Christmas Sushi

December 21, 2012

It wasn’t Christmas when I first had this sushi. But it felt like Christmas. My friend Clark had invited me over for dinner. We live in one of the oldest neighborhoods in town; my house was built in the summer of 1897, and he lives a half block from my house in the oldest apartment [...]

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The Little Things Make a Big Difference

December 18, 2012

When my son began to skateboard at about age 10, he idolized the makers of a home-grown skate video made in our town.  Luckily these nearly young men were worth idolizing, and took their role of bringing young skaters along quite conscientiously. I still remember the Thanksgiving Travis, Michael’s favorite, handed him down the gift [...]

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Holy Shadow Cookies

December 15, 2012

Sometimes people help you out without knowing they’re doing it. Just in the course of doing what they like to do, they bless you with a surprise that helps or heals you, unaware they have done so. Rachel Naomi Remen retells a Sufi story in her beautiful book Kitchen Table Wisdom about just such a [...]

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I Want To Live

December 12, 2012

Sometimes you don’t know something until you say it out loud. And sometimes you don’t know you’re going to say it out loud until you hear yourself saying it. In a leadership workshop a friend once took, she told me she learned of different thinking-through-conversation styles. One was to not plan at all, just talk [...]

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Wonder Woman at the Window

December 8, 2012

We’d been having days with high winds. Gusts up to 40 miles an hour. One day the previous week Romeo and I literally got pushed along past the University Fitness Center. We were our own version of Pooh and Piglet on a “blustery day.” By the end of that day, the wind was still blowing [...]

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Everything But the Kitchen Sink Broth

December 5, 2012

If I’m going to make a pot of soup like I described in the previous post, I always like to deepen the flavor a little bit by adding broth instead of water. But packaged broth can be expensive, and have too much sodium for me, or even hidden oils. . Over the years I’ve read [...]

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On Waiting

December 1, 2012

Advent is here, the liturgical season of waiting for rebirth. When I was growing up our family always had an Advent wreath. I remember the green boughs encircling a stainless steel holder for three purple candles, and one pink one, lit the third week, that meant we were “getting close.” I also remember my Dad [...]

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Japanese Sweet Potato to the Rescue

November 28, 2012

Like most fortuitous partnerships, my connection to Japanese sweet potatoes began as a happy accident early last Winter. Well, at first I didn’t consider it so happy, since it was the result of me shopping in the produce section of our food co-op without my glasses on. I thought I had grabbed a garnet yam [...]

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Interdependence Days

November 25, 2012

When I was 10, the orthopedist I saw determined that my heel cord had been stretched sufficiently that it was now only necessary for me to wear my brace at night. Of course I had looked forward to this day, hoped and wanted it to come. Because it would be an outward sign that I [...]

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Pumpkin Pie in the Free World

November 18, 2012

(The fat free, gluten free, soy free world, that is.) The first Thanksgiving after my diagnosis of MS, back in 1996, I was well into a gluten free mostly dairy free and low fat way of eating, based on ELISA tests I had taken through a naturopath nine months earlier. As of yet, I had [...]

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