smaller florets will brown faster.
Separate broccoli crowns into florets and toss with olive oil, soy sauce, garlic powder, and onion powder.
Add to air fryer basket, giving the florets some space between each other.
Air fry for 6 minutes total, stopping halfway through to shake the basket. If you want your broccoli a bit crispier, you can increase the time to 8 minutes.
*This recipe is written for fresh broccoli florets (no blanching needed). You can air fry frozen broccoli, but it will turn out softer, and the edges won’t crisp as much. To cook frozen florets: toss with the oil and seasonings, air fry at 400°F for about 10-12 minutes or until the edges begin to brown, and shake halfway through to re-coat everything in the seasonings. There’s no need to thaw the broccoli first.
how to make Air Fryer Broccoli step-by-step photos
Gather your ingredients and preheat your air fryer to 400℉.
Season the broccoli: Cut 1 lb. broccoli crowns into florets and toss them with 1 Tbsp olive oil, 1 tsp soy sauce, ¼ tsp garlic powder, and ¼ tsp onion powder until evenly coated.
Air fry the broccoli: Transfer the seasoned broccoli florets to the air fryer basket. Be sure to spread them out so they aren’t crowded. You may need to cook in batches depending on the size of your air fryer basket.
Air fry for 6 minutes, shaking the basket halfway through. For extra crispy edges, let it cook for up to 8 minutes.
Serve your air fried broccoli florets and enjoy!
Serving Suggestions
On busy weeknights, I’ll serve this air fried broccoli with a simple and hearty protein, like baked tofu or roasted chicken breasts. Something saucy like our creamy pork chops would also pair nicely. But if I’m being honest, my favorite move is turning this broccoli into a snack situation with a little dip lineup. Comeback sauce, ranch, honey mustard, garlic aioli, sweet chili sauce, or a quick mix of mayo and sriracha all work really well. I also love tossing leftovers into a bowl with whatever grains I have, or chopping the florets and folding them into a quick fried rice or noodle dish for lunch the next day.
Storage & Reheating
Let the broccoli cool completely, then store it in an airtight container in the fridge for 3-4 days. To reheat and bring back some of the crisp edge, pop it into the air fryer at 375°F for 2-4 minutes, shaking the basket once halfway through. You can also reheat it in the microwave for 30-60 seconds, but it will turn out softer this way!
It is always a beautiful day to yell at God, but while you are waiting to take a number for that extremely lengthy line, you might as well stand with Minnesota. Maine, too. I had thoughts about Stolpersteine and Fugitive Slave Acts, but in terms of coherent expression I spent most of my day reacting to the wave of something like scented detergent or dryer sheets that rolled out of the heating system around nine in the morning and stopped me sleeping or particularly breathing well.
I have been re-reading my second edition of Estel Eforgan's Leslie Howard: The Lost Actor (2010/13) which remains a wealth of otherwise inaccessible information with a close eye to the complex interplay of his biography and screen persona. I still disagree frequently with her criticism, but the detail of her research does things like offer a potential reconciliation between the family stories that Leslie was shell-shocked out of the First World War and the absence of his name from any records of active service in France: toward the end of his short stint as a second lieutenant with the Northamptonshire Yeomanry in the spring of 1916, his regiment was billeted with various divisions at Harponville, Ypres, and Arras, where it would have been possible to be officially non-combatant and still, in the immortal words of Frederic Manning, shelled to shit. Leslie himself never claimed to have seen combat, confiding in one of his broadcasts in 1940, "I am willing to let you figure out the degree of my senility by telling you that during most of the last war I was a very junior officer in a cavalry regiment. However, long before I got anywhere near the battlefront, everybody had settled down into trenches, and as horses are practically useless in trenches I found myself near Divisional Headquarters, pretty bored but pretty safe." His daughter records in her memoir A Quite Remarkable Father (1959) that his violent nightmares which could wake anyone within earshot were understood by his family to be connected to his war. She does not seem to have wondered the same about his self-admitted knack for dissociation or his rare but explosive losses of temper. Eforgan follows her in attributing his conviction of heart trouble to hypochondria; it occurred to me that pre-DSM, a person who regularly woke himself shouting and dreaded traveling alone, especially by train in case he shouted his fellow passengers awake with him, could be forgiven the common confusion of a panic for a heart attack. I found Leslie Ruth Dale-Harris née Howard through some cross-checks on Eforgan and the interstitial material contributed by Ronald Howard to Trivial Fond Records (1982) and her portrait of her father is fascinatingly