I cook because I love to eat. I garden because I love to cook.
The summer I did research for my master’s thesis, scuba diving in the bays on the east end of Long Island, we traveled the same route every morning to get to the marina. As we drove past the farm fields that dominate the North Fork …
It was the best garden year ever, it was the worst garden year ever, it was the age of abundance, it was the age of scarcity, it was the epoch of grazers, it was the epoch of exclusion, it was the season of rain, it …
On a hot summer day when I was 17 years old, my good friend Jay and I, along with another counselor, Carolyn, led 15 kids into the woods. We were at Wind Gap in Pennsylvania starting a two-day, roughly 16-mile hike on the Appalachian Trail …
For several years in my mid-to-late teens, I was obsessed with White Castle. There was no local branch of the fast-food chain near my neighborhood, so at a very young age, I was ignorant of its considerable charm. My initiation was with friends from summer …
My children Jacob and Ari must have been about 5 and 7 when they came with me to work. I don’t recall why they came to school with me. Perhaps it was Bring Your Child to Work Day or maybe their school was closed for …
In June I passed the two-year mark of my personal chef business. As a second career and retirement job, it could not be going any better, far surpassing my expectations. I currently have six clients throughout Long Island in whose homes I prepare meals (and …
As summer approached and the Philadelphia weather got warmer and more humid when I was young, we looked for ways to cool ourselves down. It was rare that we found a pool as they are hard to come by in the big city and I …
My children – Jacob and Ariana – are great and I have many wonderful memories from when they were young. But parenting is not all roses; there were times when their behavior left something to be desired. Raking leaves in the fall and shoveling snow …
Fruits and vegetables at big, corporate supermarkets usually look flawless. Think of picture-perfect apples and tomatoes, straight green beans all the same size, impeccable heads of lettuce, and flat snow pea pods with nary a twist, turn, or bump indicating a maturing pea inside. But …
In the 1970s and 80s, the Camp Onas Pioneer Trip lasted four days, consisting of two parts. It started with two days hiking on the Appalachian trail ending at the Delaware Water Gap. With full backpacks carrying sleeping bags, water, food, and other gear, 15 …
