My host son is a pie fanatic. He would eat a pie everyday if I let him.  In fact, twice now he has taken a whole pie to school for lunch.  If he appreciates one thing about America during his year here, at least I know that pie will be towards the top of the […]

Hygge.  It’s all the rage in my house right now.  Pronounced, Hoog-ah, but not really because it’s impossible to write it phonetically and make it sound right, it is the Danish word for the feeling of coziness.  Hygge goes beyond coziness, though.  It seems to be a word that the Danes use to explain warm feelings […]

Reach out.  Roll balls.  That was the tag line for my New Year’s resolution in 2015. I had slipped into a terrible habit of not proactively reaching out to friends and getting the ball rolling on plans.  I was either the recipient of an invitation where I joined in the fun, or text strings would […]

“Expect Miracles”.  That’s been the theme of my last few months.  It’s also the tag line of some soap I just purchased. Recently, the rational, grounded me has been replaced with a version of myself that has become interested in quick fixes, silver bullets and magical solutions to all of my problems. On the surface, […]

Sweet Surrender If the sweetest bit of surrender is inherent in pie baking, Sunday’s peach pie required downright capitulation. My plan was to make a lattice crust peach pie. I’m a huge fan of multi-fruit pies (or mashups as Emily calls them), but am so thrilled with the new bounty of local peaches in my […]

Things were heating up this past weekend – figuratively and literally. We came upon our first hot and humid day which also meant the first hot day in our new house without air conditioning.  It all sounded so manageable when we were buying the house in the crisp October air! The heat deterred me from […]

Lessons from a Life Well Lived Today I attended the funeral of a woman I never met and was reminded that in the end, nothing is more important than how one makes people feel. It was a sad day for many, but also a joyous one because it was unquestionable that this woman lived fully […]

First a Cook  I love ritual, especially those involving food and connection with family and friends. My favorite ritual is Friday night Shabbat dinners. It’s quite lovely when we get together with extended family for Shabbat, but I am especially fond of those that we share quietly in our dining room as a family of […]

The Republican National Convention is about to invade my city in a matter of days. Politics is in the air and I want to crawl under my bed and hide. It’s my least favorite subject and I avoid it at all costs. I’m the mushy middle. Hopelessly moderate on just about everything political and non-political. […]

Strawberry rhubarb pie is MY pie. The one that I would choose over all others. The one that I wait 10 months out of the year for and spend the other two hoarding rhubarb as if the apocalypse is upon us. I grow it, I buy it, I steal it from neighbors’ yards. Nothing stands […]

I purposely don’t spend much time scouring the internet for recipes. I feel like they hinder my creativity by planting preconceived ideas in my head. That’s kind of the way I feel about toys for my kids – we don’t have many because I’d prefer that they figure out how to play with something by […]

From This Mom To Her Village: Mother’s Day feels like a very linear holiday for a role that is so dynamic. I celebrate my mom, my kids celebrate me, and so on. We go to brunch and plant flowers in a domino effect of celebration and admiration for our respective mothers and mothers’ mothers. To […]