the most fragile of the three, especially since much of what she regards affectionately as his eccentricities and his foibles looks very little out of the ordinary to me, e.g. a capacity for effortless, spellbinding charm right up until his social meter ran out and he had to leave his own party to fall asleep. A droll sense of humor on his own time, a steel-trap comfort with last-minute rewrites and improvisations, and he couldn't tell a formal joke to save his life without cracking himself up over it or lie without self-conscious same. Fifteen years after his death, his daughter still seems amazed that her famously disorganized father, the same nervous mess who had forgotten the ring at his own wedding and needed reminding of everything from call times to the necessity of food, a regular Menakhem-Mendl of the British film industry if she had just acknowledged his Jewishness—like his non-monogamy, it is elided with mid-century tact—threw himself so obstinately and intently into the war effort even when it ran him directly against the prejudices and proscriptions of the Ministry of Information and the BBC. He doesn't just start to look his age in the last years of his life, he looks recklessly burning himself to make his films and his broadcasts and his tours and his connections that Eforgan documents with the Free French and SOE. About a month into the Blitz, he noted with characteristic self-deprecation that after his London flat took a direct hit, "I decided to heed the exhortation of the popular song and 'get out of town'. In fact, I got out of town with a quite undignified haste, arguing to myself that one can prepare a film for production just as well in the country." He continued to travel weekly into London for work until his final tour for the British Council in 1943 and I don't know what he dreamed for any of it. R.I.P. ADH2*2, three cocktails put him literally on the floor.
I seem unable to think about movies except in this secondhand fashion, but I wrote another fill (AO3) for threesentenceficathon. This year it's a lot of noir.
“Her box braids were tied in a top bun that poked out of her green and gold headscarf... . Pretty as the braids were, he quietly missed the natural hair they protected. When unbound, her hair was a resplendent halo of vitality. But he knew the halo required a complex, labor-intensive morning and night routine for which she had lost patience.” — Karim Dimechkie, The Uproar: A Novel, 2025
Did you know?
Resplendent shares a root with splendid (meaning, among other things, “shining” or “brilliant”), splendent (“shining” or “glossy”), and splendor (“brightness” or “luster”). Each of these glowing terms gets its shine from the Latin verb splendēre (“to shine”). In the case of resplendent, the prefix re- added to splendēre formed the Latin resplendēre, meaning “to shine back.” Splendent, splendor, and resplendent were first used in English during the 15th century, but splendid didn’t light up our language until almost 200 years later; its earliest known use dates from the early 1600s.
Comics Curmudgeon readers! Do you love this blog and yearn for a novel written by its creator? Well, good news: Josh Fruhlinger's The Enthusiast is that novel! It's even about newspaper comic strips, partly. Check it out!
Gil Thorp, 1/24/26
So, Gil thinks that opinions and interests are determined by the qualities of a person’s “blood” — which is not a metaphor for genetic inheritance, because offspring can exhibit blood-carried qualities entirely different from that of their parents. Maybe these qualities change due to infections or injuries? Maybe if you watch enough movies, your blood cell counts shift in meaningful ways? Unclear but worthy of further study (let’s start draining the Thorp family’s blood and putting it into some centrifuges for analysis is what I’m saying).
Mother Goose and Grimm, 1/24/26
I guess when you have a comic strip where the main characters are a goose who seems to have the legal and social position of a person and a dog who seems to have the legal and social position of a pet, but they both talk and seem to be on the same level intellectually, is not a context where you should be asking questions about why those characters are present at specific times and places. I mean, why are they anywhere at all? Why do they exist? Why would a loving God allow any of this? But still: why are Mother Goose and Grimm in a pharaonic tomb, and why has Mother Goose allowed her pet/housemate/adopted son (he does call her “mom,” I always find that off-putting) to start chewing on the mummies? Do you two want to be prosecuted in Egyptian courts under the 1983 Law on the Protection of Antiquities, and its 2020 amendments? Because this is how you get prosecuted in Egyptian courts under the 1983 Law on the Protection of Antiquities, and its 2020 amendments.
Rex Morgan, M.D., 1/24/26
Oh, sorry, were you thinking Rex’s extremely routine eye surgery wasn’t enough medical action for you? Well, what if, at the same time as he’s undergoing extremely routine eye surgery, one of his kids … was barfing????? Who needs HBO’s The Pitt when you have a thrill ride like this!!!!
