A Chip Off The Old Writer’s Block

June 19, 2011

  We owe so much of who we are to our parents.  For better or for worse, we are our parents’ children.  I’ll never forget the experience of hearing Andrew, not long after he came to live with me, hit me with a sarcastic response to a question he thought had an obvious answer.  The […]

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Why Does The Chicken Cross The Road?

June 5, 2011

  It should not have come as a surprise.  After all, it’s the question parents either dread will come too soon or, even worse, too late.   I really shouldn’t have been surprised in what form the question came.  After all, I have a Latino son and the Latino culture long ago converted virtually every part […]

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A Spoon Full of Sugar…

May 26, 2011

  “And please bless the homeless and those without jobs, and the poor.  Help them to find a house and work and stuff so they won’t suffer so much,” is a common refrain when it’s Andrew’s turn to say the dinner prayer.   I know he picked up on it from listening to my prayers that […]

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Aromatherapy

May 20, 2011

  I have no idea why there are three oranges still hanging on my little potted Valencia Orange tree this late in May.  Perhaps we feel guilty picking the few delicious oranges it bares each year or perhaps we just like seeing them hang there.  Whatever the reason, there they hung this evening when we […]

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Whitewashed

May 12, 2011

  Chinese Chicken Salad (It’s the chopsticks that makes it Chinese!)  Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a long-handled brush. He surveyed the fence, and all gladness left him and a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit. Mark Twain Andrew and I were in the kitchen cleaning up […]

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Prometheus Bound

May 3, 2011

PROMETHEUS was the Titan god of forethought and was entrusted with the task of molding mankind out of clay. His attempts to better the lives of his children brought him into direct conflict with Zeus.  First, he tricked the gods out of the best portion of the sacrificial feast, acquiring the meat for the feasting […]

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RAW

April 22, 2011

Mexican Ceviche on Tostada As I sit here on the plane to Mexico with my son’s sleeping head on my shoulder, it’s hard to imagine that just two nights ago he ran away from home.  Well, running away from home is a bit of an exaggeration, but knowing that he was angry enough to want […]

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Zen and the Art of a White Picket Fence

April 12, 2011

  Back in 1990 I was sitting in my apartment with a close friend listening to her plaintive lament about life in Los Angeles.  She decried the fast pace, the traffic, and the unrealistic expectations that life in tinsel town put on the average person.  What she wanted, she bemoaned, was an authentic and real […]

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Los Angeles Times exposes the sweeter side of a new pop star!

April 12, 2011

You can imagine my surprise when the I got a email from Rene Lynch at the Los Angeles times asking me for permission to print my Pop Tart image in the Thursday food section.  I have been a LA Times food section addict since 1988 and I can’t imagine a sweeter treat to start my […]

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The Queen of Tarts

March 26, 2011

For the next three weeks (until April 16th) I will be only posting recipes and short anecdotes.  I have a major test to pass that is required by my school district and it will require many hours of study.  After the test, I am taking Andrew to visit my old home in Mexico and I […]

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