plucky parsley I was not absolutely sure I believed Chef David when he came inside from his run earlier today and announced last year's Italian parsley appears to have overwintered in our frozen Vermont soil, and is coming back. I'll be damned, I said a little later on in the afternoon when I crouched down … Continue reading Sunday Photo Essay: Hope Springs Eternal
Nostalgia
Fun with Dangerous Chemicals: Small Amounts Won’t Hurt You…
The second toe on my right foot has a bruised toenail. This is absolutely unnoteworthy, except this has happened for three consecutive years. The cycle goes like this. First there is a little bothersome pain, which inspires me to scrutinize my toe. It looks fine. And for the record, I keep my feet clean and … Continue reading Fun with Dangerous Chemicals: Small Amounts Won’t Hurt You…
Summer Gathering: A Memory
summer in Knoxville Let me tell you a story. It is a summer evening in Knoxville, Tennessee. The day has been hot, but the hottest part is over. It’s still sticky outside, though, and the cicadas are singing in the massive, centuries-old hardwoods all around the big house on the corner in this grand midtown … Continue reading Summer Gathering: A Memory
A Memory: Living Like the One Percent
The main condition for the design, we said to the contractor standing in our Knoxville back yard 15 years ago, is for the pool to look like it’s been here since the house was built, in 1926. Yes, he said, he thought he could do that. No vast expanse of boring white concrete pool deck, … Continue reading A Memory: Living Like the One Percent
Journal Entry: The Compulsion to Make Soup Continues
Blue Moon Soup. It makes me happy because it brings back so many memories of preparing food with my kiddo in our Knoxville kitchen. The book is not a child's cookbook per se, but a family cookbook. It's easy to add ingredients and seasonings to make the recipes a little more complex. But good soup … Continue reading Journal Entry: The Compulsion to Make Soup Continues
A Christmas Story: Holidays Are Hard
A few days ago something or other I saw on the telly prompted me to hop onto the web and find out who’s living in my erstwhile home in Tennessee now—whether it’s the same people who bought it at auction in 2012, mere moments before the bank would’ve foreclosed on it, as it turns out. … Continue reading A Christmas Story: Holidays Are Hard
Journal Entry: Confessions of a Christmas Control Freak
Is there any time better for derailing a self-proclaimed control freak than the holidays? I mean the Christmas holidays, and not the beachy summer vacation I’ve been coveting since we had our first cold snap, and forget about poetic hoary frost: I’m talking single digits, when the deck boards outside our back door explode as … Continue reading Journal Entry: Confessions of a Christmas Control Freak
Journal Entry: Sunday, Muddy Sunday
Yesterday Chef David made lefse, a traditional Norwegian flatbread. He comes by it honestly. And I can't resist it. While I was in the other room folding clothes he sailed in with a folded corner of it, steaming hot, butter dripping out of it and all over the floor, and crammed it into my mouth. … Continue reading Journal Entry: Sunday, Muddy Sunday
Nostalgic Story: High-Waisted Trousers and Sensible Boots
“This is better than Saks Fifth Avenue,” quipped the well-heeled older woman when the two of us bumped elbows examining rustic pottery mixing bowls and honey pots. One look at her and you could tell she’d seen the inside of Saks and probably others of its ilk, and many times. “Anyway,” she went on, “you … Continue reading Nostalgic Story: High-Waisted Trousers and Sensible Boots
Nostalgia and the Shipwrecked Mind: Righting the Boat
Every major social transformation leaves behind a fresh Eden that can serve as the object of somebody’s nostalgia. And the reactionaries of our time have discovered that nostalgia can be a powerful political motivator, perhaps even more powerful than hope. Hopes can be disappointed. Nostalgia is irrefutable.—Mark Lilla Should you doubt that bit of wisdom, … Continue reading Nostalgia and the Shipwrecked Mind: Righting the Boat
