I want to think of my grandmother as a short, stout woman people could not help but gravitate to. She’d be a constant bustle of energy, always with a smile, her glasses unable to keep up with her pace, they’d slip, slip, slip down the bridge of her nose, only to be impatiently shoved back up to their appointed place. She’d wear a thin paisley blue dress, which would sit proudly on her, unashamed of rolls or bulges that refused to be tamed. There’d be a thin gold chain with a quiet pendant hanging from her neck, nothing flashy, but rather a quiet amulet of her past: a place of comfort I never dare ask about but feel safe and secure to see there. “Come here, Pushka” (she’d call me pushka, which was Yiddish for “Little …Read on

Autumn is supposed to mean change. Trees grow anemic as their leaves depart in brilliant colors, days get darker, and the general mood is meant to shift to cold.And in most of our cities, it does. Current temperatures read as such:New York City: 66 degreesBoston: 67 degreesSt. Paul: 63 degreesChicago: 65 degreesBut here in South Florida, the weathervane is buzzed from too much sun. While we did dip down to 88 degrees, the heat index bumped us up to a defiant 101 degrees. It seems that in the Sunshine State there are no signs of …Read on

I had the perfect “aha” moment the other day. It happened after my jittery high of Sudafed wore off, my headache cleared, and I was wired with the sudden need to cook. It was at that moment that I realized I was done being sick. Two days of feeling no connection with cooking is disastrous for me. I become very, very grumpy. Immediately, I had to make up for lost time, and, being in the midsts of the Jewish High Holidays, I couldn’t have picked a better time.This is heavy-duty Jewish time. If you are going to pay a visit to a synagogue at any time of the year, this is when you’d do it. Yom Kippur, which begins sundown Friday night and runs until sundown Saturday night is the godfather of all …Read on

I’ve had Greece on my mind these days. No doubt because of the horrific fires that recently consumed this rich nation, devouring like a hungry predator, insurmountable amounts of history and livelihood. In six days, the country has lost approximately 495,000 acres of forestland. That’s a lot of forest. And with olive groves being the main source of agriculture, that means a lot of lost olives. New olive saplings need at least 15 years to grow before they can produce a decent crop. That’s a long time to have to wait for a drizzle of one of the world’s finest olio. The whole thing has got me very down. Not only are there displaced people and lost homes, but, when food cycles that have been churning untouched for centuries get messed …Read on