“Did you see any mafia?” people asked when we returned from Sicily. “You’ll see signs they’re still around, like villages with piles of garbage at their entrances,” said those who had travelled there recently. “You don’t see the Cosa Nostra in Sicily,” others said. “The power’s shifted to new mobs in Calabria and Naples.”
Suppose your father was Ray Stanton Avery who, with $100 borrowed from his future wife and machinery he developed, created the world’s first self-adhesive label, made multimillions and you, his son Dennis, inherited a bundle: What would you do with your wealth? Magellan and I were in Borrego Springs, California, for the Super Bloom—a profusion […]
Once upon a time long ago when the land was owned by the king, the church and the aristocracy and the Danes ruled Norway, a poor man had an idea. “Why do we not farm on Skagadalen ledge where the grass grows long for shepherding goats, Trolls bother not with snow avalanches and the rush of […]
“One thing we would never change is macaroni and cheese,” she assures us. “Our customers demand it at every meal.” Exemplary macaroni and cheese it is: buttery noodles in a cream-smooth béchamel hefted by the ladleful from a serving pan, each portion containing a few dark orange patches of chewy Cheddar from the top of […]
Is there somebody you know who has been characterized in a love story? For us, ‘tis Liz (Chute) O’Carroll, proprietress of The Pebble, a renowned B&B in Halifax. Liz and her husband David’s love story is immortalized in the short story “The Pebble” by Ireland’s Bryan MacMahon, writer, teacher, novelist and playwright from the literary […]
It was almost a decade ago our book club started so I don’t recall whether gratitude goes to Teresa, Anna, Susan or Ed (or me?) for suggesting our first read: The Leopard, by Sicily’s Giuseppe di Lampedusa, a classic gathering no dust on my bookshelf so often is it in my hands. Little did I […]