With barely a week to go till I embark upon my picnic, I am not even halfway through the picnic-game alphabet. H is for ham sandwiches, and that seems to be about it. Ham sandwiches in my family have a very stringent pedigree. Since time immemorial, they were made on …
Two giant, daddy-hop-toad-sized frogs occupied a substantial portion of my plate this summer. Never mind a plate, they occupied a) a 7-foot tower of Ikea shelving and b) 39 cubic feet of air space respectively, in a storage space 8′ x 10′. And each frog weighed a half a metric …
As vaccines ripple across the nation, leaving happily tearful Americans bobbing in their wake, all the talk is of After Days. People ask, “What do you want to do most (when you can)?” Sometimes, they frame question as “Where do you want to go first?” For many, the answers go …
I had thought to write a diatribe tonight. Something to scour the smug smiles from the lips of senatorial Republicans, congressionally conspiring to ignore infamy. Three ideas kept me from such grim (if necessary) thoughts. Indeed, I first sought a winter poem to introduce tonight’s theme, of cold and snow …
I have had music and warmth on my mind this week. Not because life has been particularly full of either; if I’m honest, it’s been the usual February cold, damp and dreary. But because February 1 is my new year’s day, a day fit for optimism, I’m going to bring …
One of the best Christmas presents my Dad ever gave me was my very own subscription to Gourmet Magazine. Dad was a talented self-taught chef himself, storing stacks of Gourmets on the shelves that held his cookbooks. He was proud that I had shown a knack with a knife as …
Warm and cool. Spiky and smooth. The colors of rose petal and rose leaf. Coral, the slow-growing reef left by the tiny houses of sea creatures. Jade, the super-hard stone honored in China. It’s the symbol of good luck, good health, happiness, longevity, peace and wealth. (To say nothing of …
Weather will soon be changing here in Washington. For the moment, however, a high pressure system has lodged somewhere beneficial, bringing some late August scorchers. The pavement retains the heat until well after sunset; the roses in my garden responded by dropping most of their petals. I’m determined to walk …
Last night, I found myself on my first after-dinner walk in a decade, likely more. I’d skipped lunch entirely — a slice of Gouda and two water crackers don’t count — and wanted to eat a meal that often-times gives me indigestion no matter how much I enjoy it. What …
Here on the West Coast, specifically in the Pacific Northwest, the sun has finally set at 9:09pm on Independence Day 2019, and the neighborhood firecrackers are swinging into low gear. The cats, Ella and Tomkin, and I rather wish they wouldn’t: the cats because the snap-crackle-bang frightens them and me …
