Potato salad has been in my culinary repertoire for about fifty years and, fortunately, most of my family like my potato salad.  It’s nothing like the stress-laden potato salad my mother made.  When I became a married lady some 48 years ago, I wanted to cook for my family and potato salad is a summer thing.  My mother turned all …

One of our grandchildren was married yesterday.  A wonderful day.  They had organized and planned their wedding pretty much without any help at all.  The invitations were very simple, just a page they had created and copied.  Ours was addressed to Grandma and Grandpa…which is good.  That’s who we are. There were two unusual comments on the invitation.  The first …

“Dear Great Pumpkin, I am looking forward to your arrival on Halloween night. I hope you will bring me lots of presents. Linus van Pelt” Even though Charles Schulz, creator of the immortal Peanuts has changed his residency to the heaven-side, his kids, Charlie Brown, Lucy, Peppermint Patty and Linus still show up in our newspapers, which is a good …

Remember when people cooked things simply because they would taste good?  Nobody ate kale or quinoa; salad was a token small plate of iceberg lettuce inundated with 1000 Island.  We all owned a Betty Crocker cookbook and that’s where we went when we wanted to know what to do with a package of chicken parts. It was the ‘50’s, when …

Teamwork! It goes really well when the task isn’t too difficult, all parties involved are in a good mood, and the end result is something all parties want to achieve.  Recently, my Texas granddaughter, Emily, wanted to eat a strawberry flavored Go-Gurt yogurt.  Go-Gurt prides itself in being, “The first yogurt in a tube that kids could have fun slurping …

June is upon us. Graduations! So far, one a week ago and another this Saturday.  The Los Angeles Times occasionally publishes something useful and interesting and today’s article in the California Section entitled, “Graduation Talks Gain Wider Reach,” was excellent.  They kicked it off with this quote from Barbara Kingsolver: “If you run out of hope at the end of …

The May issue of Sunset Magazine has a section devoted to camping, a portion of which was entitled, “Every camper’s nemesis: the raccoon.”  Having camped for many years before realizing that “camping” really means a hotel without room service, I’m here to say we never saw one raccoon.  Not one.  And we know why.  They’re way too smart to be …

My children, their children, my money, my soul, When DID I last sleep through the night! Then throw in my weight, And the state of the state, And my night brain is out of control. This crowd in my head seems to hog the whole bed. I wish they’d stay out in the hall! My mind’s turned to mush, a …

You’ve read one of those adorable books that well-meaning people write for children about crickets and other unpleasant varmints?  Tailored, of course, for the wellmeaning people who buy them for children because they are so adorable…the varmints, that is…well, the children, too. Examples: “The Very Quiet Cricket”, “Oscar and the Cricket”, “Cricket Man – A Novel”, and, of course, that …

Our Golden Years are on us, though they’re less like gold than rust! Our eyesight’s failing, hearing’s going, knees are getting weak. And every time we bend, we hear a loud, humiliating… creak. We’re grateful that we still have hair, even though it’s turning grey. And we seem to be forgetting a little more each day. Our lives are spent …