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 [...]

[Dinner, July 2008.]
Of course I love to cook, but sometimes I love even more when I don’t have to do so — say when I’ve woken up before 6a, worked most of the day, run 4 miles, and then using what remains of my energy to plug away on something else. Tonight I am [...]

I would like to call a do-over on this weekend. I had plans to sleep in, bake some muffins, go to yoga, go to Pt. Reyes, make some phone calls, enjoy some of the deliciously hot weather … but I was waylaid, unexpectedly, by some sort of cold/flu/unpleasantness that has kept me downing Cold [...]

[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 [...]