It seemed like everyone was mourning the loss of legendary singer-songwriter Dolly Parton last week—and she was worth mourning for her good works as well as her songs. But for me there was a much more personal loss. I said goodbye to one of the sweetest, kindest, most caring people I have ever known. She is largely unsung but loved by many.

Susan Raycroft—we all call her Susie—was 80 years old and ready to go. Illness had made her life unbearable, and she had chosen hospice care rather than the extreme medical measures it would have taken to prolong her life for a while, but which would have taken away all that made it meaningful. I told her I understood her choice and wanted to be supportive, but that I would miss her terribly.

We had lived across the street from each other for 30 years, but I only really got to know Susie after her husband Randy passed away in 2013. We’d become confidantes. She told me about the difficulties she had navigating the world with limited vision, but you would never have known it. She walked for miles and was resolutely independent, accepting rides or help only when she had to. Most of her doctors, dentists, accountants and pharmacists were within walking distance. She planned it that way.

She was a familiar presence as she walked through the neighborhood, slender, dressed in a solid-colored long-sleeved shirt, a baseball cap, jeans and sports shoes or sandals; everyone knew and loved her. She stopped to chat, to admire the roses, to exchange neighborhood news.

I think Susie knew everyone’s secrets—including mine. She was the kind of friend you couldn’t help confiding in. She took the deepest interest in the smallest details of your life, from your malfunctioning toilet to your latest fight with your husband. I bet she would have made a great spy—but probably a better therapist!

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We often walked to the local farmers market together and had the best time wandering around, sampling the seasonal fruits—so abundant in Southern California—deciding among plum or peach varieties (Susie, careful not to waste anything, would take only one or two, while I’d take home the rest). We’d end up at Le Pain Quotidien having tea—usually Earl Grey for Susie, English Breakfast for me—splitting lunch and a pastry.

An ardent gardener, Susie went with me to the Huntington Botanical Gardens. A devoted Los Angeles Times reader, even though her vision issues made it harder and harder to see the print, she came with me to political protests, waving a small American flag as I held up a sign. Susie picked up our mail when we went away on our frequent trips, chatting with Isabel, who cleans our messy house every two weeks and adored Susie, recognizing a kindred spirit in my minimalist, scrupulously neat neighbor.

Susie joined us for wine and hors d’oeuvres around the kitchen table; for Fourth of July barbecues, for our annual Hanukkah party. For this last, she always brought her favorite McConnell’s ice cream and chocolate coins from See’s Candies. When I ran out of refrigerator space, she offered her own. (Many of my leftovers ended up there anyway.)

She became a favorite of my family. Heck, she was family.

When my son Sam and his wife Nagisa visited last January, they went across the street to say hello to Susie and give her a few gifts. They stayed for more than an hour.

“She’s so easy to talk to,” Nagisa said. “She really listens.”

Susie was also a fan of Nagisa’s handmade pork gyoza (scrumptious!) and her beautifully decorated cakes. When Nagisa handed her some carefully chosen treat she’d brought from Japan, Susie, as she always did when I gave her something, would open it in front of her, take a bite, pause to chew and then share her opinion. She usually guessed some of the ingredients in whatever she was eating. Though she didn’t like to cook, she really did love to eat—and she had a very discerning palate.

Why didn’t Susie like to cook? She gave me a few clues in a piece I wrote about her in 2020.

For an addicted baker and kitchen tinkerer like me, having a neighbor with a sweet tooth who didn’t like to cook has been a godsend. On any given evening, you might find me announcing myself at her front door—invariably open—with a little something to share. But it was more of an excuse to sit on the couch in Susie’s immaculate living room and chat. Now I wish I’d stayed longer.

Last week when I went over, Susie wasn’t eating much and spoke in a voice slightly above a whisper. Her daughter Jill and sister Cathy were monitoring the people who kept dropping by to tell her how much she meant to them. There were a lot of tears and hugs. Laughter too as memories flowed.

“I never knew I had so many friends,” Susie said in wonder.

She did—and we will never forget her.

Thanks for reading! See you next time.

Ruth

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“As I scribble a short recipe for roast calf’s liver with lemon pickle, I see the poetry in my words and feel a tenuous thrill. A recipe can be as beautiful as a poem, I think. Useful and beautiful. It doesn’t have to be a graceless list of barked instructions.”

—Eliza in Annabel Abbs’ Miss Eliza’s English Kitchen: A Novel of Victorian Cookery and Friendship

I’m a member of an international book club started by Margaret Moon whose newsletter Book Chat on Substack has led to many an enjoyable read, as well as opening a window on her life of reading, writing and cooking in Australia. Though I wasn’t a big fan of Marg’s most recent book club pick, Sleepless: Discovering the Power of the Night Self by Annabel Abbs, it did turn me on to another of Abbs’ books that I liked much better—a novel based on the life of Eliza Acton, creator of one of England’s first cookbooks, the pioneering work, Modern Cookery for Private Families.

