Everything is popping into a bright green. It’s a young green, different than the ancient green of winter’s moss which I also love. And in my tiny yard the black tulips that I planted when we moved in 5 years ago are blooming again. I love green and black together. Spring is so nice. What are you enjoying about it?? 💚
Today is World Theater Day which seems like the perfect day to announce that I am very proud to be part of an upcoming project with @foxholeprojectsllc called Read My Lips. Our performance will be part of @fertilegroundpdx on April 18 and 25th at @ethosmusicvenue here in Portland. The fertile ground festival features an amazing number of new works and this new play by Jed Sutton is an important piece that highlights Act Up in NYC in the 1980s. The AIDS epidemic hasn’t gone away and back then it devastated my family members so being part of this ensemble feels personally important to me. Come see it! link to tickets in my bio. Silence=Death.
📷 @ph3ntom_
Our city recently celebrated moss appreciation week and there was even a moss petting zoo at the local college but as it was still wintertime and not easy to leave the house I opted to walk across the street and into my nearby woods to revel in our neighborhood moss. And now as spring is springing we have emerging blooms to accompany the moss whose bright green glory will sadly fade as the days warm and lengthen. When the trees first started to bloom this year I thought, really? Certainly we don’t deserve this. Those in power are not behaving well enough to have flowers bursting out all around! I hope the plants are blooming purely for themselves this year. I guess we could hope that some of the beauty might wear off on us, soften us, remind us that beauty still exists despite the horrors. Might be a good idea to go and touch some moss before it dries!
If she hadn’t passed 23 years ago, my mom would have turned 80 today. I miss her all the time and surviving the holidays without her feels the hardest. I think I managed fairly well this year (no major melt downs!) and one thing that may have helped was making these truffles. Chocolate was a huge part of my upbringing. Both parents let us indulge in good chocolate. There was always a 10 pound brick of @guittardchocolate in the pantry and to this day my morning routine is a couple squares of very dark chocolate to which I’ve recently added a warm cup of herbal chai. I find both to be very grounding. And if there’s a moment in time where feeling grounded is important I believe it is now. Grounded and connected to what matters. And what matters is people. People that we know and love as well as those around the globe who need our love.
When I ran out of chai recently I went to the farmer’s market to get more and there was Mahsa and her amazing mother running the @mahsa_chai stall. When I see other women with their moms loving and supporting them it brings me so much joy. Without my own here I just relish seeing moms and daughters so close. I know it’s not always easy but there is something about that bond that’s as deep as earthy dark chocolate.
Over the holidays I brought these
Chocolate Mahsa Chai Truffles to friends that I cherish. (And I still have some in the freezer for when we need more!) Recipe in 1st comment so you can make some too.🤎
Let yourself indulge. My mother would approve!
It only took two tries to string the lights on the tree this year. But that was after a few days of bare branches. Then a day tangled in bead garland, and two days to hang ornaments. And it’s just a little tree! Next the mantle with its crèche, fawns and little bears. And with leftover garland I decided to decorate the chandelier. Despite my incremental snail’s pace, I have been loving all the light from the menorah and the tree so
much. But the best is having my little family all together. I hope you all have found some joy this season and that 2026 brings even more as we all muddle through somehow!
In the 5 days that our daughter has been home from university for the winter break she has made chocolate soufflés, tahini chocolate chip cookies, a huge batch of ragù (because she wanted to remember how she did it last time and practice with guidance from the maestro), and a wonderful zucchini leek risotto drizzled with @freshfromfrantoi new oil. As a family we have enjoyed these things by the light of the menorah. I have been thanking my lucky stars that my kid arrived whole from school while mourning for families whose kids did not. While mourning for those families destroyed when simply celebrating Hanukkah. The world can be very dark. This is a time of year when I struggle more than I like to admit. The losses I’ve survived happened in the dark days of December. I have more to say on this but it’s wrapped up in the next thing on the calendar, so I will wait. But as for what our society has been suffering through I remember what Anne Frank said: “Look how a single candle can both defy and define the darkness.” It must be defined and defied without hesitation. Without looking away. Because history is repeating itself in the worst of ways and if we don’t speak out we are complicit. For now I’m soaking in the bits of light that I can throughout the last half of Hanukkah. I am including some slides with words from @dr.zelana that struck me about what this ritual of candles and light really mean. And I’m feeling immensely fortunate to have my family feeding me.
