May 9th, 2018 | Cooking, Kitchen and Table, Europe, General, Shopping, Travel
Apartment 1 in the Central Canal Apartments, Wildersgade, 15, in the Christianshavn neighborhood in Copenhagen is snug. No rugs for bugs and no room for much else. A rack accommodates clothes on hangers but stuff that would go into drawers must stay in suitcases. The...
May 8th, 2018 | Family, General, literature and poetry, Women
Y’know how it goes with social media. One thing leads to another and suddenly you are Facebook Friends with someone you haven’t seen or communicated with in forty-nine years. Elizabeth Gill joined the class of 1969 at Emma Willard School in Troy, New York, as an...
April 13th, 2018 | General, literature and poetry, visual arts
At the time I was about halfway through this wonderful book, my Dear One and I were watching an episode of Homeland, a political thriller starring Mandy Patinkin and Clare Danes. I’ll admit it—it’s the seventh season and we’re into it. At that particular moment (the...
April 9th, 2018 | Family, Friends, Gardens and Gardening, General, literature and poetry, Memory, Time Passes
I read Sy Montgomery’s Soul of an Octopus (2016) and it permanently decreased my options on the sushi menu. The Good Good Pig: The Extraordinary Life of Christopher Hogwood (Ballantine/Random House, 2006) may not permanently put me off pork, but it will make me...
April 7th, 2018 | Cooking, Kitchen and Table, General, Holidays, Shopping
What is it with making ordinary treats seasonal? I already went cuckoo when I nearly couldn’t find peppermint stick ice cream for my Christmas dinner menu—and I don’t see why the flavor should be available only from late November to late December. When I was a child...
April 2nd, 2018 | Gardens and Gardening, General, the world and Mother Nature
My maternal great-grandfather, Elwyn Greeley Preston Sr., established for his family a summer retreat on Squam Lake in Holderness, New Hampshire. He acquired several contiguous parcels of land on Mooney Point and filled in a number of marshy areas to create firm...