Views From My Eighties

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.…

5 Nov at 6:39 pm

Transitions

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…

27 Oct at 5:33 pm

Helping Preserve America the Incomparable

News, Taking Stock

Around and About, In the Kitchen, at the Table

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…

20 Oct at 8:20 pm

Mother Nature’s Magical Palette

In the Kitchen, at the Table, Looking Over My Shoulder

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…

15 Oct at 8:43 pm

Son 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…

8 Oct at 1:54 am

Maybe 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…

29 Sep at 11:37 pm

Ah, 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…

23 Sep at 4:47 pm

The 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…

18 Sep at 12:26 am

Russ Parson’s Fennel Polpette–Not Another Meatball!

A View from My Seventies, From the Past, In the Kitchen, at the Table

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…

11 Sep at 3:39 pm

Have 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…

5 Sep at 12:44 am

A Painful Stretch of Days

A View from My Seventies, In the Kitchen, at the Table

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…

25 Aug at 7:28 pm

Honeyed 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…

19 Aug at 3:39 pm

The Sweet Marriage of Butter-and-Olive Oil

A View from My Seventies, In the Kitchen, at the Table

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…

12 Aug at 6:33 pm

Heaven 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…

6 Aug at 8:42 pm

Catching Up, Early August

A View from My Seventies, Around and About

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…

29 Jul at 6:29 pm

A 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,…

21 Jul at 7:29 pm

Plenty of Stairs to Climb

A View from My Seventies, In the Kitchen, at the Table

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…

14 Jul at 4:17 pm

The Professor’s 4-Ingredient Supper

A View from My Seventies, From the Past, In the Kitchen, at the Table

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…

8 Jul at 4:32 pm

Two Ripe White Peaches

A View from My Seventies, Musings

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…

2 Jul at 11:49 pm

Comfort Me with Chanterelles

A View from My Seventies, Around and About, From the Past, In the Kitchen, at the Table

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…

23 Jun at 8:11 pm

The Restorative Powers of Getting Away

A View from My Seventies, Musings

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…

16 Jun at 10:51 pm

On Not Buying Local

A View from My Seventies, From the Past, In the Kitchen, at the Table

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…

10 Jun at 4:35 pm

Some Cookie!

A View from My Seventies, From the Past, In the Kitchen, at the Table

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…

4 Jun at 2:26 pm

The Romeo-and-Juliets of Flavor

A View from My Seventies, In the Kitchen, at the Table

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.…

23 May at 6:28 pm

New 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.…

13 May at 5:26 pm

Dazzling News from Out of the Blue

Around and About, News

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.…

17 Apr at 1:14 am

And So the Clock Ticks…

12

≈ 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…

10 Apr at 6:13 pm

18th Century Henry Fielding on 21st Century Dictatorship*

Aging Ain’t for Sissies, Around and About

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…

6 Apr at 4:29 pm

Panic!

“Hey, Siri, where are you?” I love Siri’s crisp answer, “I’m over here.” I’m so messy-minded these days I ask Siri to tell me where I’ve set him several times a day. No answer this time. What is this? I…

26 Mar at 1:37 am

Happy Accidents Ginger Cake of Many Virtues

Becoming My Own Best Self, From the Past

16

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…

20 Mar at 11:47 am

Bravery and Beauty

12

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.…

2 Mar at 1:38 pm

“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…

19 Feb at 12:02 am

For 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…

14 Feb at 2:02 pm

Valentines for My Life

13

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…

2 Feb at 8:00 pm

Christmas 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…

29 Jan at 5:14 pm

Doing Good By Stealth

11

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…

14 Jan at 6:15 pm

Sixty-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…

1 Jan at 5:46 pm

With 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.…

23 Dec 2023

Amazing!

17

Well, for a wonder, here we are bumping up against Christmas again! Where’d it come from, so all-of-a-sudden? And the end of the year approaches, too? Amazing. Here I am, a bundle of worries and a heap of concerns but…

2 Dec 2023

Sunday 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…

27 Nov 2023

No 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…

8 Nov 2023

Feeling 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.…

2 Nov 2023

Mud 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…

30 Oct 2023

Maybe 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…

28 Oct 2023

Coming 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…

20 Oct 2023

The 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…

3 Oct 2023

Truth 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…

26 Sep 2023

A 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…

22 Sep 2023

Redemption!

