November 27th, 2023 | Cooking, Kitchen and Table, Family, General, Holidays
One waits and knows they’re coming. The holidays. Thanksgiving and then Christmas. Hew to the old rituals or devise new ones? Or maybe just ignore the events altogether? Thanksgiving Thanksgiving is an excuse to eat good food and too much of it. Once upon a time, it...
October 22nd, 2023 | Cooking, Kitchen and Table, Europe, General, Loss, Memory, Time Passes, Travel
Vilnius—in fact, all of Lithuania—is a constant experience of déjà vu. Or perhaps more accurately, jau matytas. Every day seemed a trip down Memory Lane. October 6 I hadn’t planned to be ensconced in my room at Bookinn B&B by that day, but I had fled the pas...
July 29th, 2023 | Cooking, Kitchen and Table, Family, Friends, General, Loss
I had been putting off serious thought about the menu for Dan’s memorial this coming Saturday, now exactly one week off. Putting together a video and assembling a play list had been a diversion. I worried, moreover, that if I didn’t get it started, I might have...
July 19th, 2023 | Cooking, Kitchen and Table, Family, General, Matters of the Spirit, Memory
Well, technically they’re his and not mine, but they are all I have. Anyway, I’ve had the full experience from diapers through adolescence to adulthood. An Old Joke There is an old joke I told students to explain why young artists reject the styles and aesthetic...
July 6th, 2023 | Cooking, Kitchen and Table, Family, General, Shopping
Dining has changed from a social activity to little more than a chore. Granted, Dan’s appetite faltered considerably over the past year or two. As Covid threw a pall over all our lives, I had taken over food shopping as a defensive posture. Dan’s increasing fragility...
April 2nd, 2023 | Cooking, Kitchen and Table, General
“You are so brave!” The woman next in line at the Wegmans looked gobsmacked. I smiled at her as the fella behind the fish counter weighed and wrapped the fillets I had chosen. Did she find the idea of eating something called “snakehead” gross? Or was it a matter of...