Tuesday, May 20, 2008
The Missing Pound Cake
There is something very funny about doing a radio show in my pajamas, while sipping my morning coffee, sitting in my home office, all comfortable and cozy. That’s what I do every Monday morning these days, when I am on Robin Hood Radio in Sharon, Connecticut, from 7:40 to 8 a.m. (www.robinhoodradio.com). The funny thing is: When I am talking to the host of the show, Marshall Miles, I am so comfortable that I feel like it is merely a phone conversation with an old friend and I forget that there are actually a lot of people listening to us. Besides the live audience in the so-called Northwest Corner of the state, and in the southern Berkshires of Massachusetts, there is the computer audience, which is what most of you would be.
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Saturday, May 17, 2008
Cecilia Visits, Leaves a Date Cake Recipe
Baronessa Cecilia left just a few days ago. She stayed for three weeks, kept me busy here in New York, although she did take two little side trips – one weekend in Burlington, Vermont, to visit her cousin Millie, who has lived in the states most of her adult life, and one weekend in Connecticut, where she has an old family friend (Luciana was the flower girl at her mother’s wedding 73 years ago) who took her up to Sharon to visit with her son, who lives there with his wife and children. Needless to say, Cecilia the antique-a-holic, had to visit the big cooperative antique store in Millerton, New York, near Sharon, where she found (what an eye!) a cameo depicting Naples and Mt. Vesuvius, plus a very fine miniature oil painting (perhaps museum-worthy) of Queen Carolina of Naples. Cecilia has a connection to her. She was Napoleon’s sister, and wife of Joachim Murat, the brother-in-law that Napoleon-appointed king of Naples. And – here’s the Cecilia connection – Murat is the king who granted the Barone title to Cecilia’s husband’s ancestor, who bred horses for the royalty. (Cecilia still breeds horses, and produces jumping shows.) Needless to say, both items were an incredible bargain, given the high value of the Euro compared to the pitiful dollar.
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Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Come to Italy with Me
Everywhere I go, you are asking me if I still take people to Italy. The answer is a BIG YES. I suppose, after delaying certain decisions until this moment, it’s time to tell you what’s up with me and these Italian trips.
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Sunday, May 4, 2008
Dominican Delights, Pork Fat and Pizza
Let’s see what’s on my desk. I have this little pile next to the computer. It collects notes to myself on little chits of paper, some business cards, a few menus … reminders of things I want to tell you about in these letters. I have had so little time to write lately, what with my constant traveling around the New York metro area flogging “Jewish Home Cooking: Yiddish Recipes Revisited,” that the pile is getting scarily out of control.
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