When my husband Peter ordered the fried tarantulas at Romdeng, a restaurant in Phnom Penh that specializes in traditional Khmer food, he was hoping that he wouldn’t notice he was eating spider.

I know that sounds delusional, but lots of fried foods bear little resemblance to their original ingredients. Think of popcorn shrimp. Or a corn dog. There was a chance that the spiders would arrive so coated in batter that their true arachnid nature would be camouflaged, nothing but a stomach-turning afterthought.

“I bet they’ll be dipped in tempura,” said Peter, as we waited for them to arrive.

“Like a zucchini fritter,” I said supportively.

But neither of us was convinced.

Peter and I had many adventures during our seven months on the road. One of them: eating deep fried tarantulas in Phnom Penh. I wrote about the experience for National Geographic’s Intelligent Travel blog.

As part of our transition between California and the east coast, my husband and I decided to take several months to travel the world. From volunteering on a French dairy farm to biking through the Baltic States to taking the Trans Siberian railroad to doing a homestay with Mongolian nomads, it’s been quite an adventure.  I’m trying to keep up with it all  here.

A quick post: I have an interview about 101 Places Not To See Before You Die on NPR’s Morning Edition today. For details, see here.

I’ve been meaning to start a daily mindfulness meditation practice for a long time, but thanks to this assignment from O, The Oprah Magazine, I actually started one. (And then got to participate in a full-day photo shoot that involved almost getting attacked by a bull.)

We’ve all had the experience of sensing time decelerate naturally when we’re not so thrilled about what we’re doing (think torturous spinning class or hour-long “synergy workshop” at the office). As my dear grandmother would have said, it takes only one colonoscopy to prove that time is relative. But what about the more enjoyable times in life? I hoped that practicing the popular and proven type of meditation called mindfulness—which focuses on bringing awareness to the present moment—might help me slow those times down as well.

I’ve got a small piece in Men’s Journal about the resurgence of small batch distillation. It’s called White Whiskey:

If the greater number and variety of local and regional spirits at your neighborhood liquor store have you tempted to call micro-distillation a cool new trend, you’d be half-right — it’s more of a comeback. Early Americans were masters at turning harvests into hard alcohol using corn, potatoes, grain, apples, grapes — almost anything they could get their hands on. Converting food to booze didn’t just preserve the value of perishable crops; it also created a rich repertoire of homemade liquors, from rye whiskey, vodka, and bourbon to applejack, peach brandy, and unaged fruit spirits known as eau-de-vie.

I also did a big package about the spine called “The Complete Guide To Your Back” — also for Men’s Journal — but I can’t find it online except for this mention. Suffice it to say that you usually don’t need surgery, and that if you’re really hurting, you can ease the pain by sampling some small batch spirits.

A sign rests on the windowsill in the office of Jeffrey Bluestone, director of the Immune Tolerance Network and the Diabetes Center at the University of California at San Francisco. Measuring nearly three feet across, it reads “Club Bluestone” in pink and blue neon. It’s the sort of artifact you’d expect to find in a bar. But Bluestone is a world-renowned immunobiologist; his father-in-law had the sign made for him in the late 1980s when Bluestone was working long hours in his lab at the University of Chicago. As the night wore on and their energy faded, he and his colleagues would turn out the lights, turn on the sign and, propelled by the power of Bruce Springsteen, push forward with their research. “It was our version of partying,” he says.

As you may already know, auto-immune diseases like Type 1 diabetes or multiple sclerosis occur when your immune system malfunctions and mistakes part of your own body for a foreign invader. In the case of Type 1, it’s when your body decides to kill off the cells that produce insulin, a hormone necessary to absorb the energy in your food. I think I speak for all Type 1 diabetics when I say that destroying these cells is not the body’s smartest move.

I was lucky enough to participate in a trial for a promising new drug — created by the aforementioned Jeffrey Bluestone — that attempted to stop my system from killing off the rest of my insulin-producing cells. What’s more, I recently got a chance to write about this drug — and others like it — for Popular Science. The article’s called “Rebooting the Body.” Here’s a link to a digital copy.

I also got a chance to speak about the piece on the New Hampshire Public Radio Show, Word of Mouth. You can listen to the interview here.

Last weekend I had the pleasure not just of attending a workshop about chocolate, but of writing about it for the New York Times.

Wearing a short-sleeve shirt embroidered with his name, Mr. Recchiuti, whose shop is in the Ferry Building Marketplace, looked more like a mechanic than a fine chocolatier — albeit one with cocoa powder on his hands instead of grease.

He greeted each of his 19 students with a spoonful of liquid chocolate and a white plate holding eight samples arranged like numbers on a clock, with a small bowl with two roasted cocoa beans and a pinch of chocolate-covered barley — a “taste project” — at the center. The students would taste single-origin varieties of chocolate from around the world, and watch Mr. Recchiuti transform chocolate into confections that presumably could be replicated at home.

It’s nearly 2010 and, guess what? I still have Type 1 diabetes. Sucks. So I’m writing about it — on a site called A Sweet Life.

My latest contributions:

-a review of Riva Greenberg’s 50 Diabetes Myths That Can Ruin Your Life — and the 50 Diabetes Truths That Can Save It

-a review and taste test of yacon powder, a would-be wonder tuber that’s supposed to be a great sugar substitute

-an interview with Yale professor and researcher (and Type 1 diabetic) Kevan Herold

And, lastly, a guest post on Six Until Me about how to cope with holiday food.

It’s that time of year again when I take a break from my career as freelance journalist and become Catherine Price, entrepreneur. By which I mean, I start promoting my legally themed clothing shop, Illegal Briefs, as the perfect one-stop holiday shop for all your dorky gifting needs. It began on a car ride with my husband, when he was telling me something about legal briefs and a boutique law firm and I, distracted, thought he was talking about underwear.  It’s now three years later, and what started as a misinterpreted conversation has evolved into a smorgasbord of gift options for irreverent lawyers and their friends.

“Harmless Error” baby clothes. “Request for Admission” thongs. “Justice is Served” cookware. “Tool of Discovery” boxers. I could go on — but to quote from one of my favorite product lines, “Res Ipsa Loquitur.”

Illegal Briefs: Be A Lawyer. Don’t Dress Like One.

I decided that it’s high time to connect my writing career with my life as a Type 1 diabetic. So I launched the Reluctant Diabetic, a blog that combines a personal account of what it’s like to live with Type 1 diabetes with news, information about research, and reviews of diabetes products — whether they be food, gadgets, books, clothing, or anything else geared toward making this disease a little easier to live with. These days, the blog is featured on the great new diabetes website A Sweet Life.