[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 [...]

Every so often you need a weekend of doing nothing. You need to eat cookies and drink cold lemonade for hours in the backyard with your book (in my case “The Other Boleyn Girl,” continuing my mild Tudors obsession), getting a little bit of a suntan and coaxing the cat to come play (he [...]

[Spring flowers, April 2008.]
When T.S. Eliot called April the ‘cruellest month’ ( breeding/ Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing/ Memory and desire, stirring/ Dull roots with spring rain) I think he did it a disservice. True, clouds are hovering over San Francisco today, and last night I fell asleep to the drip-drip-drip of [...]

[Iris along the trail, March 2008.]
Two years out, I’m still re-learning what it’s like to live in the Bay Area. When I lived in DC, and would talk to people who had lived in Northern California, the main thing they always mentioned was the apparent lack of seasons. Nonsense! I’d say. In [...]

[View from Squaw Valley, March 2008.]
Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves. - John Muir
Sunday afternoon I perched atop a [...]