Fiction was never really my thing, which isn’t to say I don’t enjoy reading novels, but I was always a bit suspicious of it. I was more drawn to poetry’s bisecting truths. My husband, who’s written two novels, has tired of narrative in his middle age. He feels like he knows the outcomes all too…
Read MoreI asked Carolyn Summers, a landscape designer and native plant expert, what she thought could be done to address what many botanical gardens are calling “plant blindness” and which I likened to a form of illiteracy. This ignorance about plants is relatively new, she pointed out. Take a look at an old Boy Scout manual,…
Read MoreThe San Francisco chef Heidi Swanson occasionally posts a list of articles that have caught her eye, on her blog 101 Cookbooks. While I continue to prepare the upcoming In the Weeds podcast, I thought I might offer something similar, a little path of reflection dotted with links. This time of year, one’s thoughts inevitably…
Read MoreI loved learning that coffee played an instrumental role in the Enlightenment. All those men switching from beer to coffee! No wonder they had a lot to talk about. Nowadays, the coffee trade is staggering and fraught with political and environmental issues. Many conscientious coffee drinkers seek out Fair Trade and Shade-Grown coffee, but, according…
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