Photo Credit to Gail Park
Views From My Eighties
Love, Food, and Life!
AllA View from My Seventies13Aging Ain’t for Sissies11Around and About10Becoming My Own Best Self14From the Past11In the Kitchen, at the Table36Looking Over My Shoulder2Musings16News14Taking Stock12What I Find Fascinating7
Sabbatical–Sort of
Dear Ones, I am a wreck. Yes, the blow of the election first…but now absorbing How It’s Going to Be is really taking its toll… I ask my Trumpian friends please to pardon this point of view if it offends.…
Read MoreTransitions
I write this early Tuesday afternoon—November 5th, THE BIG DAY, the day we’ve been anticipating for months and months. Obviously the future of our country hangs in the balance. Around 4:00 o’clock this afternoon, the first voting places in the…
Read MoreHelping Preserve America the Incomparable
Bill isn’t sleeping, I’m barely sleeping…so worried. No election in history ever with so much at stake… Haven’t done the volunteering I planned I’d do. Won’t bore you with the reasons (but yes, age and time are factors). Trying to…
Read MoreMother Nature’s Magical Palette
If someone told you there are magic foods from Mother Nature that are not only among the most delectable she makes but help to improve brain health and memory, lower blood pressure, and reduce the risk of stroke and heart…
Read MoreSon of “In Praise of Green Tea”
This morning there was a piece in The New York Times*: ”Is green tea really ‘nature’s Ozempic’?” (The latter—should you not watch television—is the new magic potion for losing weight.) The answer to the question was “unclear.” But apparently green…
Read MoreMaybe Once In A Lifetime…
Maybe once in a lifetime you’ll have a friend who, when you’re out of other options, will pick you up at 5:30 a.m. and drive you to the hospital for a 6:00 a.m. surgical appointment… then will hang around with…
Read MoreAh, Maggie, You Have Taken Your Leave Too Soon!
Ah, Maggie, like your brilliant colleague before you, Glenda Jackson, you have taken your leave too soon! Eighty-nine is too young (take it from one who knows firsthand…). I can’t bear the thought your work is finished. Reading Dame Maggie…
Read MoreThe Windhover
A few hours ago on our morning walk with Uschi (our six-year-old eighty-eight pound German Shepherd), sun shone gold, ocean dazzled dark blue. Bill and I chatted…sparingly. Our hearts are heavy. A cherished friend is at the last stage of…
Read MoreRuss Parson’s Fennel Polpette–Not Another Meatball!
Last Friday, we invited a dear friend who will soon be leaving Santa Cruz to come to dinner. I asked what special dish I could make for him and he said, “Spaghetti.” My mind whizzed to “Straw and Hay” (about…
Read MoreHave You Ever Grated Raw Beet into A Salad?
Gentle Reader, While I’m closeted writing a novel I hope you’ll enjoy reading, it’s been suggested I post pieces from earlier years … years when I was freshly widowed, living in or near L.A. with my dog, waiting for Bill…
Read MoreA Painful Stretch of Days
I called Barbara, wanted to ask if she’d have a look at a letter I’d received. Among numerous accomplishments, Barbara was a court-certified graphologist–handwriting expert. Fascinating trade. I had a gushy thank you note from someone who for years hadn’t…
Read MoreHoneyed Greek Yogurt Panna Cotta* ~ Creamy and Skinny
Gentle Reader, While I’m closeted writing a novel I hope you’ll enjoy reading, it’s been suggested I post pieces from earlier years … years when I was freshly widowed, living in or near L.A. with my dog, waiting for Bill…
Read MoreThe Sweet Marriage of Butter-and-Olive Oil
I recently had occasion to consult a dietician…consequence of discovering I have what is delicately termed “Old Kidneys.” Try to avoid getting them. She gave me some useful notions. The first: “Sylvia, READ THE LABEL…” When she said that to…
Read MoreHeaven In Your Spoon–Cold Sabayon!*
Gentle Reader, While I’m closeted writing a novel I hope you’ll enjoy reading, it’s been suggested I post pieces from earlier years … years when I was freshly widowed, living in or near L.A. with my dog, waiting for Bill…
Read MoreCatching Up, Early August
Our grandson Cameron is freshly returned from Peru and day after tomorrow he begins the tenth grade. Exciting. Till the end of the year, he’ll be taking Algebra 2/Trigonometry, AP Physics, and French 3. Batten down the hatches! it’s going…
Read MoreA Loud and Brave Little Dog in the Country
N.B. At the time of this writing, I was a widow living with my adopted Bichon-poodle, Cakes, in Ojai, in a marvelous studio apartment (converted two-car adobe-tiled garage) cum walled garden. A View from 14 years ago: Tuesday, June 15,…
