The cookbook is old, the spine broken in places, pages faded and stained, dotted with water from being left too close to sinks and glasses, smudged with the remnants of flour and egg and flecks of batter from enthusiastic beaters, corners crinkled and folded to mark recipes that have been made over and over again,…
Imagine a place, high in the mountains of Central Utah, right at the heart of the Fishlake National Forest where there is a glade of quaking aspens ringing the shore of a cold, deep lake with waters the color of steel, of iron, of granite, an odd comparison for water, the contrast immediately apparent, unyielding…
When my children were small I would tell them, “we are going on a scavenger hunt,” because they were busy and curious, and endlessly in need of being entertained, and we would set off, hunting for rocks or snails, or spiders, or stars in the sky up above. “Find me something strange,” I would say,…
The first time I saw a Dutch door I was a young mother on vacation with my husband and his family. We stayed at a cute little cottage near the sea, the air thick with salt and damp, flowers and shrubs and greenery growing riotously near the windows and the doors and the walks around…
It is the small things really. The sudden realization that I am alone in a house that is usually filled to the brim with comings and goings, with long teenage bodies sprawled over couches and floors, with shoes tossed in corners and jackets hung on the back of chairs and dishes always in the sink…
Once, on a writer’s retreat to a desert in south-central Utah, I was caught in an unexpected downpour while standing on a red rock ridge high above a green grass valley where a river meandered through the late fall day, slow with sediment, the drowsy water a small relief from the drought and dust that…
The woman was older, but in a way that spoke more of experience and enthusiasm and vibrant life than of age, really, her gray hair swept back from her face and held in place with ornate combs. They were interesting things, those combs, bright and colorful against the sober shades of her hair, as bright…
What no one tells you when you begin to teach is that probably the most effective teaching you will do will be in that little sliver of time before and after class, the quiet conversation in the arriving or the leaving, the whispered questions, the impromptu conferences, the getting to know you and how was…
It started with an idea. A problem really. One with no easy solution. So what do you do? You get creative. The problem? A growing number of coral reefs around the world are dying. The task? Crochet a coral reef. Now, you might be asking why, and we will get to that in a moment,…
“The world is full of obvious things, which no one by chance ever observed” —Sherlock Holmes On Sunday evenings, my family goes for a walk. I am not sure when this tradition began, or who started it, although I have a sneaking suspicion it was my husband, and that he regularly dragged me along, as…