The winter solstice is the day with the shortest daylight hours.  It doesn’t feel like it, but starting today the days will be getting longer for the next six months until the summer solstice. As far back as I can recall I’ve been interested in the four days of the year that mark the change […]

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Posted in eating well,Family,main courses,making peace with food,recipes
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  • December 22, 2014 - 7:43 pm

    Carrie MkgLemonade - The recipe looks delicious, perfect for these longer, colder nights. 🙂ReplyCancel

    • December 22, 2014 - 7:46 pm

      nrlowell@comcast.net - Carrie, I think I’d be happy to eat braised food every cold night! Oh, and maybe some soups too 🙂ReplyCancel

  • December 26, 2014 - 1:18 pm

    Peggy Gilbey McMackin - Hi Nancy, interesting Post. You and I have something in common, neither of us like feeling dragged out of bed in the dark. I struggle with this annually! Otherwise, I rather enjoy most of the winter!ReplyCancel

  • January 1, 2015 - 9:24 pm

    Suheiry - I don’t handle winter well. The dark brings me down and the cold makes my joints hurt. I need the light and heat of summer.

    I also look out for the winter and summer solstices.ReplyCancel

    • January 2, 2015 - 10:11 am

      nrlowell@comcast.net - Suheiry, I am right there with you about the cold, but I am not a big fan of the summer heat either. Sometimes I think I’d be better off living soemwhere like San Francisco or Seattle.ReplyCancel

For me pottery and cooking are similar disciplines. I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before but for years I was a potter. I worked in a studio and spent hours a day sitting at a potters’ wheel making round things, and then changing them. I loved working on the wheel, I gave it up reluctantly. I […]

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Posted in eating well,self image
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  • December 19, 2014 - 7:31 am

    Jhanis - I took ceramics as a vocational course for a year before I went to college. I loved it!ReplyCancel

    • December 19, 2014 - 9:33 am

      nrlowell@comcast.net - Jhanis, so nice to hear from you! Yes, if you bring patience it is so much fun.ReplyCancel

It’s not often you get a surprise at a funeral, and at this one I got two. On a June day in 1991 I met my parents at Mount Carmel cemetery which straddles Brooklyn and Queens, New York. We were there to bury my grandmother Harriet. Though any funeral is sad, my grandmother had lived […]

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Posted in Family
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  • December 16, 2014 - 9:53 am

    Peggy Gilbey McMackin - Tough story Nancy. I’m not certain I could have held to the rules. And then, another conversation surrounding birth control alternatives might even been had at your pre-college luncheon.ReplyCancel

    • December 16, 2014 - 11:50 am

      nrlowell@comcast.net - Peggy, I was trained on those rules very young, and very effectively!ReplyCancel

  • December 16, 2014 - 12:23 pm

    Carolann - My mom passed at a young age as well 🙁 So sad a story but a great lesson for folks too.ReplyCancel

    • December 16, 2014 - 3:43 pm

      nrlowell@comcast.net - Carolann, losing a parent at a young age has become so rare (which is good) it makes many people uncomfortable. Veterans of this are in a sort of club. So though I am of course sorry you had to endure this, I am glad for the ‘company’.ReplyCancel

  • December 16, 2014 - 2:45 pm

    Jane Gassner (@Jane_Gassner) - I know that cemetery…or the one next to it Mt. Hebron. That’s where my family is. That’s where I will go. I cannot imagine having such important things unsaid in a family. I hope the silence has ended.ReplyCancel

    • December 16, 2014 - 3:39 pm

      nrlowell@comcast.net - Jane,
      To one degree on another the silence persisted throughout both my parents’ lives. They are both now deceased, and my siblings and I often surprise each other with pieces of the family history only one of us knows. My take-away from this is that secrets are often toxic, and I have spent my life trying to be forthright and transparent (where appropriate).ReplyCancel

  • December 16, 2014 - 4:34 pm

    Nate - I share your aim to be as transparent as I can. As a genealogist, I see it as my duty to dispel the secrets that were left unsaid. I figure they don’t matter anymore to those that have passed through. By doing so, I came across the fact that one side of my family has a rare heart condition running through it. Learning that probably saved my life.ReplyCancel

