A friend sent me this poem and I immediately wanted to share it with my readers as well. Click here to hear Garrison Keillor read it in his perfectly nuanced voice on Writer's Almanac. Enjoy! Perhaps the World Ends Here by Joy Harjo The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live. The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table so it has bee…
It was in the far corner of the Old Agricultural Exhibition Hall that I had my epiphany. Stacked on long tables and rising above them on makeshift shelves rested rows of homemade pies, jams, cakes, and pickles. But it was the pies I wanted to linger over, smell, and taste. It was all I could do to keep from snitching a small piece of crust as I stood longingly in front of them. I knew then…
The gentle release forward into the glistening sound, the horn announcing our departure, the shift of breeze as we escape the shelter of the harbor all signal it is time to open the box cradled like a baby in my ten year old son’s lap. We are on the ferry to Martha’s Vineyard, and that can mean only one thing: time to eat the cannoli. Of course, these are not just any cannoli.…
Most people think of me as pretty outgoing. I certainly know how to make conversation and don’t easily fade into the woodwork at social gatherings. But I am by nature a bit of an introvert. The older I get, the more I realize that time alone becomes a necessary ingredient to fuel my creativity and maintain a sense of balance and focus. There is an internal spaciousness that is create…
Today was my second visit to my friend Susie Middleton’s garden at the Native Earth Teaching Farm in Martha’s Vineyard. Surely you have heard of city folks paying to go weed and dig and haul water on farms. Well, I don’t pay, but would willingly. I go early before the sun is too hot and weed a row or two of vegetables -romaine, arugula, purple bok choy. Susie joins me and…
There are privileges and obligations to being a father. My birth father accepted only the privilege, the photos of himself with his children on his desk. There are privileges and obligations to being a daughter. For much of my life, I was relieved not to feel obligated. When my father passed away, amid my sadness was relief that I would not be called upon to care for him in his decli…
Last month my husband's class held a reunuion here in Chapel Hill and we invited some of his classmates to stop in for a gathering one evening at our home. John Haber, a long time New Yorker, brought some Cheese Crispies, a nostalgic reminder of our friend and mentor, Anne Queen who always served them at her home near the campus during our student years at UNC. His recipe can be foun…
There is much to celebrate about this sweet Sunday on Martha’s Vineyard. There is a steady cool breeze from the ocean carrying the sounds of oak leaves dancing and heavy surf crashing- a power I can feel deep in my bones, invigorating every cell. The sun is filtered by a soft haze and the scent of a distant rain brings anticipated renewal and cleansing. Outside our expanse of w…
Ten years ago this month, my husband and I were fortunate to lay claim to a home in Martha’s Vineyard. Not that the island had not already laid claim to me over the previous fifteen or more years that we had travelled there with family and friends. But the act of committing time and resources to a place that always beckoned me like the steady wash of waves over beach stones, wa…
We had just begun the second leg of a two day journey- the trek northward with dog, bikes, supplies and a few gourmet treasures for a New England vacation. The decision to stop in Reading, Pa was practical. It was about halfway to our destination and an early morning start would get us to the ferry by mid-afternoon. I was just getting back into the rhythm of the road when I saw the billboa…
I am a cook. I hunt and gather. I read and listen. I stir and chop and re-form what I find. I nourish myself and hopefully, others.
read more
Coming July 2012