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BACK IN THE SWING OF THINGS How long has it been since I have cooked or baked anything? I arrive home from being gone for weeks upon weeks and the chocolate cake I baked just before I left is... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement; then it becomes a mistress, and then it becomes a master, and then a tyrant. – Winston... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
WASTELAND April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain. – T.S. Eliot, The Waste... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
HOOKED All of a sudden, going fishing wasn’t such an imposition. – Tim McGraw, Live Like You Were Dying Sofia. A tiny handful of a girl, maybe 6 or 7 years old,... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
San Francisco has only one drawback - ’tis hard to leave. – Rudyard Kipling A stroll around the old French Quarter of New Orleans, the weather as hot and steamy as the city’s... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
JUST A FEW ANNOUNCEMENTS On the heels of a fabulous IACP conference, I just wanted to pause to make a few announcements. An interlude. Things happen that excite, things happen that make one glow... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
JUST THE BEGINNING… Lights ! Camera ! Action ! I stared into the camera like a deer in the headlights, frozen and stunned yet knowing that I had to move. I tried to hold my gaze, stay... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
LEAVING ON A JET PLANE Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a part of experience. – Francis Bacon, Sr. “When are you leaving? In a week?” He... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
PASSOVER My parents were the model of discreetness. Social, well-known and very involved with our local synagogue, family mealtimes were nonetheless private affairs, the six of us finding... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
MELTDOWN Monday Monday, can't trust that day, Monday Monday, sometimes it just turns out that way Oh Monday morning, you gave me no warning of what was to be – The Mamas and The... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
Vanilla Bean Rum Custard-Filled Brioche Cake There are limits to self-indulgence, none to restraint. – Mahatma Ghandi That day of the month approached on little winged feet.... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
Les Petites Faiblesses (those pesky little human weaknesses) Mieux vaut déceler une faiblesse que se laisser soupçonner d'un vice. * - Denis Diderot, Jacques le fataliste et son maître, 1765 -... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
MY AMERICAN FOOD ROOTS AND A VERY FRENCH DISH For someone who was always hungry, I never paused between mouthfuls of steamed shrimp and wedges of Indian River oranges long enough to... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
MOMMY DEAREST Mothers are all slightly insane. – J.D. Salinger I remember when another mother of small children – this was quite a number of years ago when my babies were small... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
Darkness and Light A lonely person in the middle of a forest. – Henning Mankell in The return of the Dancing Master I stare into my own eyes, at my own face, skin... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
An Object of Desire Nature is by and large to be found out of doors, a location where, it cannot be argued, there are never enough comfortable chairs. – Fran... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
THE PERSNICKETY ONE EATS I had one of each. Our first son, Clem, was a mother’s dream: he ate everything. From the moment our paediatrician gave us the nod, allowing us to feed him petits... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
Valentine’s Day. Again. Love is the condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own. - Robert Heinlein Valentine’s Day. This evokes a great... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
HUMBLE BEGINNINGS The sky was dark and gloomy, the air was damp and raw, the streets were wet and sloppy. The smoke hung sluggishly above the chimney-tops as if it lacked the courage to... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
Writing … frees us from the mass identity we see in the making all around us. In the end, writers will write not to be outlaw heroes of some underculture but mainly to save themselves,... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
Many years ago, a July offered us a month of rainy days. Black and gloomy, no rest for the weary, rain day in, rain day out. Rain, incessant, insistent rain. Yet we awoke that fateful day, the 23rd... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A CITY The sun peeps over the horizon, grasse matinée, watching the sun rise from under the covers we begin our day. The sun rises a little... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
MUSICAL INTERLUDE Music for the eyes, my saunter through my market, a swing through the grocery store and tumbles of cauliflower, watery green enveloping creamy white; heaps of citrus in... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
A BAKING BABE A Babe in the house is a well-spring of pleasure, a messenger of peace and love, a resting place for innocence on earth, a link between angels and man. – Martin Fraquhar... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
TAGINE DE POULET AUX CITRONS CONFITS ET OLIVES Life is either a great adventure or nothing. – Helen Keller Some children are just born for adventure, have it in their blood,... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
