image courtesy Brown Eyed Baker This morning I awoke to a reporter talking about a Walmart Ice Cream Sandwich that didn't melt at 80F.  This helped me to become more alert at about 5:30 and, considering I had just heard another report a few days ago about hot dog rolls which didn't become moldy - almost ever, and therefore must be somewhere on the spectrum of inert foodstuffs, I immediately got to thinking about what big food "manufacturers" … [Read more...]

  Garden State Rural Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder, Circa 2014 Last year on July 13, I wrote a post, noted below, which focused on the amazing beauty that lives in the Garden State - and right around the corner from where I live.  For many people who live in rural areas of the country, the sighting of cows grazing happily is not an uncommon occurrence.  But, here in northern New Jersey it is. I guess I may have been feeling a little … [Read more...]

  I was fascinated by the juxtaposition of the shimmering water, the reflections and what rose away from them Well, it seems as though I should try to finish up my chronicling on my Paris trip in this post.  I can't go on forever, can I?  I don't really want to separate from the memories quite yet. Aside from going to Musee L'Orangerie, we didn't do museums this trip.  We wanted to focus our time out of doors.  But, I made an exception to … [Read more...]

 The Lavender Gardens Sunday was the day we decided to visit  the Luxembourg area and I, of course, had to go to the Farmer's Market.  But first we strolled along La Rue de Rivoli and through and around the entrance to Le Louvre in order to cross the River at a different spot. As we strolled:  a favorite site - more on this later     where one's job is to stack butter cookies into perfect pyramids all day long  - <3  a … [Read more...]

 in search of - European sensibility To say that I must be a European at heart is no understatement. (you've heard this before) Every time I touch down, I feel like I have gone home.  I adore how Europeans cling to their way of life - while Americans seem to have some insatiable need to explode everything -  to expand, duplicate x millions,  -  all the while diluting and degrading the experience they, at least in some cases, initially sought … [Read more...]

Patrician, Majestic, Chic, Enchanting………... And, so it was told to me by my son, Ryan.  "Mom, no one goes to Paris in July!" - in that insistent tone he loves to use with me.   "Everyone is in San Tropez", I believe was the direct quote - the "informed - one", my up-to-the-moment student of chic-world-wide travel norms, patterns and emerging trends,  laid that one on me when I said I was going.    Too bad Ryan, currently in a typical early … [Read more...]

  "Cameras hate brown food." I can't believe my eyes. I am in awe of food writers who appear on the pages of famous publications, print and otherwise.  I come to the table (pun intended), feeling justifiably inferior, inexperienced and under-informed, and in a state of total respect for these people, who have spent years and years cultivating their expertise and who have been justly rewarded with their bylines.  They eat, they drink, they … [Read more...]

  and   Mt. Etna Solvang, Ca 3/14:   My daughter called me eccentric this morning. (?) Hypothesis of the Day:  Mother Nature is the quintessential intimate portraiteur (I like this better than portraitist and I did find an artist that is using it in this way - and, anyway,  I like words that end in "eur", like connoisseur, millfleur, secateur, raconteur, provocateur, amateur).  This seems fitting to me. I'm hereby … [Read more...]

          It's really quite extraordinary how self-deceptive we can be, isn't it?  Earlier on in the season, and right up till yesterday, I was at least partially convinced that the population of birds in our yard had happily grown, and I thought it was quite agreeable if not dually hospitable………... Two confessions today:   I have been known to say (well, maybe boast, just a tad - not because I'm boastful but because I felt like I was … [Read more...]