We would have been returning from a couple of weeks in Italy today but for myriad reasons our trip was postponed for the time being. So I booked just a one night getaway out to the Colombia Gorge to simulate the idea of a holiday. If we squinted and pretended the scale of the landscape was just slightly ever so adjusted it almost looked like the vineyards and orchards of Mosier could almost maybe perhaps be Chianti!? It helped that we had a late afternoon prix fixe meal at @analemmawines replete with radicchio, antipasti and creamy pastas on the menu. Plus the one of the best panna cotta I’ve ever had, topped with stewed cherries grown on their farm and made with local @mlj_dairy milk. After stuffing ourselves we arrived at a little cottage in the woods and I said out loud, all I need now is to see some deer and ecco: minutes later mio marito pointed out the little kitchen window into the gloaming and said there are the deer! Which I tried to capture in the fading light. 🦌
Drives through the gorge always amazes me. Just an hour from home and the landscape is mesmerizing. This time of year the waterfalls rush by, one after another, full to capacity and the width of the river and the cliffs that cascade down feel other worldly. A nice escape before the winter holidays hit full stride. I hope you are taking some moments for yourselves amidst the hustle and bustle! 🌲🥂💦
Imagine my surprise when my kid came home from school with this in his hands announcing he had made it in culinary class and that he had done the lattice work himself. His cooking group chose to do marionberry pie instead of apple which also delighted me beyond belief. These kids and their fearless leader @lincolnculinary along with our amazing high school Cardinal families donated over 575 pies to families in need for Thanksgiving. 🥧
This was the second time in a week I felt immensely proud of my children’s culinary accomplishments. The first being my daughter, away at college, harvesting her first solo batch of gorgeous sauerkraut. So satisfying to see one’s child thriving in this way. And our eldest has worked in one of my favorite kitchens in Portland @g.lovepdx 🌟
So all the offspring are well on their way to being at a point in life able to create food for themselves and others. I feel indebted to their teachers. Along with Chef Garret at G Love we have the deeply beloved uncle and auntie (my sis!) @wildwestferments who first taught me the art decades ago and who gifted the college kid a beautiful fermentation crock. And there’s Chef Hammer @lincolnculinary who is diligently creating a generation of young cooks with her incredible aplomb and warmth. It’s beyond heartening, fulfilling some sense of ancestral steadfastnes which I know comes with privilege and luck. I am forever grateful. I hope despite the difficulties of the “holiday” those who gathered yesterday are finding ways big and small to feel thankful. I have so much gratitude for my family and community!
I awoke today to learn that a light has gone out of this world. Sweet, gracious, beautiful, generous Sandra of @blackrockranch_stinson has passed onto the next realm. My heart is heavy and breaks for her sister @happilyeveritaly and the rest of her dear family. There is nothing like the bond between these sisters reminding me to hold my own close. I met Sandra and Sylvia for the first time for a lovely lunch in Tuscany years ago and since then have been enjoying wonderful visits to Sandra’s farm when I visit home in west Marin. It feels unfathomable that she is no longer there. The chickens, the beloved Santa Cruz Island sheep, the artichokes, the pastures and views of the Pacific. They will all miss her. Her particular way of seeing the world, her enormous heart. But none will miss her so much as her sister, husband, her mermaid mother, children and precious granddaughter. 💔
I am so lucky that I got to be her friend and be on the receiving end of the beauty she created and her generous spirit. On one visit she gifted me a little branch sliced carefully from a green fig tree in her garden, encouraging me to plant it in hopes of the sapling taking to my care, which felt like a long shot. I have planted it in a huge terracotta pot from Impruneta that my mother personally selected the one time she went to Italy right before being diagnosed with cancer, herself. I put it in this pot because I knew if I moved from this house I would want to take this fig with me. It’s sad because we can’t take all the people we love with us everywhere we go… and yes, I know I can’t really take all the trees I love either. But this young fig diligently continues to slowly grow. Last week it lost the last of its big, yellowed leaves for the winter, drifting down onto my porch. The most lovely reminder to go inward and trust that spring will come once more. That the love we share with others never dies. That the memories will always be blessings. Hold those you love close and try to feel the magic of the universe and the softness of some wool today. Next time you bite into a ripe fig think of Sandra. May she rest so, so peacefully. ✨💫
Over the past couple weeks I’ve been trapped like a small rabbit, accomplishing almost nothing because I’m compelled to spend so much time watching the robins eat all of the Ash berries. The berries are all gone from the tree now which in my mind means winter is coming soon but the autumn colors are still holding on and just so brilliant. I hope the birds will keep eating the berries on the deck. There’s one that does and I love it because it feels so helpful. It is mesmerizing to have this show every year with the birds so close to view. O the number of times in my life I’ve wished I was a bird or a tree!
#wildlife #birdwatching #backyardhabitat #drunkenrobins
When I think of the history of time and the universe it feels like a miracle that we exist. And among so much BEAUTY even though “life’s a mess and we should be depressed…” I’m lucky to be having a relatively good time. Beyond lucky to have sweet messages pour in from all the amazing souls who are with me on all these journeys ‘round the sun. So grateful to be starting another round! Let’s keep holding each other up. Thank you for your love. 🧡🙏🌈
Beans and greens on sourdough rye. With @freshfromfrantoi olive oil. It’s a good reason to be alive! And here is a story I always tell on October 17th: On this day (53! years ago) I died and came back to life. A singular day of my experience on this planet that I often ponder… making me wonder about survival. Some days it’s as simple as eating delicious things that makes me so happy to still be earthside. But on that day so long ago when my mother found unalive little me floating in the deep end of the pool and begged the heavens for life to be returned to my body… what was given up in exchange? I don’t like believing that the universe works that way. I prefer to believe in infinity♾️That we can’t even fathom the number of possible outcomes we have. When my mind gets mired in what ifs, it’s nice to focus on simple joys. Which in current times is a major privilege! The joy my own little family brings. My wonderful friends. And why not top notch olive oils from bellissima Italia?!🍈 My friend Elizabeth has made it easy to have them and this is the moment to reserve some for yourself and your loved ones. Before tariffs make it way harder…There’s no time like the present: it is a gift! These luscious bottles of oil also make great gifts. 🎁 Link in bio to reserve. #frantoio #evoo #lifeafterdeath #gladtobehere #nde
