I cook because I love to eat. I garden because I love to cook.
As little kids, my brothers and I must have been a grave disappointment to our maternal grandmother, Jeanette. She lived in a garden-style low-rise apartment complex in the decidedly non-glamorous section of Philadelphia’s Chestnut Hill neighborhood. As tradition had it, we frequently visited for dinner …
My early childhood was mostly lacking in trauma, but there is one glaring example of distress I suffered about which I am reminded annually in the heat of midsummer. As a young child, I rarely had a birthday party. It was pain and suffering that …
I was recently sifting my way through a plastic shoebox that contained three recipe card boxes, piles clipped from newspapers, and other loose recipes. I assumed they were entirely Jeanette’s, my maternal grandmother’s, however, they could not have all been hers. The cards were written …
In the fall of 1987, I was a junior in college when I got a call that my maternal grandmother, Jeanette, had had a heart attack. The prognosis was grim. I had to return to Philadelphia from school in Indiana, as did my brothers from …
When our contractor was rebuilding our porch one spring after the old rotting one almost ripped away from our house in an ice storm the previous winter, I had just added a 4 x 4 foot raised bed of strawberries to the garden. The porch …
As we approach a year of pandemic quarantining, hand sanitizing, and masks, it is wearing on us all more than ever. We are tired, lonely, and frankly a little depressed. We miss our friends and family and going out to a restaurant for a simple …
With the holidays behind us and a few extra pounds under our loosened belts, many of us have resolved to eat lighter and leaner. It is all well and good; admirable to be healthier. But cleanses and resolutions be damned, let’s be realistic, we are …
Spice cookies are the cookies of my youth. They taste of cloves, ginger, cinnamon, molasses; spice cookies have always been there. Bake sale, thank you gift, contribution to a meal, something to munch on with a cup of tea or glass of apple cider; nine …
My mother’s summer fruit tart is one of my favorite desserts, as long as you leave out the garlic. Many years ago my wife Marci and I made a pair of fruit tarts, one as a thank you to our landlord’s family for some deed …
I am definitely a carnivore. I wish it wasn’t so, but alas, I do like eating meat and poultry. But I try to make several meat-free dinners a week and we have plenty of friends for whom I cook who are vegetarians. So this I …
