Michael’s mom with bread and mint

“Is it the bread-soaked-in-meat-juice holiday?”

Such is the uncomely moniker I once used when Michael and I would receive the invitation to gather with his family, including an extended family of neighbours and friends, in early May. Not knowing much about the Portuguese Festa do Espirito Santo, or Festival of the Holy Spirit, I simply equated it ...
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Tablecloth embroidered by my great-grandmother

I only remember her hands ravaged by age: skin thin and spotted, knuckles gnarled with arthritis. I can still see them working a crochet needle, kneading dough, and wiping the warm wax from the surface of a just-written pysanka. I thought about those hands and the woman they belonged to, my maternal great-grandmother, Eva, as ...
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Celebrating Grandma and Grandpa’s birthdays, Christmas 2009

This December, my grandparents turned 81 (grandma, on December 21) and 87 (grandpa, on December 24). On Christmas Day, when we sang the birthday song and watched them together blow out the candles on their banana-chocolate-walnut chiffon cake — my grandmother’s recipe, my uncle, the baker, told us — they were barely two weeks into ...
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Creamed chicken and cornmeal porridge (Ciulama de pui si mămăligă)

I’m trying not to take offence.

I realize that the dish my mother’s people are famous for is commonly referred to as “gruel” (a cornmeal gruel, in fact, made simply with meal, water, and a flick of salt), which is not exactly a glamorous calling card. Still, it is rather disheartening to crack ...
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Green bulb from light installation at the Gladstone Hotel, Open House 2007

Hi, friends. I thought I should turn the blog’s porch light on lest you think I had abandoned the place and not left a forwarding address.

I’m here, but I’ve just been having one of those months. You know the kind: long days at work; full nights working on some non-writing-related ...
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