    • December 17, 2014 - 9:49 am

      nrlowell@comcast.net - Nate, so glad you found an important answer. I think the really challenging piece is all the questions we don’t even know to ask.ReplyCancel

  • December 16, 2014 - 6:51 pm

    Christine - I completely get that feeling, when a series of little coincidences and surprises fall together into some kind of pattern that seems impossibly non-random. Thanks for sharing this story.ReplyCancel

    • December 17, 2014 - 9:50 am

      nrlowell@comcast.net - Christine, it’s amazing all the random things that fall together and make up our understanding of the world.ReplyCancel

  • December 17, 2014 - 7:53 am

    Audrey - A wonderful, heartfelt post. Thanks for sharing this.ReplyCancel

    • December 17, 2014 - 9:51 am

      nrlowell@comcast.net - Audrey, thanks for stopping by.ReplyCancel

  • December 17, 2014 - 8:19 am

    Cyn K - I can’t fathom why the location of your mother’s grave was kept from you. I can maybe understand not discussing the cause of her death when you were younger, but not once you were an adult. Funerals are stressful enough without added surprises.ReplyCancel

    • December 17, 2014 - 9:52 am

      nrlowell@comcast.net - Cyn,
      I believe withholding information ‘to protect us’ was such a habit that it never occurred to anyone to break the pattern. I also never asked…ReplyCancel

  • December 17, 2014 - 8:53 am

    Michelle Longo - Those reminders of the ones we’ve lost are so hard, particularly when they come at such moments. I agree finding a grave of someone with my exact birth date would freak me out even on the best of days.ReplyCancel

    • December 17, 2014 - 9:54 am

      nrlowell@comcast.net - Michelle, it was quite a confluence of events!ReplyCancel

  • December 18, 2014 - 12:12 am

    Asha - So many important facts about us get lost when we lose our parents, don’t they? And all the more complicated for you because nobody was talking about your mother. Your piece raised so many important points about the secrets that families keep.ReplyCancel

    • December 18, 2014 - 10:36 am

      nrlowell@comcast.net - Asha, losing a parent is a permanent condition, with no cure.ReplyCancel

  • December 18, 2014 - 4:47 pm

    celeste noelani - I breathed a huge sigh of relief and solidarity when I got to the part where you mention expecting to die at 33. My father died at 47, so when I turned 37 I FREAKED OUT because I only had 10 years left. Recently I realized (hey math!) that he actually died at 46 and it was weird to say the least.

    I wanted to extend my deepest condolences, and thank you so very much for sharing.ReplyCancel

    • December 18, 2014 - 5:10 pm

      nrlowell@comcast.net - Celeste, I had the year wrong as well! because my story was limited in word length I abbreviated all the drama around that… Thank you for sharing as well!ReplyCancel

  • February 24, 2017 - 12:07 pm

    Unfinished » Chefs Last Diet - […] contemplating my upcoming birthday in March. Each successive year reaching my birthday feels like a bigger accomplishment, and as long as I’m here, I remain unfinished. If I view death as the finish line, then I […]ReplyCancel

If you call could a potato hot, this dish would definitely qualify as a hot potato! Decadent, cheesy, and if such a thing is possible  for a potato in your world, sexy. I have seen this recently on the Best Thing I Ever Made, and then again somewhere else, and I decided I needed to try that […]

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Posted in eating well,Pasta, Rice and Potatoes & Sides,recipes,vegan/vegetarian,Vegetables and Salads
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 Senate Bean Soup, is a classic navy bean soup, and has been served in the Senate restaurant since 1903. Several weeks ago I put out a call for your favorite soups and the winner (by a wide margin) was potato soup, in second place was chicken, a few votes for gazpacho, and finally bean, including specifically […]

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Posted in eating well,Family,soup
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  • December 11, 2014 - 9:14 am

    Carolann - Well this soup looks soooo good! My hubby loves bean soups. I will have to try this one for sure! Thanks much for sharing #NEBReplyCancel

    • December 11, 2014 - 10:00 am

      nrlowell@comcast.net - Carolann, it’s so easy and filling! I had some for a late lunch yesterday and wasn’t even hungry for dinner!ReplyCancel

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