[Alice Waters' Chocolate Cake, and my mom's birthday cake.]

[Pacific Ocean, December 2009.]
Love, of course, can be many things. It can be clear blue skies and an unexpected picnic in August. It can be your brother picking you up at the airport no matter what time you come in, in Maine and California and Greece, too, or a soon-to-be-sister-in-law saying what you [...]

[Coconut bread, and tea, January 2010.]
Quite a few years ago I read a book that would become one of my very favorites — My Dream of You, by the Irish writer Nuala O’Faolain — and which I subsequently have passed around to various loved ones. I first read it one long weekend in Ohio; [...]

[Pacific Ocean near Bodega Head, July 2009.]
Today, Thanksgiving, is one of my one of my very favorite days of the year, mainly because it combines two things very close to my heart: food (and the cooking of it) of course, as well as the giving of thanks — or, really, the feeling grateful-for. Is [...]