In food, as in love, when I tend to fall I fall hard. My stomach seizes up in a fierce knot, and I find I have little appetite for anything other than coffee, wine, water, and a few slices of cheese here and there. I tell myself at these times: be still my [...]

1. Invite family and friends who are family. Think about the menu a few days in advance, and make up a list of ingredients (not only does it keep you organized, it’s very satisfying). Plan to buy most of your vegetables at your Saturday farmers’ market the morning of, but also check out [...]

[Solo dinner, June 2008.]
Boy do I love soft serve. I love it almost as much as I love baseball — so Saturday night at the A’s game when both got together I was pretty much in heaven. If the ice cream in question was served in a little plastic baseball cap (”safe for [...]

[Last night, Spetses, August 2007.]
… Greece, and the Mediterranean, slipping into a sea as still as glass and as warm as bathwater, impossibly clear. Drinking beer at a little cafe near the sea wall with my friend come over from Jerusalem for a long weekend, talking about things large and small. Riding bikes [...]

[Weekend bread and cheese, May 2008.]
So a couple of weekends ago I made this soup. It wasn’t fancy — in fact, was decidedly un-fancy — but because this is a strange place sometimes, and it was freezing cold on a Saturday eve despite the calendar showing that inexorable march toward ’summer,’ all I could [...]