White lights and sparkling baubles. ♦ ♦ ♦ The Christmas tree in the lobby of Little Rock’s Capital Hotel, named among the 10 most dazzling this year by Forbes Travel Guide. I second that. ♦ ♦ ♦ A lovely gingerbread village with royal icing snow and working Christmas lights, around which a train chugs and travels through a tunnel….
Sausage Rolls
Regiments of Sausage Rolls, ready for the oven ♦ ♦ ♦ I don’t like surprises. I do like apple pies. My husband is an avowed, unrepentant, sour-face-making apple-hater, so, to avoid the calorie intake involved in eating an entire apple pie by myself, I satisfy my apple pie craving with a weekly purchase of the single-serving version…
Raves and Faves 16
This willful, nutty, usually happy dog whose bark sounds like something you’d hear in a swamp at night. He likes a car ride almost more than pot roast leftovers. On this occasion, he was sulking because our errands were done, and it was time to go back in the house. Kai, we’re done with our…
Chunk of Chuck, Two Ways
I joined the throngs of Arkansans at grocery stores last Wednesday, stocking up on foodstuffs before sleet and ice would make travel impossible for a whole (ahem) day and a half. We Southerners are wired as a people to respond to inclement weather by buying chunks of meat and making chili, stew, and pot roast….
Turkey Day Prep
This book is a great guide, especially if you read it before Thanksgiving. ♦ ♦ ♦ Some thoughts on Thanksgiving before I head to the grocery store with my massive shopping list two days before the U.S. Kitchen Olympics, along with all the other hordes of cooks who should’ve planned better. Do as I say, not as…
Karma, Is That You? (Part 2)
Husband and I spent the weekend in Memphis with our friends, J and S, in a belated celebration of their wedding anniversary. We make a convivial group. Common interests include good food, chocolate martinis, and the Elmwood Cemetery. No, that’s not weird. We go to Elmwood hoping to catch someone staffing the Visitor’s Cottage so…
Karma, Is That You? (Part 1)
Statue in Elmwood Cemetery – Memphis, Tennessee. I bought the camera of my dreams in the early 2000s. I ordered it by telephone from a store in New York City after researching ads in photography magazines. I remember that the order taker was scornful that I didn’t know which aperture range to specify for my…
Jack o’ Lantern Sugar Cookies
Sugar cookies are not just for Christmas, although this dough is my go-to during the ho-ho-holidays. Let’s let pumpkins steal a little sparkle from the yuletide for a change, shall we? Halloween deserves its own day. Yet, just getting to Halloween items in stores requires wading through acres of fake pine swags and elf statuary…
Raves and Faves 15
♦ ♦ ♦ Music on my Halloween playlist: “Rattlin’ Bones,” by the Preservation Hall Jazz Band “The Boogie Man,” by The Cadillacs “Secrets of the Castle,” by John Williams “Ghost Town,” by The Specials “Spooky,” by The Atlanta Rhythm Section “He’s a Pirate,” by Chris Joss and Klaus Badelt (Ship Ahoy Tribal remix) “This Magic Moment,” by…
Chicken Frijole Soup
Making this soup the other day required deboning a rotisserie chicken in front of a rapt audience of four dogs. They sat two to my left and two to my right, about 150 total pounds of canines quivering with the effort of self-control, their silent yearning palpable: Oh, please, please, drop the bird. They behaved…
Cookbook Wall 