burnt-out baker

Claude was my first and only – and I’m glad it was him. He was a raffish blond who resembled a perpetually hung-over cross between Daniel Cr...

Ungrateful whining is an American child’s birthright. But if you grow up in an immigrant family, you have a whole battery of things to whine...

My scariest Halloween involved several confused Dutch semanticists, a screaming French-Canadian dressed like a skeleton, and half a dozen se...

When I made my ill-advised decision to go to cooking school, I chose a certificate program in pastry and baking. This choice was motivated b...

When I was a kid, I had a couple of non-negotiable views about apples. First among these: they were fruit, which meant they didn’t count as ...

Every family cherishes its food traditions: a secret recipe, an immutable Christmas menu, or a weakness for the starvation foods of the old...

Making things makes me happy. Friends and family often give me knitting yarn and cookbooks for my birthday instead of sweaters and dinners o...