13

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…

8 Sep 2023

Back 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…

3 Sep 2023

Bricks!

11

Hey, when something terriblewretchedmiserableuglyawfulhorribleunbelievableynasty happens to you–a ton of bricks falls on your head and there’s no unbricking the pain–what do you do? First, of course, I would imagine you try to understand where the bricks fell from and why…

29 Aug 2023

Easy Growing the Best Kale Ever!

From the Past, What I Find Fascinating

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…

24 Aug 2023

Serendipity 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…

19 Aug 2023

Fire!

From the Past, News

Yesterday morning across the top of the front page of The New York Times was a color photograph of a burly man wearing a baseball cap backwards squatting, forehead pressed to the top of the head of a dark brown…

3 Aug 2023

Further 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…

28 Jul 2023

Best-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……

20 Jul 2023

How 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…

12 Jul 2023

A 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…

8 Jul 2023

Goodbye 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…

29 Jun 2023

It’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,…

20 Jun 2023

Onward 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…

15 Jun 2023

Raised 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…

5 Jun 2023

Doing 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…

30 May 2023

Dealing 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…

10 May 2023

Awash in Generosity

Aging Ain’t for Sissies, In the Kitchen, at the Table

11

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…

25 Apr 2023

A 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…

11 Apr 2023

How 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…

4 Apr 2023

Our 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…

26 Mar 2023

Me or Peanut Butter?

12

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…

14 Mar 2023

Drunken 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…

10 Mar 2023

Choices

When we realized we couldn’t have a weekend in San Francisco to celebrate our twelfth wedding anniversary (our dog-sitter was snowed in), Bill said, “I know. Let’s go in June and celebrate your birthday in Copenhagen! Then we can take…

22 Feb 2023

Tagliatelle 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…

17 Feb 2023

Mousy 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…

2 Feb 2023

A 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…

27 Jan 2023

The 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…

18 Jan 2023

William 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…

30 Dec 2022

I 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…

11 Dec 2022

Resources 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…

9 Dec 2022

Stuff

You see in our ‘70s-built house, my study is the room furthest from the source of warmth, a furnace in the garage. The designers of the house forgot about efficiently delivering heat to rooms down the hall. Bill’s study, adjoining…

5 Dec 2022

Win-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…

23 Nov 2022

Maybe 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,…

17 Nov 2022

Confession Regarding Muriel Rukeyser’s Garbage Can

Looking Over My Shoulder

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…

1 Nov 2022

“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…

20 Oct 2022

Invaluable 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…

16 Oct 2022

Surprise, 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,…

20 Sep 2022

Being 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,…

19 Sep 2022

Fine-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…

2 Sep 2022

Barbara 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…

19 Aug 2022

Flaws

This morning for no plausible reason I looked at myself in the mirror and thought I might take stock. List my flaws. I mean, after valiantly slogging along all these years and with a fair amount of travail, my body…

7 Aug 2022

Goddess 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…

10 Apr 2022

Perils 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…

19 Feb 2022

Lemon 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…

7 Feb 2022

Making 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…

27 Jan 2022

On 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.”…

20 Jan 2022

What 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…

12 Jan 2022

Messiness 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…

6 Jan 2022

More 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,…

2 Jan 2022

Words 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…

22 Dec 2021

The 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…

14 Dec 2021

Pleasures 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.…

8 Dec 2021

Yummy 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…

28 Nov 2021

Art 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…

21 Nov 2021

Boxes of Memories

From the Past

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…

16 Nov 2021

A 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…

1 Nov 2021

Hold 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…

7 Nov 2021

A 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…

26 Oct 2021

Arthur 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…

1 Nov 2021

My 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,…

15 Oct 2021

Filling in the Gap…

16

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…

26 Oct 2021

Mascot in A Hollywood Legend–The Garden of Allah

From the Past

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…

14 Oct 2021

The 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…

1 Nov 2020

Seeds 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…

8 Oct 2021

Want 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…

8 Oct 2021

Wear 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…

23 Mar at 5:02 pm

Marvelous Easy Fresh-Ginger Cake