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Wanna Nosh?

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on February 17, 2026| Leave a Comment »

What a weekend!

Bob and I went glamping; we drove for two hours to Fall Creek Falls State Park in the easternmost corner of TN to meet up with our Germantown friends. We filled two cabins with great food, laughter and two new puppies. The meals we would create were pre-planned – Yoko and I got Valentine’s Day! February may be a short month, but it’s chock full of meaning. The Rocker and Aunt Kiki celebrated their ninth wedding anniversary, and their Twins are about to turn ONE! So it seems fitting that a holiday about love should be nestled in the middle.

I told Yoko I wanted to recreate the Bride’s wedding dinner under a tent on Thomas Jefferson’s mountain. I’d found an interesting take on shrimp and grits in the NYTimes Cooking App. This was also Grandma’s Ada favorite meal to order once she moved South. Yoko volunteered to make a chocolate cake with strawberries and whipped cream for dessert. Perfect. She would bake bread, and I would do a cheese plate as an appetizer. Also known as a nosh in Yiddish circles.

“Did you eat?“

There are certain cultures where that question is moot, since food will be presented whether you are hungry or not. When Bob and I landed at our cousin Peggy’s house during the deep freeze, she laid out a beautiful loaf of banana bread, followed by a pot of tea complete with lemons. I never felt so completely cared for in my life. It wasn’t just that our house was encased in ice and the temperature was plummeting, it was an all encompassing feeling of sanctuary. We had landed in a safe place with loved ones who didn’t ask anything of us except our attention to the snack on the table. She was nourishing our souls.

So of course I had to tell my glamping girlfriends about an article I’d read in the NYTimes about snacks. They all pulled out their phones to follow Snaxshot on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/snaxshot/?hl=en. Andrea Hernandez is not a dietician, but she was into marketing and noticed something about food during the pandemic. She is akin to a cultural anthropologist, comparing the fascination with “Fiber” in the 50s and 60s to today’s fixation on Protein and prebiotic sodas like Olipop – designed with 9 grams of plant-based fiber to enhance digestive health! I was actually shocked when I was asked for my ID in order to buy cans of a non-alcoholic sparkling raspberry rose for our Valentine dinner. What’s up with that?

Hernandez has become “… a kind of snacking Nostradamus. ‘When Andrea covers a product or a shift, it tends to ripple within the industry,’ said Melanie Masarin, the founder of the nonalcoholic aperitif brand Ghia, in an email, noting that Ms. Hernández’s observations have a way of showing up in group chats, brand conversations and beyond.… According to data from the consumer research firm NIQ, the (snack) market was worth $213 billion in the latest 52-week period. “It used to be like, I would go to the grocery store, I could choose between Kraft or Annie’s or homemade macaroni and cheese,” said Oren John, a branding and marketing creator based in Orange County, Calif., and one of Snaxshot’s early fans. ‘Now I have 45 macaroni and cheese options.’” https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/29/dining/andrea-hernandez-snaxshot.html?searchResultPosition=5

If you’re lucky enough to live as long as I have, you’ve probably noticed this shift in snack food. Our mothers would put out nuts and maybe some Chex mix when company was coming. Today there’s an entire industry devoted to charcuterie boards. Dr Jim gifted us an incredible board for the holidays, complete with bowls and tiny forks and knives! Thanks big brother. Remember when a potato chip was simply a potato chip? Now they can be baked, flavored and shaped to hold a cupful of guacamole. In fact, chips can take up an entire aisle in the grocery store, and sold out faster than wings before the Benito Bowl.

In a world where MAHA has tipped the food triangle on its side, it’s up to us to decide what to put on our family’s table, and what kind of a nosh might be healthy and not just trendy. When we were in Mexico, the Twins were introduced to some of the last remaining food allergens for babies. It helps to have a few doctors nearby when they took their first bite of shellfish! Thankfully, they happen to love peanut butter, a uniquely American spread!

What do you snack on while watching the Winter Olympics? That’s Yoko on the left, and Bob is standing with the ladies. I’m third from the right with my hiking stick. I guess I really am shrinking!

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#Kindnessis

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , on November 10, 2017| 1 Comment »

Out of the blue, my Little Pumpkin asked me yesterday from his car seat if I knew why he didn’t like Donald Trump. I had to ask him to repeat himself because you know, he talks like a three year old, but as soon as I said, “Why?” (why is one of his favorite words actually), he replied just as clear as a bell,

“Because he’s mean.”

So I prattled on about how Mr T is also a narcissist and a bigot, but still it’s not nice to call people names. The world of adults can be very complex. Teaching a child to be polite at the dinner table for instance, while flossing your teeth would be a No. Talking about politics in the car with a toddler who is just out of diapers for naps, probably not a good idea.

And because there is a wall of kindness in my neighborhood – an art installation meant for people to Instagram their ideas of kindness around the world – I’ve been thinking a lot about morality, and plain basic decency lately. How can we teach children to be ethical when it seems like all bets are off in this post-Trump year. Our Grabber-in Chief leads the pack of men behaving badly.