Read MorePlenty of Stairs to Climb
Bill and I are profoundly grateful for President Joe Biden’s selflessness, heroism. After weeks of struggling—wishing, denying, shoving aside, hiding under the covers—his better angels embraced him with love and whispered sweet meaningfuls in his ear—and in Dr. Jill’s ear…
Read MoreThe Professor’s 4-Ingredient Supper
Gentle Reader, While I’m closeted writing a novel I hope you’ll enjoy reading, it’s been suggested I post pieces from earlier years … years when I was freshly widowed, living in or near L.A. with my dog, waiting for Bill…
Read MoreTwo Ripe White Peaches
Gentle Reader, While I’m closeted writing a novel I hope you’ll enjoy reading, it’s been suggested I post pieces from earlier years … years when I was freshly widowed, living in or near L.A. with my dog, waiting for Bill…
Read MoreComfort Me with Chanterelles
Gentle Reader, While I’m closeted writing a novel I hope you’ll enjoy reading, it’s been suggested I post pieces from earlier years … years when I was freshly widowed, living in or near L.A. with my dog, waiting for Bill…
Read MoreThe Restorative Powers of Getting Away
Gentle Reader, While I’m closeted writing a novel I hope you’ll enjoy reading, it’s been suggested I post pieces from earlier years … years when I was freshly widowed, living in or near L.A. with my dog, waiting for Bill…
Read MoreOn Not Buying Local
Gentle Reader, While I’m closeted writing a novel I hope you’ll enjoy reading, it’s been suggested I post pieces from earlier years … years when I was freshly widowed, living in or near L.A. with my dog, waiting for Bill…
Read MoreSome Cookie!
Tonight I thought of Charlotte the spider spinning in her web praise of her friend Wilbur the pig: “Some Pig!” Well, that’s how I feel about the cookies I baked today. They are Some Cookies! I created this recipe in…
Read MoreThe Romeo-and-Juliets of Flavor
Gentle Reader, While I’m closeted writing a novel I hope you’ll enjoy reading, it’s been suggested I post pieces from earlier years…years when I was freshly widowed, living in or near L.A. with my dog, waiting for Bill to appear.…
Read MoreNew Wrinkles…and A Tasty disappointment
Gentle Reader, While I’m closeted writing a novel I hope you’ll enjoy reading, it’s been suggested I post pieces from earlier years…years when I was freshly widowed, living in or near L.A. with my dog, waiting for Bill to appear.…
Read MoreDazzling News from Out of the Blue
Directly across the street from us live Lori and Ed Chun, lawyers both, parents of two great kids. When we were away, small Max watered the garden for us, younger Jenny picked up our newspapers if I’d forgotten vacation cancel.…
Read MoreAnd So the Clock Ticks…
≈ Dear Friends… One of the curious–surprising, unsettling, discomforting–things that happens when the years have mounted on top of you (I can feel them on my back, it’s why I walk bent over, terrible) is that you become aware of…
Read More18th Century Henry Fielding on 21st Century Dictatorship*
In Fielding’s 1749 masterpiece, The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling, on Tom’s journey to London he and his servant, Partridge, encounter a Gypsy community. Partridge is lured into trouble by a Gypsy woman, then is rescued by the Gypsy…
Read MoreHappy Accidents Ginger Cake of Many Virtues
A perk of living long is that, given the opportunity (and faculties intact), you can have the exhilarating experience of seeing old friends in a fresh light. A standby of fifty years, constant year in, year out, can suddenly turn…
Read MoreBravery and Beauty
Well, I did it. Amazing. For weeks it was first-present on my mind. It even drowned out my anxieties about Our Country, Our World… For a wonder, for a mercy… I’m proud of myself. Can’t believe I really did it.…
Read More“Choices:” Hefty Word
Our Meyer lemon tree (organic goes without saying in this part of the world) is studded with gold. It is an enormous tree and bears hundreds upon hundreds of fruits. Early spring is citrus season, and Santa Cruz is dappled…
Read MoreFor Yulia and Alexei
Yulia Navalnaya. Beautiful name. Beautiful woman. Proud. Grateful. In the depths of despair. I wish I could write her a letter that I know she could read. Yulia cannot receive her beloved husband’s body to place in the earth, much…
Read MoreValentines for My Life
Happy Valentine’s Day! Gentle reader, will you please be my Valentine? I would be honored. I regret I haven’t been with you much lately. As I’ve previously mentioned, I suffered a blow last October that knocked the wind out of…
Read MoreChristmas on a Desert Island?
