Dreary January has us dreaming of summer rest and relaxation in the Colorado mountains, with nature up close and personal.

My childhood at the beach is a constant muse for poetry and a guide for how to live, an everlasting gift from my parents, who chose to leave suburbia for a life on the coast that would their children to be children and their lives to authentic and grounded in nature.

A quick poem in response to a prompt from the dVerse Poets Pub about newspapers.

January dreaming and memories of a perfect lunch and afternoon stroll through Copenhagen on a summer’s day, studded with pictures of bicycles, flowers and statues – and a traditional “Smørrebrød” lunch.

Sharing the song “Abraham, Martin and John” in honor of Martin Luther King Day.

A warming winter soup with a variety of vegetables and smoked ham hocks, with a kick from our Zippy Sicilian.

A 3-day weekend and a sub-freezing forecast inspire big batches of warming food in the Glover Gardens kitchen.

This delectable side dish based on instant grits is borderline spicy, sinfully creamy with a balancing crunch from fresh corn, and super-easy!

A tribute to Miami Beach’s À la Folie Café on the historic Espanola Way. There’s a shared understanding that sitting and enjoying a beverage or a meal in someone else’s company is one of the finest things you can do in life.

Ingredients and methodology for creating a big batch of beans with outta-this-world sultry, smoky flavor (plus a few lessons learned).

The first post in the 2025 January Dreaming series, a lament about January’s lameness, and a look-ahead to #Miami2025.

The Christmas holiday time with family was over, the days-long series of festivities successfully executed and enjoyed by all. This short poem captures the essence of the post-holiday reflection of empty-nesters.

A heartwarming story about a unique birthday gift. Spoiler alert: one of The Grill-Meister books about space and time travel got to ride in a SpaceX rocket!

There’s nothing like a homemade gift to warm the cockles of holiday hearts, especially in these days of rampant big-box store commercialism. If you’re ready to mix up some spicy stocking-stufferes, here are the recipes.

A jazzy livestream from Austin, Texas, led by Thomas Wenglinski.

Another homemade sausage recipe from Glover Gardens! This one enhances turkey’s subtle flavor with whole fennel seed, white wine and sun-dried tomatoes, giving it a Mediterranean feel.

This is a glorious recipe for pepper jelly, both beautiful and zestily tasty. Bonus track: a kitchen disaster story!

A public service announcement about the best thing to do with turkey leftovers – and you can create lasting memories by doing it together with the family.

A live-streamed holiday jazz concert from the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music Jazz Studio gets us into the seasonal spirit at Glover Gardens.

Our Musical Millennial is the piano player for Episode 1 of the new Austin PBS show, Jazz Tonight, and wrote four of the arrangements. Check it out via free livestream.