The Republican Senate candidate from AL is being defended by his good ole boys, quoting the Bible. Hitting on teenaged girls it would seem is acceptable, but for Kevin Spacey, hitting on teenaged boys is not. Isn’t being a pedophile a uni-sex situation, universally condemned? The Catholic Church has finally figured it out. This is the murky field of dreams, or nightmares, we seem to be wading through – thank you Harvey Weinstein…

The Love Bug and I watched the artist, who flew to Nashville from the Twin Cities btw, painting her gorgeous bouquet of flowers on the back wall of a restaurant at twilight. She was sitting high up on scaffolding, like Leonardo with floodlights, when I asked our Kindergardener what kindness meant to her. The Love Big said,

“Letting other people go first.”

Now I must admit, she was always a sensitive child. Whenever I would play a game with her, she would purposely try to let me win. And depending on your point of view, that can be a good trait, or a bad one. But for this old feminist, I thought maybe she needs to get a little more pushy, like her Mama at that age who was leading the pack of bad girls in preschool. I remember always pulling her aside to say, “That (behavior) is hurting your friend’s feelings.” Or, “Think about how you would feel if…” As a grandparent, I realize more and more the pull of nature over nurture.

Maybe it’s time we women went first for a change! Teach our girls to fight hard, with their words and maybe even their fists if need be. To push bullies away, to yell when some boy starts behaving badly.

We swept up so many legislative seats last Tuesday, women of all colors and even a transgender woman, who unseated an incumbent conservative in VA, that I came close to crying. Something I won’t do in public. And in MN, a Black transgender woman won a seat on the City Council. So many Democratic women won, I think because of the Women’s March and the “Trump Effect.” Pink pussy hats and all.

The survey found that 70 percent of Democratic women were “appalled” by Trump’s victory, more than two-thirds were “shocked” by it, and more than half reported feeling “angry” and “depressed.” Nearly three-quarters of Democratic women reported “a sick feeling” when they saw Trump on the news. The women with the most visceral reactions were roughly four times as likely to engage politically after Trump’s victory than they were before it. For Democratic women in New Jersey and Virginia, casting a ballot may have represented yet another way to express their displeasure with Trump. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/11/09/in-tuesdays-elections-women-won-big-here-are-three-things-we-learned-about-women-and-politics/?utm_term=.e9aaf4695e2b

So yes my Little Pumpkin, Mr T is mean. But his election may have started a revolution, and like Madame Thérèse Defarge, we women are pretty angry and out for revenge after years of patriarchy and white privilege, with our knitting needles and our vote. And no, my sweet grandchildren, revenge isn’t good per se. #Kindness is listening to everyone’s story, #Kindness is Compassion.

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If You See Something,

Posted in books, Wedding, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on August 6, 2015| 2 Comments »

take a picture of it! I’m guilty of wanting to document my life on Instagram, wanting to be creative and confounding, humorous and compelling, all in a few pixels. And the last few days were telling. Bob and I took a quick trip to NY via Amtrak, and despite fears of Legionnaires Disease, I found myself surrounded by unending vistas of wonderment. It is August in the City that never sleeps, native New Yorkers were gone, restaurants were semi-empty, and cabs were easy to find – especially with Uber drivers just a click away on Trip Advisor!

So there I was, in a tall office building, looking out a window towards the Hudson, and in one frame I could get a Little League baseball game, a big sailboat, AND a beautiful bridge. It was a sunny, glorious day, NY at her finest and I was feeling like Hooper, or Warhol, or somebody. I aimed my iPhone and darn if it didn’t work, it was trying to tell me something, in a message box…

My storage was seemingly full and I could “manage” this little snafoo on “Settings.” Why thank you cell phone, how kind of you to remind me.

But by the time I got to my Settings and deleted a few ridiculous Apps I didn’t need or use, my picture was gone. The game was over and the sailboat was probably in the Atlantic.

No problem. I still got a few nice pix of dim sum at Red Farm (a very trendy West side Chinese eatery), soaring skyscrapers, oh and I love signs. Not like a sign from above “Sign,” but a regular directional sign. The kind that tells us where to go, what not to walk on, or how many pounds a toilet seat can hold. I managed to snap a “Sabbath Elevator” sign. Once a wordsmith.

Isn’t writing just painting a picture with words? That’s what I try to do when I take fingers to laptop, or even pen to paper. I see something in my mind’s eye and a story unfolds. Maybe that is what makes some of us “Visual Learners” – I could always  remember a face, but rarely remember a name.

While we waited in Penn Station for our train back to VA, a PSA was on a continual loop on a monitor above our heads.

“If You See Something, Say Something.” http://www.dhs.gov/see-something-say-something

It was all about what to do if there was a shooter in the building – basically get the heck out of the building by the nearest exit. And If that’s not possible, hide. And if that’s not possible, it showed a commuter throwing his briefcase at the suspect with a gun. And it also tried to explain what suspicious behavior looks like – which if you know NY, is pretty much everybody. It was almost comical.