I’m thinking of decamping at the end of the year…around December 20th…maybe 18th. Going off to–are there desert islands anymore? I cannot get my groove back. Christmas 2023 threw me into a tizzy. I won’t give particulars as to why…
Read MoreDoing Good By Stealth
I was accompanying Bill to an appointment with his Cough Doctor. As is my wont/want, I brought along my present project of needlework. I don’t relish sitting empty-handed doing nothing. (When we go to friends’ for dinner, it’s a selfless…
Read MoreSixty-Seven Orbits Around the Sun
Sixty-seven years ago tomorrow I gave birth to my first child. It was then called “natural childbirth.” I conceived the baby when we were living in New York city (I was happily a copywriter at the great department store, Lord…
Read MoreWith Whipped Cream on Top
Well, here I am fourteen hours into the new year…made coffee, tea, bacon, French toast, unloaded the dishwasher in order to load it up with last night’s dishes–I cooked an enormous Turkey Tetrazinni for our celebratory supper, marvelous but arduous.…
Read MoreSunday Morning’s Soured-Milk Pancakes, the Fluffiest
Having drunk oat milk all through the pandemic, a while ago we switched back to milk made the old-fashioned way. From a nearby organic dairy I buy 1% milk in economical half-gallon cartons (made of recycled materials, of course). I…
Read MoreNo Strings Attached!
When I was seventy-five, I must have done some good in this world because I was rewarded with William John Park III. Bill was eighty. The story of how we met amuses people, and if you’re very very good, one…
Read MoreFeeling My Age
Seems to me that my late bout with unreality (or call it what you will) took its toll. I seem to have less energy. I walk in shorter steps and, walking, I’m more bent over than I used to be.…
Read MoreMud Pies for Supper
I lie in bed in the dark morning thinking, “I’ve got chicken breasts to cook for tonight, how on earth am I going to cook them…?” I’ve come to worry about what I’m going to cook for supper, as I…
Read MoreMaybe the Best Meatloaf You Ever Et
I remember the days when I was in the writing-about-food business, I used to say, “Well if James Beard was coming to dinner, I’d roast him a chicken with good carrots, onions, potatoes, parsnips, turnips…” Thank heaven James Beard never…
Read MoreComing Back to Myself
Darndest thing. I’ve been away. A very odd sort of journey. In the Land of Illness. It’s not a place I’ve been much in my eighty-eight years. I should explain that at the tender ages of ten and eleven I…
Read MoreThe Unraveling of Mrs. Indomitable
Sometime around the end of August, an emotional elephant gun/bazooka/AK-47 was leveled at me, wham!wham!wham! by someone I love dearly. Utterly from out of the blue. Attacks, charges of such a nature I could not possibly respond. The person I…
Read MoreTruth and Beauty, Part 1
Glenda, you left us too soon! Eighty-seven is nowheresville…you should have lasted another ten years. Reading Glenda Jackson’s obituary, seeing the clips from recent movies, past the sadness and regret I felt for her loss, I must confess to having…
Read MoreA Mother and A Daughter
Yesterday–or the day before, at some point on NPR–I listened to an interview with Julie Andrews and her daughter, Emma Walton Hamilton. The two were pitching their new children’s book, The Enchanted Symphony. Gifted women having a jolly time talking…
Read MoreRedemption!
Ok. Ok. I’ll just be blunt. Direct. No beating around the bush. Have you ever been so daft in love with someone you couldn’t bear the thought of him/her/them being kissed–much less made love to–by someone before you? I know…
Read MoreBack to Normal
Just to say that our house is back to normal. Bill’s been sickabed on two chairs (lovely old-fashioned expression, don’t know where it came from but it’s descriptive…actually he’s been in the plain old bed) for the last week. I…
Read MoreEasy Growing the Best Kale Ever!
