Drew Marshall on the Georges, Weird Al and belching. (Hmmmm)

On Saturday I spent about 15 minutes with Canadian radio host Drew Marshall, who talked about many things ... but mostly about my cookbook "Sunday Dinners."

If you'd like to listen to the interview, click here and scroll down to the text that's about my interview. There will be a download icon and it will tell you what to do. (right click, save as ...)

Drew's a funny guy and lead in with music from Weird Al Yankovic (sorry, I cannot explain the connection because there really isn't one) and then started talking about his mom's food and all of the wonderful dishes she made. The next day was, of course, Mother's Day, so this was focusing on moms, great family dinners and the famous pastors in my book.

He's now hungry for the Jakes family baking powder biscuits, George Foreman's berry nut salad and wants to know what it would like to be in a belching contest with any of them. Possible? Maybe. But not really probable.

Live like an otter ... well, sort of

One day last week when I was getting ready for work I looked out the window and saw otters playing on the pier. I live on a small lake in the Houston suburbs and we have plenty of wildlife: geese and ducks, herons and egrets, fish, turtles and the occasional stray cat. But otters? Never.

So it was really exciting to see four of them belly-flopping, diving and spiraling into the late from the pier and dock. I stood there in my thick furry bathrobe and grinned from ear to ear while watching them.

Here you can see three of the four otters.

When they left I was so disappointed. They brought a little fun to my life and then -- poof! -- it was gone. I suppose I could live vicariously through the otters in the photo, but it might be smarter to just inject a little bit of otter-dom to my life.

So it's a new year and it's time to have a little more fun. Do a belly flop (of some sort) when you feel like being silly. Dive in head first to take on your fears. Try a spiral dive now and then. 

For me, it means I'll try new things, stress less about work and devote more time to taking care of mind body and soul. 

Not sure what will happen next, but I'm thinking that living more like an otter is going to feel great.