Until I thought about how our children are probably watching a similar video, in their schools. Our well meaning attempt at “managing” rampant gun violence in this country is a farce of epic proportions. When will we change our perspective, put on a new pair of eyeglasses, and see, truly see our national disaster for what it really is – a public health issue. Should we all now boycott public spaces to get our legislators to listen? Stop going to movie theaters, stop going to malls, stop going to college and just study online, at home?

Or should we stand up and say something – anything – like we’re mad as hell and vote the whole lot of GOP war mongers out of office? If you didn’t read this letter from Sarah Clements, the daughter of a Sandy Hook teacher, to Amy Schumer, here it is: https://medium.com/human-development-project/an-open-letter-to-amy-schumer-8f1fd3637d41

Women have truly begun to lead the gun violence prevention movement — and they are winning. Women are our teachers, our protectors, our shielders. Women weep in public and in private for the lives we’ve lost, and they’re not afraid to scream at the cameras and go toe-to-toe with monsters who perpetuate these crimes on the streets and in boardrooms. Women are very simply the ultimate moral base in our battles for peace and justice throughout the world.

Tonight I have a date with Bob, so I’ll miss the circus, the so called “cocktail hour” featuring Donald Trump in the great Republican debate. But I’ll stay up late to watch Jon Stewart’s last hurrah. Thank you Jon, for painting a very clear picture of American politics for a younger generation. Now if we can just get them to the polls, to say something.

Heading Uptown

Heading Uptown

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Tradition

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , , on August 20, 2013| 2 Comments »

It’s all over the news. The Royal Couple has posted their very first family portrait, with little Prince George all swaddled in sunlight and the Royal dogs (not Corgis btw) posed like bookends. And as usual, this new Royal Dad and Mum are doing things their way. Breaking with tradition, royalswithdogs202way-2d70d30b93779950a5f74576222866817a37caec-s4-c85

“The pictures were taken by Kate’s father, Michael Middleton, in the family’s backyard. The casual images are a departure from the royal tradition of hiring professional photographers for baby portraits.” http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/08/20/213761688/prince-georges-first-official-photos-break-with-tradition

And this made me think of what the common folk do, at least here in America. We used to run to Sears, or another big box store, to have a suitable portrait done of our wee ones. But this year, for the first time in 60 years, those smiling baby faces behind cloth clouds will be no more. Sears and Walmart unexpectedly shut down their portrait studio operations. “To take the family to a portrait studio in 2013 was akin to taking it to a phone booth to make the day’s calls or sitting it down in front of the Betamax for movie night,” according to Jason Notte on MSNMoney.

So I thought I’d share with you this morning the family portrait I received, along with hundreds of the Bride and Groom’s Facebook followers, this past weekend. They have been faithfully cataloguing the Love Bug’s growth with monthly shots by her semi-professional photographer Dad. But at this wedding in Denver of a high school friend, someone “snapped” or more likely touched this lovely triptych in a botanical garden.  1098150_10201464515316824_686007004_n

DIY has never been easier in our digital age; Apple, Shutterfly, Photobucket, Google and Snapfish make taking and sharing photos simple and painless. I overheard a young girl of about 11 asking a boy if he had “…an Instagram?” He replied yes, he does. Her quick retort, “How many followers do you have?”  And so it begins…

I don’t have lots of Instagram followers, probably not as much as that little boy. But I did get the Groom’s eye view of his family from this weekend, and it always makes me smile.photo

 

 

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Wait, What?

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , on December 18, 2012| 4 Comments »

It’s that time of year. Flu season. The Love Bug’s nanny doesn’t believe in vaccinations – or flu shots – I know. So I’m starting my Christmas love fest with the Grand Baby a little early. I packed the car, finished up an audio book, and rolled into the Music City just in time to see her waking up from a nap! Image

And this old reporter is taking a news sabbatical. I’m happy to hear that the President and Congress may be revisiting that assault weapon ban. That Morning Joe has had a change of heart. That Dick’s Sporting Goods are pulling some of their guns off the shelves. Sixteen year olds at Columbine, twenty-somethings in Blacksburg; but the tipping point had to be 6 year olds in Newtown. My Tangerine Tango editor, Lisa Winkler, was a beat reporter in Danbury, CT. Her blog post hit home for me. http://cyclingrandma.wordpress.com/2012/12/16/newtown-ct-my-town-your-town-our-town/

On my way across TN, I stopped at a Drive-Thru of Christmas Lights extraordinaire, and of course took an Instagram picture for my family followers.Image

Still reading some news today (sworn off TV news), I read this:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20767537

“Facebook’s photo-sharing site Instagram has updated its privacy policy giving it the right to sell users’ photos to advertisers without notification. Unless users delete their Instagram accounts by a deadline of 16 January, they cannot opt out.”

Seems more and more like we are living in an Orwellian world. 

 

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