By now most everyone who eats regularly knows that kale is a superfood* and obediently includes kale in their suppers…sometimes. For those who’ve heard the word kale but have avoided it due to unfamiliarity–and maybe a little fear, I mean…
Read MoreSerendipity and Living Fossils in Our Garden
Ever since I learned the word–and isn’t it one of those splendid words as intriguing as its meaning?–I’ve loved the concept of serendipity: stumbling upon something brilliant (stumbling’s a great word, too, so visual) while seeking something ordinary. The happy…
Read MoreFurther Adventures of Mrs. Royally Scammed
I thought I was done with it. (How to Manage Being Royally Scammed) Afterward, the week following, when the daily phone calls came, I hung up. Except–did I mention–the funny one? About three days after the initial hit, guy calls…
Read MoreBest-You-Ever-Ate-Made-the-Night-Before-(Yeast-Raised)-Waffles ~ Fannie Farmer’s Gift to Sunday Breakfast
I write from, cook in temperate Santa Cruz…my apologies for insensitivity to readers suffering in Phoenix, Miami, Las Vegas, Honolulu, Riverside, all hot spots around the country….it is not fair… Apologies given, then, in today’s vernacular, I’ll “unpack” that title……
Read MoreHow to Manage Being Royally Scammed
First and foremost, when you’re cruising through maybe Facebook (likely on a family member’s site) and you innocently click on a picture of something unexpected and all of a sudden the screen flashes red! red! red! and a woman’s voice…
Read MoreA Cautionary Tale
Malka and I were on the phone schmoozing. We’ve known one another since the mountain, another universe, and since then she has also been graced with an extraordinary life. When laughing delightedly Malka said, “Oh, Sylvia, we’re so lucky!” I…
Read MoreGoodbye Betsy, Halloo India ~
Last Monday after seven fruitful years it was Goodbye to Betsy and Halloo to um, can’t yet think what to call her… Betsy was our stove, only I believe the term nowadays is “range.” She (vessels that contain things are…
Read MoreIt’s Never Too Late for Love
Bill and I were on our morning walk with Uschi (our 5-year-old German Shepherd daughter) nearing the ocean when I spotted a stack of wicker baskets perched at the edge of the sidewalk. One basket–woven of thick tawny straw–was large,…
Read MoreOnward and Upward!
So guess what. Yesterday I began my eighty-ninth year on this planet. I’m 88 years old! (I came out backwards. Been scatterbrained ever since.) Recently the powers that be declared my birthday a national holiday. A meaningful one. Juneteenth is…
Read MoreRaised Consciousness
At first I titled this, “The New Consciousness,” but I daren’t because I’m probably out of the mainstream and this was going on long before I discovered it… “It” is how we who shop for animal products do so. I…
Read MoreDoing A Carole-Herbert
Smiling, her eyes almost merry, Carole said–it was more than three years ago but it seems the day before yesterday–“It’s not that I’m afraid of dying. I’m really not. I just don’t want to die because I don’t want to…
Read MoreDealing with Sudden Change
From one day to the next our fifteen-year-old Peruvian grandson no longer will come grooving in to the banquette table for his breakfast…won’t be here for supper tonight…we delivered him to the airport last night…he’ll actually be landing in Lima…
Read MoreAwash in Generosity
Generosity of spirit. How I cherish it. This past weekend I was awash in generous spirits. First it was at Macy’s. Our fifteen-year-old Peruvian grandson was invited to his first bat mitzvah on Saturday morning. For some reason I’ve been…
Read MoreA Funny–No, Not At All Funny–Thing Happened on My Way to Kleftiko
Terrible terrible terrible. We–well, mostly I, being the one who’s the Entertainer in our family–wanted to have a new friend and his children over for dinner. The New Friend was the father of one of Cameron’s (our Peruvian grandson’s) friends–actually…
Read MoreHow Not to Blame
Last week was my husband Bill’s 93rd birthday. Pretty big deal, don’t you think? The day or two before, I tried to use a light hand reminding family of the occasion. Problem is, I come from a long line of…
Read MoreOur Teenager’s Birthday Party
I last put together a birthday party for a fifteen year-old in 1977…um, forty-six years ago…and it was for a girl (daughter)…so I was a tad rusty heading into a party for our Peruvian grandson. Why is putting together a…
Read MoreMe or Peanut Butter?
