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Musings

Essays, ideas, thoughts, opinions….

developing an aesthetic

May 16, 2013

Rhubarb is coming into the markets, summer is just around the corner and I’m five months from my deadline date. Back in October, I started working on Mrs. Wheelbarrow’s Practical Pantry (W.W. Norton, 2014.) Whatever I might have thought about writing a book, it’s much harder than I imagined, and much more rewarding. I’m going [...]

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cherry blossoms

April 10, 2013

We visited the cherry blossoms today. As we do most years, we got up before the sun and jumped in the car and ooh’ed and aah’ed our way around our city. It’s breathtakingly beautiful at the Tidal Basin. It was packed with people who clearly love pink. And, right on time, with all [...]

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Can In: How Home Food Preservers Might Help Fight Hunger

April 8, 2013

For the last month, I’ve been tinkering in my new community garden plot. I have spent time there toting water, planting garlic and onions, pressing pea seeds into the soil, making drills for lettuce and radishes and spading in raspberry bushes along the back. In England this would be called an allotment, in France a [...]

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springtime rituals

March 27, 2013

While it still feels cold and blustery, and we’ve had odd days of significant snowfall, the light is changing to the light of Spring, all lemon yellow and bright, surprisingly strong on the back of the neck when clearing debris from a garden bed. It’s Passover, soon to be Easter. There are daffodils blooming in [...]

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marvelous mexico

January 18, 2013

I’ve been home from Mexico for a few days, but it’s not been an easy re-entry. It’s been gray and gloomy, no bright blue sky and brilliant sunshine and mountains. I’m getting over it. Slowly. It was a lovely week of writing with the inimitable Betty Fussell. She’s brilliant, funny, inquisitive and inspiring. I will [...]

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greens ‘n’ eggs. or, have you seen my car key?

November 10, 2012

My mother – an English professor – would tell a story about her first year teaching. There was another young teacher with whom she shared an office. He taught three sections of Freshman English – the same workload as my mother. Each class had about twenty students, and every week the students had an exam, [...]

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the practical pantry

October 16, 2012

For most of my adult life, I have collected cookbooks. Old ones, new ones, anything that had beautiful photos, or stellar writing, or covered a subject I wanted to learn about – they all snuggle up next to one another on my bookshelves, stack up on my desk and clutter my nightstand. In my dreams. [...]

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the original seven day pickle?

July 6, 2012

In the last two weeks, I’ve made dozens of pickles. My favorite sweet pickles were first on the list, and if you have been reading along, or had a quick lunch over here in MrsW’s kitchen, you know I serve these all year long. This is a pickle that’s worth the (very minimal) work. They [...]

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secrets to successful canning (and a giveaway, too)

May 20, 2012

Bet that title got your attention. I’ve been thinking, as the season gets going, and I make a few batches of jam and pickles, just to flex my muscles before teaching. And a few more batches to test some recipes. As I go through the motions, get my natural rhythms and instinctive moves fired up, [...]

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