There have not been many. Cooking for two is either like trying to split a recipe in half – you end up with half an onion, half a can of tomatoes, and a whole lot of regret that you didn’t just order takeout; or ending up with leftovers that linger in the refrigerator like the ghosts of meals past. Neither is ideal. Or perhaps it’s just Winter, when cooking is relegated to stews and roasts and braises, none of which are particularly photoworthy. Moving along. A warm late autumn afternoon called for a visit to a local winery that serves a delicious pizza with a combo I will actually eat: figs ..read more

Anna Grace would have to graduate at some point. Of course this doesn’t mean we’ll never return to Ireland, but with a whole big world out there that we haven’t explored, there will have to be a specific reason calling us back to the Emerald Isle anytime soon. The ceremony began and ended with a Man with a Scepter and was all in Latin; the dias had a vague Hogwarts vibe about it, too. Congratulations, Anna Grace, one of the newest Trinity College Dublin Astrophysics graduates! Tradition holds that Trinity students must not pass beneath the Campanile while the bells are tolling, lest ..read more

Our county’s (Spring and) Autumn Farm Tours are top rate. As it happened, our son was in town ahead of training at HQ, so I was treated to my favorite guys being around for a weekend in October that just so happened to coincide with the biannual open farms tours our county offers. This is a genious concept. Open the farms, let people tour (and shop and eat and drink) and hopefully learn a little bit in the process. We began at Oatlands, a former plantation and once home to the largest enslaved community in our county. The mansion is now available for touring (and genealogical research); and th ..read more

Apparently I’ve been missing the point. I have written previously about Mark Rothko here, so I decided to ask AI to kindly, “compose a witty paragraph” about the artist. Mark Rothko’s canvases are more than mere paint on a surface; they’re like portals to the soul’s symphony. With vibrant hues orchestrating a silent ballet, his paintings beckon viewers into an enigmatic embrace, a dance between colors that whispers secrets of the human condition. Each hue isn’t just a pigment; it’s a chapter in a wordless novel, inviting interpretation and contemplation. Rothko’s artistry is a tantalizing ridd ..read more

New Year, New Beginnings. Recently I read an analogy about social media that didn’t resonate with me much, though it does make for a decent opening to this post: “Facebook is your neighborhood. Twitter (X) is your local bar. And your blog is your home.” If Facebook is my neighborhood, it’s a pretty unneighborly place. I never saw the need to have thousands of “Friends” to begin with, whether virtually or in real life; and barely 10% of the few real life true friends I have post anymore. Mostly we share the accomplishments of our children, as it probably should be.  I have no presence on X ..read more

Of the National Gallery.  A leftover from The Layover. Anna and I are Calder fangirls. Always have been, always will be. Our National Gallery has an entire gallery dedicated to this multimedia master, and the pioneer of mobile art, so naturally we had to drop in. The Miro and Magritte are added bonuses. Because a giant blue rooster on the roof is spot-on National Gallery. Wasily Kandinsky, Alma Thomas, and Jasper Johns for balance. Well, maybe not so much balance with Kandinsky, but I still love his work. How fortunate we are to have this art in our backyard, courtesy of the our f ..read more

Our verdict? and Found some photos while tidying the network, and dug through my phone for tasting notes. This was a stop at the end of our spring Skyline Drive tour, hence the beautiful background. We shared their Spring Flight, which had the quite the variety. Least impressive was their Chambourcin of “Stewed Blueberry and Pomegranate.”  Perhaps “Stewed” is not the most oenophilic of terms. Their dry Chardonnay lacked the claimed “Peach” notes, but was otherwise quaffable for a barrel fermened white. Our favorite was their Cabernet, with notes of plum, black cherry and smoky oak. In ..read more

The photos are worth more than a thousand words and the $35 entrance ticket. A bonus snap: Frasier Crane’s apartment building.   ..read more

Her monthlong layover behind us in the figurative rearview mirror, Anna and I headed to Seattle in September, to get her settled into her expensive charming shoebox ahead of a bustling week of orientations before the real work begins. With a furniture delivery window of “Basically All Afternoon” the day after we arrived, we hit Target one minute after it opened that morning for various items; 90 long minutes later we emerged, exhausted and in need of an overpriced refreshing Starbucks beverage. When in Rome, of course. Next stop, across town to to Ballard to pick up her Internet router at the ..read more

Quite the combination, isn’t it? You might be thinking, Weren’t these exhibits, like, last February or so? Indeed they were. I am woefully behind in boring my beloved five readers with our comings and goings. That’s what happens when you purchase a 115 year-old Farmhouse and decide to dabble in homesteading. Those cucumbers weren’t going to pickle themselves this summer, after all.  I availed myself of a timed-entry ticket for the buzzworthy Yayoi Kusama exhibit at Hirshhorn. Arriving early, I tucked into the Smithsonian Museum of African Art’s offer beforehand on Nollywood artists ..read more