So that morning we set out on our walk with Uschi and half a block from our house Bill stopped, said, “We have to go back. I’m having a touch of angina…” Of course we double-timed it home so I…
Read MoreDrunken French Pears from Elizabeth David
For lunch I just served friends a favorite dessert–a superb dessert, fun and easy and elegant—and I want to tell you about it. It’s from French Provincial Cooking and the incomparable English food writer, Elizabeth David. Initially published in 1960…
Read MoreTagliatelle Alla Marinara, Wonderful!
Every so often if you like to cook and you cook a lot (I admit to both), you discover something memorable. That happened to me a bit ago thanks to Giuliano Bugialli, esteemed Tuscan chef and cooking teacher (the New…
Read MoreMousy Fellow Mortal
Valentine’s night we went to one of the town’s favorite cafés for treats of delicious suppers and the live jazz of a friend’s combo. We were in a covered patio, seated at a small table close to the musicians, more…
Read MoreA Supper for Millennials and Generation Z’s
Yesterday morning a grandson who lives at a distance called, said he was in San Francisco, could he come down this afternoon for a visit? The young man is a world traveler, bi-lingual (French), a bec-fin. We were delighted. But…
Read MoreThe Best Insurance for Not-Being-Left-Alone
Have I mentioned the reason why we two old geezers have a formidable German Shepherd Dog rather than a mellow Lab or transcendent poodle? After Gene died, I had the company of our German Shepherd, Lady, a gift when she…
Read MoreWilliam Park’s Take on The 100 Greatest Films of All Time
Weeks of preparation and then the crush of the holidays themselves (not to mention the incapacitation of a full-length brace on my leg) kept us from writing our annual Christmas letter. Bill’s part of The Letter is anticipated far and…
Read MoreI Must Admit…
[N.B. A briefer earlier version was on my FB page…] I must admit it’s finally dawned on me that I’m getting—am already—old. Curious feeling. Not altogether real. But I had evidence of it on Christmas when I attempted to cook…
Read MoreResources for A Happy and A Merry Caritas
Musing about gifts to the recalcitrant, I stumbled upon something really super. It just struck me that giving someone a donation to charity as a Chanukkah or Christmas present is giving twice—immediately to the friend or family member and then…
Read MoreWin-Win HolidayGiving
Yesterday was Christmas Shopping Day at our house—principally for Bill. We ordered the red-wrapped two- and three-pound boxes of dark chocolate Nuts & Chews he’s sent to family since Mrs. See first shmooshed them out. All over the country, Park…
Read MoreMaybe the Best Pumpkin Pie You Ever Et
Made from a real winter squash, not a can…imbued with American bourbon…crunchy with pecans and caramelized sugar…a holiday confection fresh from the earth—and my mother and grandmother. Squash Custard Filling: (8 to 9 servings) 2-1/2 cups pureed baked butternut, cushaw,…
Read MoreConfession Regarding Muriel Rukeyser’s Garbage Can
Gene and I were newly married, newly moved to Manhattan. Gene’s favorite U.C. Berkeley philosophy professor and his wife were in town and we wanted to give a dinner party in their honor. It would be my first. But I’d…
Read More“Head Erect and Tail Over the Dashboard!”
A week ago, early in the morning as grandson Cameron was sailing off to school on his bike, in response to my calling after him, “Have a marvelous day!” the young scholar waved and called back, “Have a marvelous day!” Surely I…
Read MoreInvaluable Cooking Tools — #1 & #2
What with the world in such tatters—actually one shouldn’t make light of it—this morning I’m moved to treat of mundane matters. What is more mundane than the fact that I still can’t find my reading glasses…and that a poor bedeviled…
Read MoreSurprise, Surprise!
