[I]’ve been asked what my favorite movie is. I don’t answer right away. When your favorite movie (or, at least one of the top three) is “Sling Blade,†you hold off telling because people will react in a couple of ways. They will either stare at you as if you […]
[T]hough I’m not a traditional mom, I’ve had a number of charges in my care. Critters of all manner, wild and tame; I’ve rehabilitated a bird or two, watched over baby chicks, kept an ailing rabbit warm in my armpit. I’ve looked out for things for other people — the […]
[S]ometimes I get weird ideas. Actually, I get weird ideas most of the time, but I only act on a portion of them. When I decide to act on one of my curious notions, it’s as if I’ve signed a contract…it’s odd. I am as unyielding on myself as if […]
[I]n the thousands of miles famed roving food writer Clementine Paddleford logged in the 1940s and ‘50s for her How America Eatscolumns and cookbook, she did not skirt her home state of Kansas. Of Liberal, Kan., “self-styled Pancake Hub of the Universe,†where an annual pancake race of international notoriety […]
“Never grow a wishbone, daughter, where your backbone ought to be.†— Jennie Paddleford to her daughter, Clementine [H]ow is it possible that, in the four years I attended Kansas State University, majoring in journalism, spending two years working on the school’s daily newspaper, The Collegian, and even planning and […]
[I]f there is some truth to the notion that we pick our parents before we are born, then I must have selected mine because I knew they would lead me to morel mushrooms. By lead, I mean literally. During my childhood in Kansas, I was taken on jaunts into timber […]
[I] anticipate my monthly bread adventures the way others look forward to road trips or nights on the town. I enjoy those things, too, but the plotting and planning of a bread-baking day has my mind aswirl and my excitement on the rise, especially when I embark on a recipe […]
[I]magine a place where a pancake, a scone and a donut all meet. Well, apparently, that place is Wales and the treat is a very humble-looking yet flavorful little bread called a Welsh cake. In the Welsh language, they are called “cage bach†or “picau ar y maen.†In much […]
[I] may be going against popular opinion by saying this but, chocolate does not go with everything. Some people could eat it anywhere, anytime, on anything. But as I recently strolled through a market and noticed a basket full of dried chocolate fettuccine, I realized, surprisingly, that chocolate in that […]
[S]ometimes, nothing else but soup will do. As the whole country has been enshrouded in cold and darkness this winter, why not make up a soup fit to fight this foe? I’ve been spoiled by homemade soups these past few years, as I am fortunate enough to work where a […]