Orange Blossom Special

Posted by on Mar 4, 2011 in dish | 0 comments The key scene in Marcel Proust’s À la recherce du temps perdu, or Remembrance of Things Past, is the madeleine episode, where the smell and taste of a cookie transports the narrator back to his childhood. (You can see a cartoon version of this famous French scene in the Pixar film Ratatouille). This happens to me every spring when the orange trees bloom.When we first moved to Central Florida, we...
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The Evergreen Sweetness of the Magnolia Mother

Posted by on Jan 14, 2011 in dish | 0 comments Over at a far more serious website, the Wall Street Journal has posted an opinion piece entitled “Why Chinese Mothers are Superior” by Amy Chua, the Yale Law professor whose paen to Chinese-style parenting, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, has set off a depth charge of angst among the mom population. Chua posits that Western moms are far too permissive and don’t demand enough of their darling...
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Journal Ho

Posted by on Oct 1, 2010 in dish | 0 comments I am a bad writer.I don’t mean bad writer in the sense of my writing is bad (at least, I hope that’s not the case), but that I am bad. I do bad things. I do not have an appropriately writerly persona.Take journaling, for instance. I have lots of journals. Lovely journals. Journals with just the right kind of paper, the creamy velvety kind that calls to you in a sultry voice,...
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Perspective

Posted by on Sep 11, 2010 in dish | 0 comments It’s so tempting to spend time dwelling–well, carping really–on all of your issues. Why your life is screwed up. Why things never seem to go right. Why there’s never enough time to get all those tasks around the house finished so you have time to do what you want. As we used to say in college, BBATTB. (Bitch, bitch, all the time bitch)Thankfully, we also have opportunities for a...
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