Suddenly it struck me yesterday as I was wending my way around the bedroom—“wending” because I had to be careful to step around the overflowing suitcases flopped open on the floor…what with this siege of COVID (I write this mid-October,…
Read MoreBeing A Grown-Up
One of the reigning passions of my life has been travel. Since I was eighteen, I’ve seen much of France, Italy, Greece, Great Britain, glimpses of Mexico, China, Japan, India, Israel, Spain, Tanzania, Peru, Ireland, Russia, Thailand, Singapore, Myanmar, Oman,…
Read MoreFine-Grained Blueberry Coffee Cake for the Week-end
My dears, this cake is a DISCOVERY! Particularly marvelous when costly blueberries begin softening…the perfect way to enjoy them. The recipe is my way with “German Blueberry Kuchen” from Farm Journal’s Country Cookbook (1972 edition). The blurb says “Delicate, fine-grained…
Read MoreBarbara Kafka and Innovating
I was on my way to telling you about a fun new way to roast chicken when I discovered Barbara Kafka had died. If Kafka’s name doesn’t ring a bell, I’ll ring it for you: Barbara Kafka wrote cookbooks. La…
Read MoreGoddess of The Chase
It struck me when I realized that within the space of two days, I seem to have gained a friend—a kindred spirit—and lost the very same. Recently a reader of these scribbles who grew up with my little The Birthday…
Read MorePerils of Watching A Movie In A Hotel Room…
So there Bill and I were celebrating his 92nd birthday at a Marriott hotel in San Francisco, at the end of a long day, pleasantly weary, wanting to watch Frank Capra’s Lost Horizon. I navigated through the user-unfriendly menu on…
Read MoreLemon Marmalade Than Which There Is No Whicher
This morning at the market I was reminded that these late winter days are still Citrus Season. Time to make marmalade! Lemon and lime marmalades are easiest and surest because they can be put up purely themselves. Orange and other…
Read MoreMaking Vegetable Soup
Here are the basics…have fun with it…make enough for two or three nights…and if you can, use organic ingredients. Cut a 3- to -4-inch red* onion in half, peel, trim away root and stem ends, slice 1/8th inch thick, maybe…
Read MoreOn Not Getting Rid of “Stuff”
There are those in our family–on both sides of the aisle–who are pressing us to “get rid of stuff.” They themselves, in their sixties, are getting rid of “stuff.” Why are they doing that? “So my kids won’t have to.”…
Read MoreWhat Is Love Anyway?
Hey, what is love anyway? I keep asking Bill, “Who loves you more than anyone was ever loved?” and of course he answers, “I’ve no idea…” And just now, asking him, it occurred to me, What is love anyway? What…
Read MoreMessiness As Art
I’m putting my study to rights. I’m told Albert Schweitzer and Alexander Calder also had absurdly messy studies. That comforts me. I’m in good—nay, secure—company. No one can make fun of me. Except for decades friends have been taking pictures…
Read MoreMore Word Play
Home again, and driving the winding road up the Santa Cruz Sandhills to fetch Uschi from her friends in Bonny Doon, I turned a corner and ahead of us crossing the road were three huge wild turkeys! Naturally I stopped,…
Read MoreWords from Ninety-one Years Ago for a Spanking New 2022…
A page from my mother’s 1931 journal. Living in Carmel-by-the-Sea, Gloria Stuart Newell was twenty-one and married to a gifted but penniless young sculptor. By day she was writer/editor/typesetter/printer on The Carmelite newspaper…by night she acted/stage managed at the Theater…
Read MoreThe Annual Accounting
Writing indoors as torrents of rain shush down outside our windows–no drought here in Kauai as there is in Santa Cruz… And so the end of the year draws nigh…time to take stock…where’ve I been…where’m I going?…will I be able…
Read MorePleasures and Comforts of Ginger
Most who know me know my fresh ginger cake. Easily made and versatile—in the oven in a trice, finished simply with powdered sugar or Laurie Colwin’s slathering of chocolate icing–ginger cake is, I think, one of the world’s great confections.…
Read MoreYummy Clean-Out-the-Crisper Lentil & Vegetable Stew in Thirty-Five Minutes!
Yesterday morning with so many holiday things to do I was frazzled. What on earth to make for supper? Looked through my stash. Ah, French Green Lentils! Yes! I thought I was making soup, but it turned out thicker, a…
Read MoreArt Is Fleeting
All-time favorite greeting card from my high school days: “Time is long And art is fleeting… Happy Birthday to you Sweeting…” Speaking of “art is fleeting,” yesterday Maggie, my Yalie* granddaughter and I had a splendid excursion in San Francisco. More…
Read MoreBoxes of Memories
When my mother, Gloria Stuart, was nominated for an Academy Award for playing Old Rose in Titanic, occasionally someone asked, What was it like, growing up with a movie star for a mother? My answer: I didn’t. She wasn’t. She…
Read MoreA World of Incomparable Beans–and No Soaking!
