When I want to fall in love I go to Mercado La Viga.  Because there are fish guts on the floor and the sweet scent of questionable oil penetrates, infiltrates, becomes you, I fall in love.  It’s not the quantity of fish that gets my heart rat tat tatting, no, I am a market veteran and I’ve seen plenty more.  I’ve lived Mercado de la Venta in Madrid, Spain, where three floors-worth of fish and seafood beckons you.  This can’t stand a flame next to that kind of seafood seriousness.  Mercado La Viga in Mexico City is only eight or ten aisles worth at most…maybe.  What gets you skipping (over the fish guts) are the ‘restaurants’ lining the outskirts of the vender’s stalls.

The ladies and gentlemen of these establishments stand vigilant, peering in and out of the aisles and beckon …Read on

The goldfish is bigger than the Eiffel Tower.  True story.  It was a prize granted to the kids five years ago in some stuffy sports center at the final hour of an exasperbated Purim carnival loaded with face paint, greasy food, and, obviously, an over-supply of goldfish.  The kids were thrilled at the offering.  The parents…no so much.  Still, the sight of their toddler’s grubby, greasy fingers clasping the plastic bag with a miniscule, petrified shock of orange seemed harmless enough, and, just like birthing them, the horror of what was happenening, washed away with the smiles on their faces.  ’How bad could it be,’  I remember thinking to myself, ‘the thing will be dead in four days anyway.’

So did I mention it’s been five years?  Five.  Years.

I think I’ve already showcased Goldie (who is now ghostly white) on this …Read on

A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, there was a very lazy mom.  Could she boast to fighting crime on the streets all day?  No.  Could she claim to seek justice in the highest courts of the land?  No.  Could she offer to better humanity with countless selfless hours of teaching our future generations in the classroom?  Not that one either.

Nope, this is just one plain ordinary mom whose day encompassed the very glamorous following events:

Drag herself out of bed at the ungodly hour of dark.  Curse husband for being gone on yet another business trip.

Prepare separate lunches for two demanding palates (hold the bread for him, extra mayo for her, peel and slice the cukes for him, minuscule cubes of apple for her lest it will get stuck in the braces – and it better …Read on

Her back was as long and graceful as the bouquet of snow white lilies she held in her slender fingers and as I watched this lovely bride walk to the altar to be wed it dawned on me that this was Gaby, my husband’s niece whom I’d met when she was a wee bitty baby of 15 months and my heart skipped a beat in shock that the time had dared trick me into passing this quickly so that we were here, in this ever lasting moment, witnessing her marriage on a cool November night.

I’d met Gaby only yesterday it seemed. Cradled in the arms of her father we’d been introduced in the dusty hot plains of Venezuela. I remember a lanky baby straddled around her dad’s comforting hold, a mess of bouncy curls and an …Read on

Once upon a time there was a very young lady and a not-quite-as-young man (a scandal left for another story) that were carefree, adventurous and childless. On a whim, they decided to tour the country of Spain, and as was their manner, to tour it in full culinary detail. Of course, this dashing duo tackled with the small inconvenience of being broke and feared little finance would serve as a burden in their experience of food.

They were joined by other friends on this journey that took place in the heart of a scorching summer twenty years ago and together they all crammed into a tiny and dusty red Ford Fiesta and, listening to endless rounds of Chrissie Hynde’s “Brass in Pocket” and Mecano’s melancholic “Aire” explored their souls and the Iberian peninsula for a sultry five …Read on