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 [...]

[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 [...]

This morning dawned, again, gray and cool. It was the kind of morning that makes you want to stay in and drink tea by the pot-full, sitting close by a fire and wearing lots of warm sweaters and wool socks. Welcome, summer?
Well, anyway.
I have a sort of romantic ideal of tea, especially on foggy days [...]

[Afternoon tea, May 2008.]
- Drinking tea-without-milk, because we are out of soy milk and all dairy products. I think I could get used to it … maybe.
- Eating the first strawberries of the season, from my first neighborhood farmers’ market visit of the season (how I’ve missed my little market!), though I went too [...]

[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 [...]