If you’ve got leftover chicken from another meal (or half a rotisserie you keep side-eyeing every time you open the fridge door), this post is for you. Below are 15 practical recipes that make leftover chicken feel like a brand new meal. I grouped them by style, so you can jump straight to what you’re craving: soup, salad, skillet dinner, casserole comfort, or something cheesy and snacky!
Cozy Soups Using Leftover Chicken
Soup is one of my favorite ways to make leftovers feel brand new. These cozy soups each work great with leftover cooked chicken and will also help reduce food waste in your kitchen!
This is the BEST easy Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup recipe. It's delicious and made from scratch, just like Grandma used to make!Step-by-step photos can be seen below the recipe card.
This chicken noodle soup is a classic for a reason! It’s made with wholesome ingredients on the stovetop, and it’s freezer-friendly, too. It starts with a basic onion-carrot-celery base and builds into a brothy, herby soup that tastes like you actually tried (even if your “secret ingredient” is leftover chicken). Pro tip: I recommend freezing it without the noodles if you’re picky about texture later.
This Chicken Pot Pie Soup is hearty, comforting and perfect for a busy weeknight meal. It’s simply cozy comfort food in a bowl!Step-by-step photos can be seen below the recipe card.
This chicken pot pie soup has all the cozy, creamy chicken pot pie vibes, but without dealing with a crust. The potatoes make it hearty, the frozen mixed veg keeps it easy, and the splash of cream at the end adds richness.
Chicken Salads
Leftover chicken makes salads instantly filling, and the best part is they each hold up well in the fridge for meal prep!
This one gives you those deli-style flavors at home—creamy, crunchy, a little sweet from the grapes, plus walnuts for extra bite. I always make this chicken salad for my dad when he comes to visit because it’s one thing I know he will actually eat. Pile it into a sandwich, scoop it with crackers, or just eat it straight from the bowl!
This light and fresh ramen noodle salad recipe features crisp cabbage, shredded chicken, crunchy ramen noodles, and an easy vinaigrette. Step-by-step photos can be seen below the recipe card.
Light, fresh, and deliciously crunchy, this ramen noodle salad is surprisingly filling for how simple it is. The crushed ramen noodles, cabbage, and almonds combo keeps it snappy, and the dressing is sweet, salty, and sesame-packed. It also holds up really well in the fridge, so you can eat leftovers for days (less cooking, more eating).
This chunky chopped Broccoli Cheddar Chicken Salad is a great fresh salad that can be eaten on its own or turned into several different easy lunch ideas!
This broccoli cheddar chicken salad is ready in about 15 minutes and super flexible; rotisserie chicken, grilled chicken, even canned chicken works. I also love that it’s a salad you can serve in a bunch of ways! Wrap it up, stuff it in a pita, or turn it into a melty quesadilla-style dish in a skillet.
Quick & Easy Skillets
These are the “I need dinner, and I need it to happen ASAP” recipes. Especially good when you’ve got leftover cooked chicken and not a lot of patience!
As long as you’ve got precooked chicken, this Southwest chicken skillet is about 30 minutes away from being done. Rice cooks right in the skillet with salsa, broth, beans, and spices, then you melt cheese on top! So simple and easy.
Our Monterey chicken skillet is brimming with tomatoes and green chiles, BBQ sauce, cheese, and bacon. There’s so much going on that you never get a dull bite! Just big flavor the whole way through. We turned this one into a pasta dish because chicken, bacon, and cheese aren’t exactly cheap, so stretching it with pasta just makes sense.
Cozy Casseroles
Casseroles are THE ultimate midweek dinner option. They feed a bunch of people, warm everyone up, and pack my fridge with leftovers I already know my family will eat. These are the ones that feel especially comforting and use up leftover chicken. See our other casserole recipes for those days you don’t feel like chicken!
This White Chicken Lasagna blows traditional lasagna out of the water! With a creamy white sauce, shredded chicken, and spinach, it's too good to resist.
White chicken lasagna swaps classic tomato sauce for an easy white sauce made with heavy cream, mozzarella, Parmesan, and baby spinach. And let me tell you, it doesn’t disappoint. It’s creamy, cozy, and the spinach makes it feel (slightly) virtuous. 😉
A classic Texan casserole moment! This King Ranch chicken casserole has layers of chicken, tortillas, cheese, and a rich creamy gravy. A lot of versions use canned condensed soups, but we don’t really use that shortcut here. This one is made from-scratch with a quick homemade creamy chicken gravy instead.
