It is important to write. For so many reasons, it is important to write. Writing helps to document, for now, for the future. Helps to preserve a moment of feeling, information about a topic, stories to share with others. Helps to process difficult things, helps to remember wonderful things, helps to create a record of … Continue reading
Category Archives: Profiles
Woman of the World
When I interviewed her, she was making quinoa and roasted vegetables for company that night. “I really don’t cook,” she told me flatly. This is the current, no-frills specialty of a young woman who is the most cosmopolitan I know. A true global citizen, she grew up around the world – but mostly in the … Continue reading
Waterproof Mascara and Reality TV
It was about 8 pm on a Monday night when I got the call. My dad was wondering how he could get a hold of my husband – a strange request, given that my dad typically calls for me, and Brandon was at work on a deal. I suggested he try his cell phone but … Continue reading
Let’s Make Candy Clay Hearts!
Let’s Make Candy Clay Hearts for Valentine’s Day and Other Recipes From Our Past! We Loved to Cook in the 1970s (December 2012) is a wonderful book you’ve never heard of. You’ve never heard of it because it is unpublished, existing only in a single, handwritten, spiral-bound copy in Sacramento, California. The book belongs to … Continue reading
From the Land of the Midnight Sun: Part Two
Continued from “Part One”… I don’t watch Martha Stewart regularly (she, in fact, makes me feel like an underachieving loser after too much viewing), but my mom does. We both think she has brilliant, if not always practical or realistic, ideas and like watching the frequently competitive interaction between her and her guests. Well, wouldn’t … Continue reading
From the Land of the Midnight Sun: Part One
In a bit of a divergence from the typical post, today’s is a two-parter, given the unique country from which the featured chef hails: Iceland. Consider part one a mini introduction to Ísland (for “island,” the Icelandic name of the country), while part two is all about the incredible chef I met there. Enjoy. Something … Continue reading
Happy Birthday, Dad…
I wrote the following on August 11, and shared it with my dad on paper that day. He has approved its posting… more or less. Today is my dad’s birthday. I won’t say what number it is, because he’d be displeased about that, but I will say I’m really happy to celebrate another one with … Continue reading
A Top Chef Goes Slumming
The air is thick and sticky in the empty afternoon dining room of his stellar first restaurant in New York’s West Village, Perilla. It’s a Friday in September of 2008, pre-service. And its owner and chief cook in command, also the first winner of Bravo’s Top Chef, Harold Dieterle (pictured right), is about to share … Continue reading
Gold Nuggets in Cookery
My mother, Roberta Marie (Royce) Smith, was born in 1943 in Sacramento, California, to Eunice Marguerite Royce and Thomas C. Royce. One of two children, she lived with her younger brother and their parents in the same, tidy 3-bed/1-very-pink-bath house on 40th Street in East Sac until she moved out in 1961 to go to college … Continue reading
My Husband’s Humble 1970s Midwest Beginnings
Goulash – Brandon’s all-time favorite, most craved childhood dish is goulash. And not traditional Hungarian goulash, as you might imagine, but more of a sloppy joe affair. 1970s style, canned-vegetable reliant, chock full of ground beef and topped with oven-browned Kraft singles (I didn’t realize that was possible), in all the glory that is – for some … Continue reading
Cravings of Home 