[Mustard greens from the market, March 2010.]
Never let it be said that I’m not stubborn. I’m the girl who will, if you offer to pay for dinner, cheerfully (but cheerfully!) fight with you over the bill (just ask my best friend). I’ll finish books I’m not enjoying all that much (see: that Dylan [...]

[Mustard grass near Sebastopol, February 2010.]
March, lovely March, here you are at last. You are one my favorite months — with polite apologies to sweet April with her sun showers, smoky blue June tossing her still-green branches against a summer sky, quiet, still August, and white-gold October; these I love truly and look forward [...]

[Spetses, 2007.]
If I were a better writer, I’d have some sort of lovely observation about this (endless) rain and how, if I didn’t have to work, I’d like to be sitting in the Japanese tea garden in Golden Gate Park watching puddles pile up near the coi pond and crunching away on that delicious (and [...]

[At home, January 2010.]
This past Saturday was chilly — cold, by San Francisco standards (and granted we’re wimps but it was actually pretty cold). Picture me camped out on my futon under piled-on blankets and wearing wool socks. I am nibbling on a few potato chips and a mandarin orange (which are perfect [...]

The new decade slipped in quietly last night but no less deliciously than any other year — after my brother departed for points East, I distracted myself from the usual bit of doldrums by cooking dinner for three, using a simple but satisfying menu. I made
To start
Leek soup (just four leeks chopped finely with [...]