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CultureWatch: Provence, 1970: M.F.K. Fisher, Julia Child, James Beard, and the Reinvention of American Taste
Luke Barr gives readers a thoughtful contemplation of post-World War II cooking history along with a delicious slice of foodie gossip ... Just below the surface of its telling lurk fundamental social and moral issues well worth contemplating when the last page is read. Who gets to eat? What is the relationship between food and economic status? Why did middle class Americans fall so hard for classic French food in the 1960s? And what makes a cuisine "ethnic? more »
When You’ve Seen One, You’ve Seen the Mall
Doris O'Brien writes: I never dreamed I'd be spending my retirement in a mall. Don’t get me wrong. I haven'’t become a shopaholic willing to squander my 401K distribution in the pursuit of materialism. To be more precise, I live above a mall, in a sixth floor, two-bedroom aerie with a panoramic view of Southern California’s San Gabriel mountains. more »
Cold Comfort: Evaluating My Thermal Clothing for Inside the House
Joan L. Cannon writes: For what seemed at the time, and still seems, a perfectly logical reason I decided to grit my teeth (both literally and figuratively) and move. Not just down the block, or even just to another street — but to another state. More accurately, to move back to a state where I'd spent most of my adult life. Unfortunately, this meant leaving "the Deep South" and returning to southern New England. Right about now it feels like the southern Arctic. more »
Friendship: Sally and I are great friends, though it's hard to understand why. We have so little in common
Rose Madeline Mula writes: We do both enjoy travel and have taken many trips together. I prefer a fixed itinerary. Not Sally, of course. She abhors being tied to a particular schedule. And while I much prefer to fly to a destination more than a few hundred miles away, Sally would rather drive — again, the schedule phobia, and also because her car has a huge trunk which she can pack with every article of clothing she has owned since college and still have room for all the treasures she'll buy along the way. more »
