My wish for this piece posted in Los Angeles Review of Books today is that Robin Williams and Les Plesko hadn’t given me cause to write it. Beyond that I hope… Continue reading »

 It’s December 17, eight days before Christmas, and I’ve got a lot of fruitcake to offload as I work my way down a list of potential beneficiaries. Carol, an editor… Continue reading »

            Amongst many favorite moments in Don Carpenter’s posthumously published novel Fridays at Enrico’s is when the bartender at Sausalito’s No Name Bar lets the… Continue reading »

The card for My Man Cookies harkens back to a pre-Feminine Mystique era when a woman might have proudly referred to her spouse as My Man. These are cookies Daisy… Continue reading »

  Lily and Zoe, South Lake Tahoe’s, if not the world’s, most adorable three-year-old blonde twins, are taking turns twisting, turning, and giggling as they race down a snowy video… Continue reading »

  Just saw August, Osage County and felt compelled to post this Christmas collage treat I did for Arroyo Magazine a few years back. You can read it by zooming… Continue reading »

It’s been a wild ride but I didn’t want you to think that I’d forgotten you. Indeed, all I have been doing is thinking about you, my readers (at least I… Continue reading »

The sugar cookies are round, plump, and pale as a winter moon, sugar grains glistening on their surfaces like snow. Made with butter, all-purpose Gold Medal white fl our, and white sugar… Continue reading »

  When I discovered the index card for Compromise Cake, brown with age and handwritten, my first thought was whether my mother ever baked it. And if so, did she ever eat a… Continue reading »

My mother is by my side as I roll out a piecrust in my southern California kitchen, instructing me with an authority and enthusiasm she rarely displayed in her life. I don’t… Continue reading »