All those months while we were newly vegetarian, COVID-quarantined, searching out provisions online, I kept clicking on Rancho Gordo. In the Napa Valley, owner Steve Sando is a resourceful fellow who researches, grows, prospers, and offers heirloom beans from seeds…
Read MoreHold On to Your Power!
A close friend from my college years is now, surprise surprise, also old. An architect and landscape designer, Mazie and I unexpectedly turned out to have even more in common than age: we both were blessed with finding our true…
Read MoreA Liberating Idea
Came another letter from my old friend Mazie: So here’s a development, my girl. Pat’s best friend, Georgiy, the Russian professor—lovely man, I’ve told you about him—came for coffee. He’s been having trouble in his family. His older sister is…
Read MoreArthur Sheekman’s Cinnamon Toast, Circa 1943
When I was a child, my father made me two things for breakfast according to his mood: Mashed Eggs and Cinnamon Toast. Mashed Eggs were a Clean Out The Icebox sort of dish…chunks of salami (sometimes Daddy absent-mindedly left the…
Read MoreMy Father’s Pickled Red Onions–and Carrots
Our treasured Companion Bakeshop makes great sandwiches–baguettes spread with creamy goat cheese covered with leaves of arugula sprinkled with crunchy pickled red onions. One day I realized the onions were like Daddy’s and set about making some. Oh, so easy,…
Read MoreFilling in the Gap…
Welcome to my new blog. I hope it engages you…please drop by often. Regarding our lives since March, 2020, Bill and I have been very fortunate. Got through the quarantine surprisingly easily. Saw no one. Went nowhere. A friend put…
Read MoreMascot in A Hollywood Legend–The Garden of Allah
Visiting family and friends in L.A. for a few days, we decided to stay at The Charlie, cottage-suites in the heart of old Hollywood once owned by Charles Chaplin. Came Sunday morning, out of eggs, we were directed to a Trader…
Read MoreThe Coco Chanel of Carrot Cakes
Baking is, after all, a contemplative act. Form of meditation. Draws you closer to the earth. You get to cover your fingers with finely ground grain…marvel at the miraculous element in the life cycle of a good hen…savor the sweetness…
Read MoreSeeds In My Teeth
I can still see her, the petite French girl, chic in her off-the-shoulder summer dress pulling a chef’s knife from her purse. We’d met at a dinner party. I was newly married, working my way through French cookbooks, and as…
Read MoreWant to Watch A Great Movie? How David Lean Became David Lean
Most every night after supper, Bill and I watch a movie. At this stage of our lives, it’s time together especially cherished. We have a monster screen in the kitchen and sit in front of it each in our big…
Read MoreWear a “Free Austin Tice” Bracelet?
A luxury I afford myself is a subscription to the online edition of The Washington Post. A bit ago I noticed this in the paper: “The Washington Post Press Freedom Partnership, a public service initiative from The Post to promote…
Read MoreMarvelous Easy Fresh-Ginger Cake
After you’ve baked the luscious carrot cake, I have a fine idea: treat yourself to the comforts of a quick fresh-ginger cake. You whisk it together in a saucepan and pop it into the oven in maybe 20 minutes. Terrific…
Read MoreSylvia Vaughn Thompson began writing about food, the garden, life, and love in 1957.
The next forty-four years while raising four remarkable children and her writer husband, Gene Thompson, she wrote 154 articles, eight books, designed a mountain chalet. After losing Gene, while keeping close to her nonagenarian mother, actress/artist Gloria Stuart, Sylvia lived alone with her German Shepherd, Lady, then Bichon-Poodle, Cakes. Kept on writing.
Then when she was seventy-five, Sylvia met newly-widowed eighty-year-old retired Professor (Literature, Film Studies), William Park. Sylvia, Bill, and their German Shepherd, Uschi, write, garden, cook, walk along the ocean–and watch a movie every night.
Wildly blessed.