Como muchos niños de siete años, mi papá era mi figura heroica última. Él no podría hacer ningún mal, decir ningún mal, y siempre me llenaba de fascinación. Él también era un cuentista asombroso. Las historias de mi padre no eran sobre monstruos que él combatió con espadas o criaturas míticas con las que él se alineó para salvar el universo. Los cuentos de aventura de mi padre eran todos verdaderos. Nacido en Israel, Palestina en aquel entonces, en 1933, el lugar de mi papá en la historia le dio un primer puesto para contra unas verdaderas aventuras.

Yo siempre escuchaba atentamente, adhieriendo en su cada palabra como si mi vida dependió de ello. Sus historias donde siempre eran tejidas con comida de alguna clase. El Pie de Merengue de Limón increíble de su madre es uno …Read on

I like listening to classical music to remember my father.  It was the one detail I had not divulged to anyone else.  In the years of bitterness, anger, and deception that had slowly built a calloused wall between us, I still had that stream of pureness that effortlessly floated out as notes from Beethoven, Mozart or Brahms (his favorite) were played.  I’d find myself sitting in the quiet intimacy of my car listening to the music playing loudly and softly thinking of Sunday mornings long ago when the air was thick with youth and carelessness as the bacon gently sizzled and life was good, safe and sweet.

Mom was alive and very beautiful, wrapped in her mocha-colored terry cloth robe, always an odd shade in my young mind, yet, soothing in the way it contrasted the gentle blush …Read on

In the abyss of a quiet night, when children have succumbed to their struggle of sleep and the spouse snores lazily on the stained blue sofa, I eat mayonnaise from the jar.  We’re not talking a light lick of the knife to cleanse it of its miniscule residue of spread, but rather a flat out, flagrant finger-scooping of the delightfully forbidden stuff. 

I readily swallow in big gulps of happiness.  It’s the same glee with which children gobble their chocolate pudding and in these moments of silence, with the glow of the refrigerator lighting my way my joy is complete, my crime only witnessed by Goldie, the obese hyperactive goldfish that would no doubt join in the fun if she could figure a way out of her cloudy fish tank and into the white delicacy of my family value …Read on

It starts inconspicuously enough, like, when your kid turns towards you and gives a whole-hearty, sloppy sneeze in your direction.
‘Okay, that was gross’, you may think to yourself, but, being that it is your kid (the one that inevitably has crapped, puked, and pissed on you at some point in your bonding) you most likely will think nothing of it.
And so you go on your way.

The other one may cough on your food when you aren’t looking.
Dirty little fingers inevitably snag a bite of your chocolate cake (they never steal the broccoli). Whatever.
Either way, one of these mugrats houses some sort of cold that is silently passed on to you.
So that when you wake up three days later with your throat on fire, your eyes glazed and bloodshot and your head throbbing as if a chau gong where banging ceremoniously …Read on

I remember the color of the sky on that lazy afternoon years ago. It was a battle of the palette: hues of pinks with splatters of violet and the unrelenting but struggling yellow of the sun refusing to fade away after a long, bright day. In the far distance, proclaiming its lasts rites, the defeated swollen orange began to sink into the Nile marking the end of that day. The air was heavy with the scents of the streets, which, on a late afternoon in Luxor, meant an intoxicating mix of spices, roasted pistachios, and Ful Mudammas, an Egyptian fava bean stew set simmering for hours in tall pots to be scooped out and served with olive oil, lime juice, and pita bread. We boarded our Felucca, a traditional Egyptian sailboat, with high hopes for a …Read on