One of the best things about warmer weather is simpler cuisine. The produce in our local grocery stores looking better by the week, and soon our favorite farm stand will overflow with beautiful local lettuces and vegetables. By the time summer arrives we'll be making dinners of fresh corn on the cob, tomato slices, spicy … Continue reading Food Story: Falafel I Have Known
Author: Deb German
Artifact Story: Found Objects
I stood in my friend Jane’s big, open kitchen in Knoxville one morning nearly a decade ago gazing upward at a particular skylight over the adjacent living area. Several other friends stood there with me, our hands on our hips and our brows furrowed, trying to get a better look. A moment earlier one of … Continue reading Artifact Story: Found Objects
The Stories Our Scars Tell
What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, goes the saying. When my kiddo was only a peanut he took a bad spill in the foyer of our Knoxville home and landed face first on an unforgiving surface. His cheek met the pointy corner of a single step leading from the foyer into the kitchen of … Continue reading The Stories Our Scars Tell
Sunday Photo Essay: Human Nature
Listening to one of my favorite radio shows not long ago I was gobsmacked by this notion: we often think of nature as separate from us, a thing we must protect, else destroy. But the truth is, we humans are also part of nature, and not separate from it. I latched onto that notion right away, because … Continue reading Sunday Photo Essay: Human Nature
Family Story: It’s in the DNA
‘We don’t hide crazy,’ I said. ‘We put it on the porch and let it entertain the neighbors.’—Nick Wilgus Surely you’ve seen some iteration of that quote in the context of how ‘crazy’ is handled way down South. The gist is, any self-respecting Southern family is not ashamed of the crazy aunt or the second … Continue reading Family Story: It’s in the DNA
Writing Story: A School Is a Place to Learn
The Episcopal School of Knoxville will turn 20 this coming fall, inconceivably. My 20-something kid was a kindergartner in its inaugural year, 1998. This matters to me mainly because it’s a school my ex and I founded, together with a few other families, the culmination of a mammoth effort that was about five or so … Continue reading Writing Story: A School Is a Place to Learn
Dog Story: The Quiet Intelligence of a Little Lab-ish
You're getting too big for your britches. —Mom And so it goes with Scout-the-Lab-ish, who snapped at David-the-Chef a few nights ago, after David got up in the middle of the night and returned to bed and found a dog where there had been a chef-sized space only moments earlier. David attempted to gently scooch … Continue reading Dog Story: The Quiet Intelligence of a Little Lab-ish
Equivocating My Way Through Life
When your mom is a ballerina, and other members of your family’s network—friends and other relatives—are involved in ballet or other performing arts, people expect you will go down that road, too: it’s only natural. My earliest memories are attached to ballet mainly, and they are powerful and sensorial: I can’t smell rosin or walk … Continue reading Equivocating My Way Through Life
Sunday Vignette: Scout Informs the Neighbor Woman
A two-story house abuts the line separating it from our property. Covered in asphalt shingle siding, it is an early structure, you can tell, nineteenth century at least. An educated guess says there’s clapboard under the asphalt, and the door on the other side, the front, has a pleasing curvilinear shape to it, double arches … Continue reading Sunday Vignette: Scout Informs the Neighbor Woman
In Like a Lion: Vermontish Running Habits
March is indeed stomping in like a lion this year. But two weeks ago, for two consecutive days, it was warm enough for shirt sleeves. We broke records. Same thing last week, though not quite as warm. Out came the running shoes, and the long leash, and the water bowl for the car. About this … Continue reading In Like a Lion: Vermontish Running Habits
Sycamore Stories 