Tex-Mex Leftover Favorites
Leftover chicken and easy Tex-Mex dinners are a match made in heaven! These leftover chicken recipes are melty, saucy, scoopable, and (most importantly), easy to love.
Any pre-cooked chicken works here, which is exactly why these chicken quesadillas are such a budget-friendly win. The BBQ sauce adds a tangy, slightly sweet, saucy element that makes the filling extra craveable (I’m a Sweet Baby Ray’s person, but use whatever sauce you like).
This Chicken Enchiladas recipe uses shredded chicken, homemade enchilada sauce, and other simple ingredients to make a cheap and comforting family meal!Step-by-step photos can be seen below the recipe card.
These chicken enchiladas are cheesy and super weeknight-friendly. The homemade red enchilada sauce is the perfect finishing touch, in my opinion! It brings so much flavor, and it’s usually way cheaper than buying store-bought sauce.
A creamy, cheesy chicken filling inside toasted corn tortillas, smothered with a homemade sauce makes these green chile chicken enchiladas to die for!Step-by-step photos can be seen below the recipe card.
Even though the green chile sauce and filling are made from scratch, this recipe is surprisingly simple and really adaptable. I’d call these green chile chicken enchiladas “medium” spicy. The pepper jack and a little cayenne bring heat, and canned green chiles can vary a lot. If you’re spice-sensitive, it’s easy to dial down by using a milder cheese and skipping the cayenne.
These BBQ chicken burrito bowls stretch one chicken breast across four bowls, which feels like a small victory these days! And if you want to use something other than chicken, I’d swap in roasted sweet potato cubes, tempeh, extra black beans, or my BBQ tofu.
These chicken nachos are loaded with chicken, jalapeño, cilantro, green onions, avocado—but you can absolutely use whatever toppings you’ve got. My biggest tip is lining the pan with parchment or foil, so cleanup is basically nothing!
Don’t Throw Away the Carcass!
If you bought a rotisserie chicken or roasted a whole chicken, you’re sitting on bonus value. You can make an easy, delicious, nutrient packed chicken bone broth right at home!
This is the definition of low-effort, high-reward! Toss the carcass in a pot, add a handful of clean veggie scraps, cover with water, and let time do the work. As the broth simmers, the leftover bits (especially cartilage and connective tissue) break down and add body and depth, so the finished chicken broth tastes fuller and more “golden” than plain boxed stock!
On a theory, I believe, of sustaining me on literature, my parents very unexpectedly presented me with my own copy of Leslie Howard's Trivial Fond Records (ed. Ronald Howard, 1982), which seems to have shipped from the UK as if the international post just worked.
Well, here we are, the 29th of July, 1940. What have we done with all the years since 1918? Armistice night in Piccadilly Circus is so vivid in the memory, it seems like last Wednesday week. What did happen to all those years – and what have we done with them? It seems we are back where we began. Anyway, there it is on the calendar, July 1940, and this war has been on for eleven months. And I am in London speaking these words, and when I am finished talking to you I shall go out of this building, past sandbags and bayonets, into streets of medieval blackness. As I hunt for the two pin-points of light that represent a taxi it will be about two a.m. here, which is nine in the evening your time, and I shan't be able to resist a thought of the dazzling glare which at that moment is lighting the sky above New York's Great White Way. I daresay there isn't an Englishman alive who is more familiar than I with Broadway at nine o'clock on a summer's evening.
"The novel was already a favourite among literary critics but it's sure to garner wider, more mainstream appeal following the Booker Prize win." — Daisy Lester, The Independent (United Kingdom), 11 Nov. 2025
Did you know?
What do you call a building in which grain is stored? These days, English speakers are most likely to call it a granary, but there was a time when garner was also a good candidate. That noun made its way into the language in the 12th century (ultimately from Latin granum, "grain"); the verb garner followed three centuries later with a closely related meaning: "to gather into a granary." Today the verb has largely abandoned its agrarian roots—it usually means "to earn" or "to accumulate." Meanwhile the noun garner is rare in contemporary use. It's found mostly in older literary contexts, such as these lines from Sir Walter Scott's The Bride of Lammermoor: "Or, from the garner-door, on ether borne, / The chaff flies devious from the winnow'd corn."
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rachelmanija
![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
