He looked at me with distrustful eyes: I looked like a gringa, after all, and Venezuela, a once open and accepting country, now lived in a climate of great anti-American sentiment. And still, his look locked with mine in a curious way. I stuck out like a sore thumb, I’ll admit, with my fair skin, blonde hair and light eyes, out in a dusty pit stop between the cities of Caracas and Valencia, in a sea of dark-skinned, dark-haired people. My husband and I had stopped for the prerequisite cafecito, a tiny plastic cup of rich caffeine that would curse through our veins until the next pit stop allowed a refill.

I sat in the parked car, watching the men and women saunter towards the goods beckoning at the counter: a box of …Read on

There were many hints of his impending betrayal, but, like any woman in love, I chose to look away.  I had been swept off my feet, what can I say, a phrase that would definitely make all my self-sufficient Barnard colleagues shake their heads in disappointment and mutter only this to me: tsk tsk, tsk tsk.  I was in love, maybe not with him, but most definitely with the idea of him: glamour, sophistication, and expensive lust. And we’d been together so many  years, so when  the smallest of signals blinked quietly but straightforwardly at me, I chose to look the other way.

First the brownies didn’t bake evenly.  No one else could tell.  In fact, all where mesmerized, entranced, absolutely orgasmic over my brownies.  But I knew something was up with Dacor then.  The baked batter leaned in a bit …Read on

I have a confession to make. I’m not sure it’s the right one to do, this being an upscale [insert giggle] food blog with upscale food followers (right?) but nonetheless, if anything, I strive to be true to myself and my readers and so here it goes: I go to Costco to shop.

Sometimes. Rarely. But sometimes. On occasions maybe more than I should. But I go. Now, to my defense let me remind you all that I live in South Florida: Plantation to be exact, which is not necessarily your haven of food markets and such. Lightly put, this ain’t Santa Monica or Paris, both hosting amazing food markets. When I went to the Symposium for Professional Food Writers at the Greenbrier last April, I met Amelia Saltsman, author of The Santa Monica Farmer’s Market Cookbook …Read on

When I got married almost fourteen years ago my husband and I honeymooned in Thailand. After the prerequisite stop in Bangkok, we ended up on the tiny island of Koh Samui where we saw other equally enamored tourists sweating their way through their first days of matrimony on bicycle rentals, something that may have seemed a good idea in their brochure back in Hackensack, but trust me, in the humidity and heat of Thailand, was not fun.

Mr. and Mrs. Martinez (you know, these were the days when I practiced saying Mrs. Martinez, Mrs. Martinez, Mrs. Martinez in giddy gulps of newness) thought otherwise and rented a motorcycle. It was nothing fancy, we aren’t Harley-types, but rather a dusty red Yamaha dirt bike that we used to zoom along the narrow and crazy island streets, exploring each new …Read on

A couple of posts ago I declared I’d be focusing on fruits and veggies over the summer.  I’ve been sweating a bit voraciously ever since I said that.  Don’t get me wrong:  I dig fruits and vegetables.  But I have a hard time with planning and commitment.  Such announcements always bite me in the butt.  I know the scheduling goddesses that created the concept did so in efforts to relieve stress and remove chaos, but in my warped head, it seems to invite the two.

Night after night vegetables and fruit have bounced in my psyche.  Florida has already nose-dived into disgustingly humid weather and apocalyptic afternoon thunderstorms, typical summer behavior, so, of course, I have tomatoes, the cliché of summer produce, bopping my eyes in REM sleep.  Plum, roma, teeny, tiny grape ones, distorted and now-overly …Read on