IN THE BLEAK MIDWINTER In the bleak midwinter Frosty wind made moan, Earth stood hard as iron, Water like a stone; Snow had fallen, snow on snow, Snow on snow, In the bleak... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
GALETTE DES ROIS aux POMMES CARAMELIZÉES Lights off, the gray, silent afternoon seeps in through the curtains allowing me just enough illumination to slice and chop apple, the slick flesh... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
2012 to 2013 GRACEFULLY New Year’s eve is like every other night; there is no pause in the march of the universe, no breathless moment of silence among created things that the passage of another... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
A CHRISTMAS SURPRISE “What?!” my son exclaimed, his voice dripping with disbelief and just a hint of sarcasm. “Christmas? We’re celebrating Christmas? I don’t remember you guys doing anything... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
A HOLIDAY BREAD BAKING BUDDY Wishing all of my friends a Merry, Joyous, Peaceful Holiday Season. Thank you for the greatest gifts of all - your friendship, kindness, generosity,... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
IN THE BLEAK MIDWINTER If thou tastest a crust of bread, thou tastest all the stars and all the heavens. – Robert Browning My morning ritual begins with a mug of steaming... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
EVERYTHING IS CHANGED The emotional wounds from Friday’s massacre in Newtown are still raw, the passions still vivid and red hot. Everything is changed and we will never be the same. Those of... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
ANGER AND OUTRAGE I never talk about my political convictions on my blog although heaven knows they are strong enough, an integral part of my being. My blog, for the moment (and I stress this... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
AND LET THE FESTIVITIES BEGIN! There is probably a smell of roasted chestnuts and other good comfortable things all the time, for we are telling Winter Stories – Ghost Stories, or more... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
A BOOZY HOLIDAY SEASON That first spritz of orange, the citrusy scent blended with the warm scent of cinnamon and the house finally smells like the holidays. As a Florida girl who grew up a... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
SEASONAL TURBULENCE There are moments in life, when the heart is so full of emotion That if by chance it be shaken, or into its depths like a pebble Drops some careless word, it... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
CHESTNUTS ROASTING Come, woo me, woo me; for now I am in a holiday humor, and like enough to consent. - William Shakespeare I love the holidays. Halloween comes and goes... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
LES TABLES DE NANTES 2013 Le Créateur, en obligeant l’homme à manger pour vivre, l’y invite par appétit et l’en récompense par le plaisir. ** – Brillat-Savarin My husband... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
it seems that we are a long way removed from the discreet combinations of flavors, thought out at length, that were once the basis of French gourmandise. . . - Colette, Prisons et... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
BACK TO OUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED PROGRAMMING… A renovation. A move. An election. I have been wrapped up in all of the nerve-wracking, nail-biting excitement, bogged down with so much... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
AN APPLE (CAKE) A DAY… November grumbled in, arriving like a grouchy old man determined to spread his gloom and misery, gray and rainy, damp and cold. But this morning, one week in,... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
My, my. A body does get around. – William Faulkner, Light in August Giorgio has been with us since Italy. He has been through five moves with us now. My arms... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
WORLD BREAD DAY WITH THE BREAD BAKING BABES & BUDDIES That's the thing about girls. Every time they do something pretty... you fall half in love with them, and then you never know where the... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
DÉJÀ-VU ALL OVER AGAIN - Yogi Berra I would say to housewives, be not daunted by one failure, nor by twenty. Resolve that you will have good bread, and never cease striving after this result... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
MINI TREATS & HAND-HELD SWEETS (a review) A bottle of half-drunk wine sits on a rumpled, faded tablecloth on the coffee table in front of the darkened television set, silent remnants of... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
SOMETIMES YOU FEEL LIKE A NUT…. OR A SEED OR A GRAIN The entire population of Nantes must spend Saturdays at Ikea. We show up at 9:30 a.m. sharp as the doors open, and already we are... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
AMERICANA Chicken salad has a certain glamour about it. Like the little black dress, it is chic and adaptable anywhere. - Laurie Colwin, Home Cooking, 1988 Chicken... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
YAWN “When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last, "what's the first thing you say to yourself?" "What's for breakfast?" said Pooh. "What do you say,... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness because it shows me the stars. – Og Mandino Silence in the night; no bedroom door flung... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
LET’S DRINK TO…. FRIDAY COCKTAIL Do not cease to drink beer, to eat, to intoxicate thyself, to make love, and to celebrate the good days. – Egyptian proverb There is... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]
