AWE = Art, Wellbeing and Edibles.
One never has to feel alone at the house of my friends in Chicago. Living on the shelves and nooks of their kitchen are these characters brought to life by the hands of Erick Howenstine as his relaxing past-time in the studio. Each day …
During a catering week last summer I was driving through my neighborhood and saw a Yard Sale sign in a yard I’ve always noticed and thought looked interesting, with curious fencing and attentive gardening. So though I was mid-errand I stopped in and had …
“I tend to just follow suggestions from my subconscious… For me the process of trial and error is like swallowing mental sand from oysters in the hopes my subconscious will give me pearls.” . Kenny Shopsin My cousin gave me this …
Just living is not enough… one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.” . ~Hans Christian Andersen First, a few delectable moments of spring from last weekend. While we sisters visited inside our little rented getaway house, outside these beauties …
“The Human Foot is a Masterpiece of Engineering and a Work of Art” . Leonardo da Vinci It’s been a long journey. My sisters and I grew up running around the farm barefoot and we prided ourselves in being tough enough to …
Another year, another 13,000 skiers trekking along a trail in the woods for the many races of Birkie week. This year the organizers of the American Birkebeiner XC Ski Marathon did not lose sleep worrying about canceling the race due to lack of …
The weather is wintery and the snow is deep so it’s time again for a glimpse at life in the our cozy ski-in rustic cabin at ABR in Ironwood, Michigan. While everyone else has been suffering through the trials and tribulations of the polar …
Oh Deborah, we love you. As I mentioned earlier, I’m in a phase of sorting through the cookbooks—culling then re-exploring the ones that are staying. Different foods catch our eye at different times, so it’s a great experiment to pull out the books and …
Hopefully you are able to have a relaxing day, this very first one of 2019, to enjoy time with friends/family or maybe just relish a free afternoon. Here it’s chilly and frosted with white (finally), but I’m enjoying it from inside with a sniffly …
Union Stations, across the country they are some of the grandest of gathering halls still standing. Palatial and elaborate, they hail from an era when trains were the luxurious way to travel and give us a glimpse into the past. Technically the term …
Question: How lucky can I be to live near some of my favorite places on the planet? . Answer: Very lucky. The trails of Phelps Park are magical spaces that should really be in a movie. Autumn is an especially …
This book made me so happy. I’m involved in other activities so that I fall behind on the goings-on of the larger Food World, but perhaps that keeps me from becoming jaded and makes the discoveries that I do encounter even more magical and …
Fall and the Flowers that can handle it. I’ve always loved Chrysanthemums because they were the only flower in bloom outside during my birthday season, and our mother had large bushes of orange mums growing in front of our house. They also have …
The Sleeping Giant Provincial Park north of Thunder Bay, Ontario, this was a peaceful night of camping with loons to sing us to sleep. Camping is alive and well north of the border, we had some great chats with our neighbors, one of whom …
I wrote about this a number of years ago and it seemed time to bring it ’round again. It’s a good exercise to review and revamp past writings, like a second chance at getting it right. This topic is way more enormous than can …
I’ve been perusing recipes lately, books on the shelf and the random pieces of paper with notes scribbled on them that are stuffed in the books or in my folders labeled “Recipes”. I’ve had this piece of paper for a while, I have no …
What would we do without Deborah Madison? I don’t actually have that many cookbooks…well okay it’s a couple of shelves, but considering I’m in the food business I don’t have that many. But I do have Deborah’s cookbooks, and I do use them. …
While wandering around Port Townsend we stumbled upon this 1917 ship which happened to be docked for one day only and full of a crew ready to give tours. They were from the Sound Experience, an organization working with youth interested in environmental sustainability …
I had been to the Pacific Northwest before but had no memory of these spectacular mountains that surrounded us—the Cascades and the Olympics—not to mention the utterly jaw-dropping awe-striking monoliths of the gigantic volcanoes (Rainier, Baker, Adams, St. Helens, Hood). All week we had …
Looking out my window at the mid-April snow drifts it seems hard to believe that within a few weeks we might be seeing local radishes here in the upper midwest. Thank goodness for hoop houses and determined farmers! We seem to be in a …