Empty Stockings Full of Love
Each year, memories fly out of these treasures like dust motes in the light and gently come to rest on me.
Category: Memoirs
You Left Us Too Soon: Open Letter to Steven Thomas Harvell on His Birthday
I remember my brother now more with joy at what was than sadness about what will never be.
Every Seashell Tells a Story
Gumbo is a family treasure, seashells elicit childhood memories, and these napkin rings made with shells we found 40 years ago bring echoes of the past into the now.
Frank Harvell and Oscar Wilde Shared a Birthday
October 16 is a special day. RIP Oscar Wilde and Dad.
It’s My Birthday, and I’d Like to Give You a Gift
A poem by Gordon Parks speaks of curiosity, wonder, celebration of life and nature, and the awesome, simple, dead-on-target mindfulness of children.
Fleeting
A footprint, a feather and a leaf, about to be swept away. Remembering my brother in a haiku.
Gumbo: It’s a Family Affair
A 7th grade essay sums up how gumbo got started for us: “My family has a 35-year history with gumbo.” Part 2 of a series.
My Cookbook Fetish is Inherited
I have hundreds of cookbooks. Literally. It’s Mom’s Fault (thanks, Mom!) I’m a cookbook collector, or maybe even a cookbook pack rat. It might be a bit of a sickness. I’ve tried to slow it down, but for a while there, I was on a […]
January Dreaming
My Mom always hated January. Too cold. Too damp. Too boring. This is the first post in a series: January Dreaming.
Finally, a Trip to K-Paul’s in New Orleans
Paul Prudhomme’s cookbooks started a family tradition, and K-Paul’s Louisiana Kitchen is part of it.
The Story of Chicken
Family-memory stories gain a patina with age and become the stuff of legend. The Story of Chicken is one of those stories.
(Another) Haiku for Dad, On His Second Birthday in Heaven
My dad was born 80 years ago today in West Texas as the Great Depression was coming to an end in the shadow of another Great War in Europe, a time before regular Americans realized we’d be involved in that war. With that backdrop and […]
Heart-Theater, an Elegy
An elegy for three, from the one remaining. They live in my heart-theater, their voices all trumpets and whispers and hugs.
Haiku: Unexpected Fireworks in Edinburgh and Memories
Business trip serendipity. Fireworks and haiku. Memories. Good times. Edinburgh rocks.
I didn’t know you, Anthony Bourdain.
For people like me, there’s a sense of loss from the abrupt ending of Anthony Bourdain’s huge contribution to the canons of travel, food and cultural understanding, and a reluctant but absolutely unavoidable comparison to our own unwelcome experiences with the savage, raw, rollercoaster aftermath of suicide.
