Recreation and leisure

Creating harmony amid cacophony

Posted on February 1, 2014 7 Comments

I hope you won’t mind if I re-post an e-mail I received from Ralph Nader. This is what courage really looks like. Not capitulation and compromise of one’s core principles just to keep the peace, but true understanding of and compassion for human beings and our planet. Pete Seeger acted and in so doing, he […]

Penny wise, pound fool

Posted on November 10, 2013 12 Comments

As you know, I like recipes that can be kept in my head. That is one of the things I learned when I worked in a bakery many years ago. The best way to keep a formula (recipe) handy is to know it in percentages and just memorize them. It also helps if that formula […]

Savory autumn pie

Posted on November 3, 2013 16 Comments

I like to collect recipes that I can keep in my head, so if I am traveling or visiting, I can put a meal together without resorting even to the index-card ring sets that students carry in culinary school. One of the easiest and most versatile dishes I make (when I cook!) is one I […]

The great obscurian novel

Posted on October 30, 2013 24 Comments

I just got this email from Word Press: http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2013/10/28/nanowrimo-2013/ I skimmed it as I usually do with their posts, just to find out if it was anything earth-shattering. Have you seen this? It invites us to spend November writing the great American, or whatever, novel. The challenge is to write every day and make it […]

Mad about maple

Posted on October 27, 2013 11 Comments

My favorite flavors are butterscotch, caramel, molasses and maple, in that order. While we likely have an abundant supply of the first three, which are all based on sugar cane, a warm climate crop, maple, from the sugar maple, is rapidly becoming a scarce and precious commodity (one more casualty of global warming). As a […]