I am always hungry for Ireland and love all things Irish — the Pogues, U2 back when they didn’t take themselves so seriously, almost any Irish author, and I am fortunate beyond words to know Darina Allen and Tamasin Day-Lewis, two of Ireland’s culinary muses. Darina Allen who runs the splendid Ballymaloe Cookery School in…
The (Almond) Joy of (Home) Cooking
When from the distant past nothing remains, after the beings have died, after the things are destroyed and scattered, still, alone, more fragile, yet more vital, more insubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, the smell and taste of things remain poised a long time, like souls, ready to remind us, waiting and hoping for their moment,…
The Holiday Spirit – Wild Rice with Winter Greens, Lemon, Pine Nuts and Raisins
The drinking started at nine. A.M. The singing started around noon. Both continued for another twelve hours. Our neighbor and his friends assemble in his back yard almost every weekend, but last Saturday’s festivity was particularly impressive. It was as though they were in training for the holidays. There were no women in sight —…
Mushroom Risotto
Those of my ilk were once considered Pythagoreans, as in Pythagoras. Best known as ancient Greece’s math geek extraordinaire, Pythagoras was also into music and philosophy. It’s believed his own personal ethos abjured killing and eating animals, a practice followed by vegetarians for generations to come. The word vegetarian itself had to wait until the…
Nourishing Quinoa
You know, I’d been wondering if there’s something wrong with me. I haven’t been able to gain purchase on my life. I’ve had a month of being low of spirit, run down of bod, fuzzy of the brain, nothing at all fun. At first, I ignored it — denial has always been my favored coping…
Mon Petit Chou
The weekend a friend stopped breastfeeding, she and her husband celebrated by taking a cruise. They relaxed, they laughed, and because she could, they had a few drinks. All should have been well. But her breasts didn’t get the memo about not breastfeeding order and kept producing milk, as they will, thus becoming enormous and…
Obsessive Turkish Noodle Stew With Sesame
I remember a time when I was a little girl, riding in the car somewhere with my parents. The car, I believe, was a Dodge Dart, and it seemed to go on for a city block, This was before the days of confining car seats and I was in my own vast world of the…
Smashing Pumpkins
Here, in all its splendor, is this year’s Halloween jack o’lantern, a tradition my father and I have practiced, oh, for decades (and yet our skill set has scarcely improved). I’m so happy I took the picture because as solid as it was when we carved it and as formidable as it looked Halloween night,…
Nobody Here But Us Chickens
I was happy to see Susan Orlean had an article in a recent New Yorker. I had liked The Orchid Thief and The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup, but her New Yorker article showed me a side of Ms. Orlean I had not known — she is a liar. In “The It Bird,” Ms. Orlean chronicles…
Charmed, I’m Sure
I have always been a hard sell when it comes to magic. Back when I toggled my first loose baby tooth, my parents explained about the Tooth Fairy — your tooth falls out and the Tooth Fairy appears while you sleep, takes the tooth and pays you for it (your original Cash for Clunkers concept)….
