Well, It's mid-March, the end of spring break here. On cue, daffodils and redbuds and Japanese magnolias are showing off. Bernard and our daughter are on the way home from Santa Fe ("epic powder skiing"), and the boy and I have mostly recovered from our trip to New Orleans and the saddest funeral I've ever … Continue reading A few things: March 2019
The impetus for the experiment was a note from my friend Frank, who will be surprised, I suspect, by this news, mostly because he sent the note more than two years ago, but also because he will be generally surprised (though, I hope, not annoyed) to find himself mentioned here. Frank lives mostly on the … Continue reading The good earth.
These are things I dislike: Pork rinds Rigid ideology The smell of fish sauce Waking up early Rachel Ray cookbooks Donna Tartt novels It isn't a comprehensive list, just a few current, top-of-mind thoughts. I include them here in case you're thinking of leaving, in case one of your New Year's resolutions is to declutter … Continue reading Field particles.
Whether or not you're the resolution-making sort of person, it's possible that somewhere in your mind is the idea that 2015 will be the year you get a grip on cooking dinner. Family dinner was my pledge to myself (not a resolution but a decision born of necessity, I assure you) in January 2013 when … Continue reading Want to start cooking? Start cooking!
I have never been particularly good about making resolutions, and even less good about keeping them. In my 20s if I made a resolution at all it was something like "this is the year I'll figure out what I want to be when I grow up," a resolution that never worked out the way I … Continue reading Goodnight, gorilla.
Because it will never get old for me, and because maybe you'll feel the same way, and because my daughter is exiting the Santa years, and because - this most of all - we could all always use a bit of love and magic, today I offer a repeat posting of Martha Brockenbrough's great letter … Continue reading Finding Santa.
The first Christmas we were together in Memphis, before we were married, before we had children, Bernard gave my mother a puppet named Book Worm that he purchased from a local bookstore. Book Worm was a green velvet - well, book, with a place to put your finger in the underside so when you opened … Continue reading The book tree.
Few chores accentuate the Groundhog Day aspects of life as well as cooking and kitchen cleaning. Boil, serve, eat. Tidy, scrub, sweep. Bask in the shiny kitchen millisecond, and then - BAM - do it all over again. Lather, rinse, repeat. We Westerners place high priority on good habits and consistent routines. We start the … Continue reading Lather, rinse, repeat.
