We know that Gabriella Ranelli is the chef de résistance and has been so way before the era of COVID. Her sourdough experience was an enthralling one indeed, perhaps the most exciting and hair-raising account I’ve read for at least […]
I too have turned my hand to bread baking during this unsettling time. It’s something I haven’t done on a regular basis since the Challenger exploded. At that time I was on a self-imposed lockdown in a snowbound Connecticut farmhouse […]
My 93-year-old mother sent me these pictures the other day. Apparently, they’ve been circulating lately in cyberspace. A while ago she begged me to read and edit her autobiography, which includes excerpts from her own mother’s diary. Seeing these pics […]
Unlike the French, who have an academy to maintain the purity of their language, we English speakers have no such institution, nor do we desire one. We delight in moving words between parts of speech, and with open arms we […]
So I am in lockdown with a teenager. You should have a little bit of background history here. She is almost 16, but I have been separated from her father for most of her life. She lives with me, rushing […]
(Ed. Note: The following is a brief excerpt from a forthcoming memoir that details the author’s life in Ituren, a town in the Baztan Valley. This passage describes her first sighting of the valley, twenty years ago). Something strange was […]
So close, just 20kms or 15 minutes by car from Donosti….and yet so far. Iparralde. You won’t find it on any official map but all Basques know what and where it is: The “North Part” of The Basque Country. It […]
A few more drawings of the lovely birds in my terrace… All drawings are coloured pencil and ink. Here is that pigeon I have to start on! (All originals and prints are available through author’s website. She is also happy to […]
One of the jobs I had written on my long list of things to do during the lockdown was to sort through my bookshelves and try to put my books in some kind of alphabetical order. Nearly a month later […]
As I sit drinking my morning coffee I am lucky to be able to watch birds come into my terrace to feed on bread crumbs we put out for them. They are your regular garden birds but all so pretty […]
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