I love chocolate. Deep, dark, rich chocolate especially when it’s melted and whipped into a frenzy. The result? How about chocolate cupcakes! My personal preference is unsweetened chocolate … so that I can adjust my sugar and add the tang of rich sour cream to create handfuls of moist chocolate goodness with a little decorative …
The Birthday Card
When you care for someone with Alzheimer’s, well-meaning people are in my mind a little too anxious to share their “stories” … “My uncle had it and my aunt wound up in the hospital for months from exhaustion caring for him.” “My mom had dementia and one day she drove away in her car and …
Grandma Louie’s Stuffed Peppers (loosely translated)
We had such wonderful nicknames for my Mom. She always laughed good naturedly, but I’m not sure she was thrilled overall. When I was in high school, we convinced one of our business teachers that my Mom was a Hungarian gypsy who danced with tambourines and ribbons. The teacher was convinced she was going to …
When It’s Been a Stressful Week…
…you need to rely on things that make you smile and things that bring a sense of calm to the madness. It has been a stressful week. One issue with John piled atop another. Most days I can handle it…I deal with the situation, then walk away and refocus my brain on something else. A …
Life Measured by Puzzle Pieces
As long as the pieces were large enough and the number of pieces was somewhere between 25 and 60—John enjoyed the repetition and the activity of puzzles. It was a new hobby, but the repetitiveness and that half of the dining room table that was his devoted puzzle area kept his mind somewhat active. When …
Damn Good Corn Chowder
Fresh and local sweet corn was late this year and driving home I remembered that I’d been so obsessed with local berries and juicy peaches I had forgotten about Ohio sweet corn. We happened upon a country neighbor about 10 miles from home and while John waited in the car I popped out to buy …
Commitment and Peach Dumplings
Some recipes require commitment. Time commitment. Flour everywhere commitment. That’s the way it was with my Peach Dumplings recipe. I wanted to make them. Correction: I wanted to eat them, warm from the oven, with their own slightly thickened maple syrup sauce. I wanted someone else to make them. But—no one else showed up. No …
And So She Reminisced…
As I was sitting with John today as he struggled to complete a sentence and to take a breath I began to reminisce. About photography he’s taken: for the cookbooks I’ve written; from nature hikes; from our travels. The funny thing is, we have always traveled with two cameras…and once the photos were developed (film—yes, …
Twist and Zest and the Blues Brothers
I had a fresh lemon and some buttermilk, which somehow reminded me of that line from The Blues Brothers, “It’s a hundred and six miles to Chicago, we’ve got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it’s dark, and we’re wearing sunglasses,” spoken by Elwood. It was time to try my 3 …
Do Not Let What You Cannot Do…
…interfere with what you can do. [John Wooden] I took John to the Ohio State Fair on opening day. It was, in my mind, the perfect summer day. A light breeze was whipping the just bloomed flowers around in the yard and the sun was warming the day to an ideal temperature of 79°F. He …