Too Hot To Trot

I don’t know about where you are, but we’re dying over here.  Fans running full blast, ice cubes in every glass, salty, sticky skin and hair sopped to the roots, I’m wilting by 7:00 in the morning.
At 8:00 I’m out in the garden arguing with the birds and the bees.  I want a bowl of [...]

My Coming Out Party

When we spring something startling upon an unsuspecting world we call it a coming out party.  A young woman, formerly cloistered in the bosom of a sheltering family is presented to society.  Someone who’s hitherto toiled invisibly behind the scenes, often unappreciated,  assumes a new public role.  Someone who’s gay, unbeknownst to family and friends,  [...]

North on Northwest

The pressure is on.
Abra has asked me to guest-blog for this entry of French Letters … an honour to be sure, since I’m a real fan of French Letters and Abra’s view on food and life. She’s been to Vancouver a number of times, but this was our first visit to their home on Bainbridge [...]

Walla Walla Whoop

Where do you go when you’re in the mood for a great getaway with food to match?  I’m guessing that Walla Walla, Washington isn’t currently at the top of your list, but you might want to rethink that.  We’ve just come back from several days of whooping it up in Walla Walla and environs, where we relaxed [...]

America The Quirky

Lately I’ve been focusing on the differences between France and America through the microscope of vocabulary.  For example, there’s no word in French that exactly means messy, as in “eating with your fingers is messy.”  There’s a word for mess, of course, but not for messiness as a natural state of affairs.  And there’s no [...]

I Like To Be In America

“I like to be in America…” Our friend Maryse is visiting us from France, and as you can see by her radiant smile, even though she doesn’t know the song, she likes to be in America.

“Ok by me in America…” It seems to her that anything is startlingly possible here, whereas we take it for [...]

The Cat Came Back

I find it really hard to live without a cat, and so I’ve been spending far more time than would seem necessary gazing into the little webcam that shows me how Beppo and Zazou are faring during their “vacation” at the cat hotel in the south of France.  But this morning a persistent meowing awakened me to [...]