My 96-year old grandmother died yesterday in Berlin. Of course, there was some predictability in this, and she had been saying she was ready to go for about 20 years, and she got to die at home, with my mother at her side, so really, it worked out exactly as she wanted it. We’re all [...]

When I was 23, and the closeness of family was not something I was terribly interested in, because I was MUCH more interested in not living at home, I moved halfway across the United States, to a place that was so foreign to me that when I tell people where I’m from, they stop and [...]

It’s been a rough week, hence the multiple posts on what’s annoying me. This isn’t covering everything that’s wrong, but it’s a damn good start. First, we fired the apprentice we had been training for 4 months and into whom we sunk a bunch of money. Why, you ask? Well, obviously because CLEARLY we’re BASTARDS [...]

It’s bad enough when you have to fill out all those boxes separately for Billing address AND a different one for Shipping (due to the French cheese incident – see below*) and then you fill in the password for yet ANOTHER “account”  you don’t want, that sends a newsletter you also don’t want, and then [...]

A friend of mine gives great “normal” dinner parties but every once in a while he does something completely different. The first time 3 years ago it was a group cooking event, using one cookbook. The cookbook was one from one of those cute young chefs on the Food Network, and my friend picked one [...]

I moved to Austin in March in the early ’90′s from New York, and I went from a world of grey and wet and cold to one of sun! and shorts! and wildflowers! and I remember thinking, Why in the world isn’t everyone living here? And eventually it became August, and I realized why. When [...]

(or some of them, at least!) No make-up No jewelry No tight clothing No thongs No underwire bras No watches or alarm clocks No schedule Sneakers and sandals No ringing phones No news, no tv Good stuff to read Good food, good wine Something involving water – a spa, a beach, a lake I’ve just [...]

I read somewhere that it takes 10 years to get good at something, and immediately I was relieved. The article was explaining all the different stages of how to learn whatever particular skill it was (and apparently it didn’t matter – from skiing to cooking) – the beginning stages from when you basically stink to [...]

It seems as if lots of people want to hear from me! Or, they need filler for their literary endearvor…but whatever it is, I’ll take it! First I get this article published in Acupuncture Today, Nutrition – The Forgotten Pillar of Chinese Medicine Then, I get interviewed for a book based on this blog Formely [...]