Uncategorized – food that builds community

100 things

Hurrah for you! Here’s a beautiful way to start the new year.

Nothing like a cold……

Colds around the world — a multitude of solutions!

I can remember

Some things from the past are worth losing. Some aren’t.

Grandmother: “How do you like to go up in a swing, up in the air so blue?” Me, pulling and repeating: “How do you like to go up in a swing, up in the air so blue?” Grandmother: “Oh I do think it the pleasantest thing ever a child can do.” Me: “Oh I do… Continue reading Poems and Punkah

Learning to Read

Six years old…. Canton, China. My six-year-old heart was burbling with excitement. Today I would be given my very own book with real words in it! Today I was going to learn to read. I rushed to our classroom – an unused room in the servants’ wing of the house, overlooking the canal (windows closed… Continue reading Learning to Read

TEA!

Shame and stupidity TEA, three little letters, that, when interspersed with others, can bring comfort, solace, and healing, but left together on their own they detonate into an explosion of grief, shame, humiliation, regret, and stupidity. I have lived, grown up, worked, or visited in 22 different countries of the world. For all of them,… Continue reading TEA!

I wish we still had the stocks

You could tell she was miserable. Her sullen angry face stared straight ahead from the audience’s front row, her lips clenched tightly together. You’d think we were torturing her – we probably were. This concert took place in a bygone era when folk were allowed to come together. It was a simple audience participation… Continue reading I wish we still had the stocks

Mince Pie Madness

The Brits are crazy. As an American I was absolutely sure of it. Especially at Christmas time. When I first arrived in England, an American bride married to my Yorkshire husband, I was baffled by the fact that at Christmas, the busiest, most stressful, most here-and-there-and-everywhere time of year, they spend this most food-clogged… Continue reading Mince Pie Madness

The Magnificent Clash of Cultures

“Miss Judy, will you come on Thursday to share our bread and salt, as we say?” “Oh, thank you for the invitation. I would love to come. But bread and salt are all I will share, because in the evening we Americans have our Thanksgiving celebration, with a big feast.” “Good. We normally do not… Continue reading The Magnificent Clash of Cultures

GRRRRRR!

Whatever is this world coming to? I looked again at the document. “I can’t sign this,” I said. No punctuation marks. A relative clause so far from its parent verb that it wasn’t even a distant cousin. A spellcheck-reliant secretary who didn’t know the difference between “apologies” and “apologises”. What kind of trust could I… Continue reading GRRRRRR!