Popcorn and a Movie: Peering into a perfect movie

When the mainstream recollects master director Alfred Hitchock’s films, “Psycho” (1960) is usually at the forefront of the mass mind. It’s a great movie, but not his best, reinforced in popular culture by its high place on best-horror-film lists, that oft-brought-up shower scene and a stop on the Universal Studios movie tour.

But when I . . . → Read More: Popcorn and a Movie: Peering into a perfect movie

Bread of the Month: Taking zucchini bread to chocolatey heights

Someone always has too much zucchini. Thankfully. Because if you have a food-loving, gardening circle of people populating your world, you can benefit from this abundance. This summer, I have been graced with others’ extra tomatoes, peaches, yellow squash, golden cherry plums and zucchini, and have not wasted a morsel.

Zucchini is so very versatile, . . . → Read More: Bread of the Month: Taking zucchini bread to chocolatey heights

Getting corny with a late-summer soup

Whenever I cut fresh corn off the cob (or get anywhere near corn-on-the-cob, actually), I think about my Grandpa Merwin. Toothless, he was undaunted by such propositions as sinking teeth into cobbed corn. When a platter of steaming ears was presented, he simply whipped out his pocket knife, clicked the blade open and began slicing . . . → Read More: Getting corny with a late-summer soup

Finding my fun in ‘Dolly’s Doughnut’

“If my life wasn’t funny, it would just be true, and that is unacceptable.” — Carrie Fisher

Sometimes, after a crap-ass year, you just need to have some fun.

That is not a terribly positive beginning (was it the term “crap-ass”?), and I apologize. But I speak the truth in my feeling. Despite this being . . . → Read More: Finding my fun in ‘Dolly’s Doughnut’