Steak au Poivre is classic French comfort food. I usually make it with pommes frites ("fries" to us Anglophones) and Brussels sprouts or green beans. I first had this dish when I lived in North Arlington, NJ and would often take the bus into Manhattan. My favorite restaurant was a bistro called Tout Va Bien [...]
When I was a small child--about four years old--my mother did some volunteer secretarial work for our local YMCA, which had an outdoor pool. I remember sitting once alone in a playroom while my mother was typing in the adjacent office. A girl of about eight walked in from the pool to use the bathroom, [...]
PART II The next morning I had a true brainstorm, and my moment of inspiration came to me in the most unexpected way. I was in the main office of my school, and Mr. Melosh, my math teacher, was making copies of an upcoming test I was just dying to get a look at. We [...]
Adesso, Respiro I breathe out; I live my days awake. I breathe in; I sleep through the night. Breathless before, I envied the art of others, Gasped in anger at the mirror, And desperately chased my wages— My lungs never full. Panting all those years, I scented not The fires in the hearths, The flowers [...]
In my younger days, I was fond of playing practical jokes, and I was quite a hypocrite when I think about it, as I hated having jokes played on me, but I truly relished the satisfaction of a well-orchestrated scheme that victimized others. Perhaps my cruel streak drove me to target a [...]
About 15 years ago, I read Healing and the Mind, by the journalist Bill Moyers. The book documents interviews Moyers conducted with over a dozen practitioners and researchers. One section included an interview with Jon Kabat-Zinn, a medical school professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Dr. Kabat-Zinn asserted some intriguing and compelling medical [...]
My Aunt Margaret has been a vegetarian for decades, but during a discussion some years ago about cooking a whole chicken, she directed me to a technique detailed in Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle, and Simone Beck. I had seen this very poulet rôti recipe before as I browsed [...]
Now, Mother, I have served your bitter spite, And through me will the poisons ever run As you recline indifferent to the sight Of anguish in your ever-faithful son. I beg release from this tormentous state To know no more the face, the name, the sound Of Psyche, nor the dysempereal weight Of love unsought, [...]
Some cold juice from a pitcher before dawn, The waking morning as I draw the door, The paper damp with dew from our front lawn, Returning footsteps wet upon the floor. An hour as the print meets my mind’s mist, Then back roads to the schoolroom, where the day With joy sees age cajole and [...]
Dread god, for words of hope you come to me. Elysium frees me of my former frame. A vaster mind and soul’s eternity Inform the keen account I would declaim. But I must speak out humbly--you, divine Would place me still in peril of the heat Of known Olympian wrath if I define The justice [...]
