The Bosch Universal Kitchen Machine ticks me off.  It sits there in my kitchen, taunting me, making me feel guilty.  I mean, if it didn’t work very well, that would be one thing.  I’d just taunt it right back.  But the thing is, it’s really, really good.  It makes everything easy.  It’s powerful and efficient, kneading [...]

Mother’s Day and I have a love/hate relationship.  I love being a mother.  I love having a mother.  I love being pampered on Mother’s Day, and the Sassy Husband does it well.  But I hate, in the most loving way possible, trying to find something for my own mother.  She and my dad have downsized to a [...]

No raindrops on roses (we’ve been getting snow) or whiskers on kittens (ours ran away), bright copper kettles (I have stainless) or warm woolen mittens (Thinsulate gloves around these parts).  No brown paper packages tied up with string (but I do have an ongoing affair with Amazon, and its brown cardboard boxes with the smile [...]

When I was in high school, I read The Grapes of Wrath for my American Lit class.  By the end of the book I felt like I had trudged through the Dust Bowl myself, and was in danger of entering my own Great Depression.  I almost didn’t read The Persian Pickle Club because, well, it’s [...]