If you've been reading these missives for a bit, perhaps you have picked up on the influence of my mother, Betsy Rosenberg. She's been a perennial reference to memories, recipes and anecdotes that I have been sharing in these posts, and I'm grieved to write that I lost her very recently, and very suddenly. My mother, Betsy Ross Rosen Rosenberg, was the single biggest influence of my culinary style, and probably my life. She was a librarian by trade, but known by all as an expert cook, baker, and entertainer. In the days following her death, I couldn't count how...
If my streaming history from the last twelve months is any indication, 2021 was a slowly deflating whoopie cushion. My year began with a fresh new subscription to The Criterion Channel, and ended with a force fed diet of Fox's 9-1-1, a network procedural drama about first responders, seemingly written by 7 year olds. Was it intellectual devolution? Emotional preservation? Mad Cow Disease? Inconclusive. This cerebral descent may have had something to do with how I was filling the other 14 hours of my waking life. Since launching Bobbie's Boat Sauce in 2018, I had yet to captain the sauce business full time. I quit...
Among the reasons why I love my mother, her contempt for Mother's Day is in the top 10. The year is 1983, and our dad has arranged for us to have Mother's Day dinner at Pautipaug Country Club, where he plays golf. The Southeastern Connecticut Restaurant scene of the early 80's left something to be desired, and even if there was decent dining, it would be wasted on a family with 3 sullen kids ages 11-16. Here's what I remember about that dinner. Though we had a reservation, it took forever to be seated. When we finally got...
When I moved into the house I bought 16 years ago, I inherited some odd things: a hospital-style tv attached to a wall in the bedroom, a hand-painted mural on bathroom ceiling capturing the POV of someone/thing looking up at the sky from the bottom of the ocean floor, a room cast in the color of painter's tape blue. All of it had to go. But something that I regret tossing out in the cleanup was a piece of paper found behind the refrigerator, titled "Things To Do", written and illustrated fancifully in colored pencils. The author prescribed a list of...
If you are reading this, congratulations: Not only are you a subscriber to my newsletter (you lucky thing), but you've made it to the finish line of 2020 with your reading and comprehension skills intact, which is no small feat.
Joking aside, there is no one I know who hasn't faced loneliness, economic insecurity, health concerns, and/or existential ennui this year. And if you didn't have a challenging 2020, I probably don't want to know you.