My friend Maia (you should really read her bio) and I have started a new Tumblr blog called seaweedbutter, and in the first post yesterday, I pondered whether Wednesday’s lobster roll from Red’s Eats in Wiscasset, Maine,

was the ideal lobster roll—and whether it is heresy that I might prefer the Red Hook Lobster Pound roll at the Brooklyn Flea on Sundays.

On my way back from Camden PopTech office to the Portland, Maine “Jetport” last night, I stopped for pie in Moody’s Diner in Waldoboro. Again, it concerns me to go against the wisdom of fresh meringue, but how wonderful is meringue that weeps into the lemon filling below and beyond that, makes the crust soggy?

Very, I think. I’m inspired to experiment more with meringue, which could top more than pies. Some of you may remember the first kthread cooks episode with a lemon cupcake topped with toasted meringue; oh, the places we’ve been since January 2008, and the places before us!

A new kthread cooks episode is coming up soon. In the meantime, here’s how it all started (originally posted and with your hilarious comments here), with a kitchen blowtorch and sipping champagne in a can—

Meringue suggestions? Lobster roll opinions?

I’m reposting last November’s Thanksgiving family video, a remixed version of the Jackson Five’s “I Want You Back,” in honor of MJ’s death today.

Not that five white kids in wigs can do this justice (the song’s magic), but here we are, and so it goes:

Favorite song or memory?

Remember when I said there would be another (better) video than the one I posted before about the event with Knight Pulse, the community site I work on for Knight, and GOOD Magazine?

The event with the six community leaders in design, urban homesteading, neighborhood installations, community service, and storytelling in L.A. last month?

Voilà. (Also posted on the GOOD site, and more background in the GOOD recap.)

I watch this and smile—hope to be out that way again in early June and meet up with some of the lovely people in this video, including the wonderful Max Schorr of GOOD and my wise friend John, who attended the event to support this really interesting work—

Saturday morning at 12:01 a.m., my (invisible) plane touched down in Nashville and America/Americana Day III began.

Cava is always involved with America Day celebrations (see America Day I and America Day II), and a cork soon popped at the apartment; Stewart, John, Ben, Michael, and I toasted to the revelries ahead:

Then, there was Mothership Wit on draft at the Riverfront Tavern, and stellar huckleberry vodka that led to some of us not waking as gloriously as the tulips,

that waved near the Noshville diner, where Lady Liberty waited on the roof (you can see her in the distance above), whole pickles unnerved us on the table, and the server wanted to take part in America Day.

Stewart and I both ordered the ‘We Dare Ya’ breakfast, a dare we lost to pancakes the size of flying saucers,

and afterwards, we began incorporating all the elements of country music songs: reverence, wine, and Baby Jesus,

a nice day for (any kind of) a white wedding,

casually perplexing proposals (I found a large ring with a white stone that we needed to fold into the America Day narrative and Wonder Woman costume—so, this is the America Day where Wonder Woman becomes engaged to a hot Nashville musician).

Michael analyzed what Wonder Woman’s ideal wedding gown would look like in reference to cupcakes,

Ben disappeared to find coffee (which should be a country song),

new leaves heralded Spring,

and dogwoods bloomed in front of the Nashville Parthenon, where this scholarly group was bound.

I circled Stewart, John, and Ben with my Lariat of Truth,

before deciding to lasso a saxophone player instead,

and in this place of learning, we noted that really all of America rests upon what’s written on the bench:

We drove to East Nashville’s Hip Zipper vintage,

discovered I Dream of Weenie was closed and our weenery dreams were to be unfulfilled,

so we bought scratch tickets at a gas station and headed toward Cowboy fashion on Broadway.

As is America Day tradition, Ben met a bachelorette,

Stewart lit a cigarette (seriously, how gorgeous is my Facebook husband? Note the vehicle in the background) while John stood by in a very serious black cowboy hat,

Ben evaluated Michael’s boot choices,

I liked the boots I was wearing,

that prompted this wonderful Linda Carter story from a sales clerk.

We were welcomed in American Apparel,

where Ben Superman and Michael contemplated truly blue jeans,

though I liked the lettering on Hatch Print Shop posters more.

We five decided B. B. King’s was appropriately American, taking the long walk back to Section D,

extending the pickle motif with fried pickle chips and horseradish sauce along with Blues Brew.

I ordered a Porktato (yes, I take implicit menu dares as well, and I think a Tofutato would also be great),

before the boys gave each other direction in matching sweatbands,

and we headed out for an American dance party at Mad Donna’s,

with Michael reminding us that Girls Just Wanna Have Fun across the street at Lipstick Lounge,

and we suffered through terrible karaoke before returning to Riverfront Tavern in America Day stripes by Ryan (at left) and plaid (Matt, to the right of John).

Ben was reunited with his bachelorette,

and there was more of that lovely huckleberry vodka.

The next morning, we brunched in the sunlight at Mad Donna’s,

with Michael’s French toast swimming in double doses of syrup and caramel,

and Ben’s unusual, colorful Cap’n Crunchberry French toast serving as a metaphor for our merry Day encrusted with bright flecks of Americana.

As this fantastic four dropped me at the airport, I glanced back with love—I will meet them anywhere for next year’s America Day IV (Chicago? New York? Los Angeles? Where do you think?)—

and we do hope that those of you that couldn’t join us this year will rejoin us or experience the magic of America Day for the first time next year…

View the entire Flickr set with additional photos and videos here.

I don’t usually blog about work, but this is my favorite thing that I’ve done at Knight.

Image by Emily Lerman/LAist. I’m in the middle surrounded all of these wonderful leaders–missing from the picture is my co-conspirator at GOOD, Max Schorr.

Two weeks ago yesterday, I flew to L.A. for an event that GOOD Magazine partnered with Knight Pulse, the community site I work on for Knight Foundation, to produce, tapping six community leaders with projects working to improve the city through design, urban homesteading, neighborhood interventions, community service awareness, and rights to creative storytelling.

You can read more about the five projects in the GOOD blog post, in Emily Lerman’s LAist post (she also took the picture above, and my friend Andy Sternberg of LAist was also there), and in my friend John Jackson’s post, where he notes Natalie Portman was sitting in the front.

This is an experiment for Pulse (you know how I like crazy ideas), and each of these projects will convene a community event this spring. I took video of their presentations (better video from GOOD will be up soon, and I’ll link to it here, but for now):

And each of the projects in on Knight Pulse in the new GOOD Leaders section.

I wanted to share with you what excites me about media and community: events like the one in Los Angeles to announce these leaders, where a crowd of two hundred stayed for two hours to listen and ask questions and think about how to make this community stronger.

Congrats to Alissa (her post on the event), Eric, Sonja, Edgar, Erik and Kelly—