Abbs’ fictionalized account, Miss Eliza’s English Kitchen: A Novel of Victorian Cookery and Friendship, details the imagined relationship between Eliza, a poet whose publisher has rejected her latest poetry submission, telling her to “Bring me a cookery book as neat and elegant as your poems,” and Ann Kirby, a destitute girl of 17 who comes to work for Eliza in the kitchen of the upper class boarding house her mother runs.

Details of the real Eliza Acton’s biography are scarce, and those of Ann Kirby’s even less so, leaving Abbs free to create the novel, which has a distinct Upstairs, Downstairs feel, alternating chapters between the desperate life of Ann and the more gentile, though angst-riven one of Eliza, whose mother’s chief goal is to marry her “spinster” daughter off to a well-heeled man to remedy the perilous finances of her family. (Shades of Pride and Prejudice, don’t you think?)

In an interview with Writer's Digest,1 author Annabel Abbs said that the idea for the novel came to her after she inherited a trove of 200 antiquarian cookbooks from her mother-in-law and was struck by Modern Cookery “because the recipes were so beautifully written—like small poems.”

And indeed, the real Eliza Acton2 was a published poet when her publisher, Longman, which still exists, rejected her second volume and demanded that she write a cookbook instead.

“Eliza had never boiled an egg, but she spent the next 10 years learning to cook and writing the first cookery book to include weights, measures and lists of ingredients—all in perfect prose,” Abbs said.

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Modern Cookery—Victorian style

Published in 1845, Modern Cookery for Private Families (initally titled Modern Cookery in all its Branches, Reduced to a System of Easy Practice, for the Use of Private Families), became an instant bestseller and blazed a trail for future cookbook writers, with lists of ingredients, precise measurements and cooking times that became standard in years to come.

What I find even more impressive is the careful detail with which Acton explains many recipes, including descriptions, caveats, warnings, and commentaries. She was quite dismayed, for example, about the quality of English bread during her time and the reluctance of home cooks to make it, going so far as to write a second book devoted to the subject—The English Bread Book—in 1857. She was ahead of her time in recommending wood-fired brick ovens as “far superior to any other for baking bread.” (Clearly pizza wasn’t a thing in Victorian England!)

Acton was also the first to name a traditional plum pudding “Christmas Pudding” and to include recipes for Brussels sprouts and spaghetti (she spelled it “sparghetti” and described it as“Naples vermicelli). Though mainly focused on English cookery of the Victorian era, the book also includes recipes (then called “receipts”) for a number of dishes of Jewish, French, German, Indian, Italian and others of non-English origin.

Acton’s titles for recipes are amusing, honest, historical, sometimes puzzling and fun. Here are a few examples from her extensive pudding chapters (there are two—one for boiled puddings and one for baked).

• Herodotus’s Pudding (A Genuine Classical Receipt)—Acton claims the recipe was actually found in the ancient Greek historian’s writings and only minor changes—substituting sherry for ancient Grecian wine and sugar for honey—were made.

• The Elegant Economist’s Pudding, a dish made with slices of cold plum or raisin pudding covered in custard and then boiled for an hour in a buttered mold. I imagine the economy comes from using leftovers.

• The Young Wife’s Pudding (Author’s Receipt)—the “author’s receipt” designation means this was Acton’s own recipe. Perhaps its simple ingredients—eggs, sugar, lemon rind, milk and buttered stale bread—might account for the name.

• The Author’s Christmas Pudding—This is the one I most want to try, but I’m saving it for the holidays. It will require sourcing some beef suet—unless I decide to substitute grated vegetable shortening—and figuring out how to make a boiled pudding. I wonder if any of you have ever made one? Below is a video from the Charles Dickens Museum in London of a re-creation of Acton’s recipe. Dickens, as you may remember, helped popularize plum pudding—Mrs. Cratchit’s blazing “speckled cannon-ball”—and Christmas celebrations in general in his holiday classic, A Christmas Carol.

Rice Pudding—a recipe

Instead of attempting a boiled pudding, I decided to make A Common Rice Pudding, one of the simpler recipes in Acton’s cookery tome, though there are many others that I hope to attempt. Here’s the “receipt” as written. I’ve followed it with a few notes of my own,

A Common Rice Pudding

(From Eliza Acton’s Modern Cookery for Private Families)

Throw six ounces of rice into plenty of cold water, and boil it gently from eight to ten minutes; drain it well in a sieve or strainer, and put it into a clean saucepan with a quart of milk; let it stew until tender, sweeten it with three ounces of sugar, stir to it, gradually, three large, or four small eggs, beaten and strained; add grated nutmeg, lemon rind, or cinnamon to give it flavour, and bake it one hour in a gentle oven.

Rice, 6 oz.: in water, 8 to 10 minutes. Milk, 1 quart: 3/4 to 1 hour. Sugar, 3 oz.; eggs, 3 large, or 4 small; flavouring of nutmeg lemon-rind, or cinnamon: bake 1 hour, gentle oven.

Notes:

• I halved the recipe, using about 3 ounces of rice (I used arborio rice that I boiled for 5 minutes and drained before proceeding with the recipe), 2 cups milk, 1 1/2 ounces sugar (3 tablespoons or about 43 grams) sugar, 1 egg plus 1 yolk, and a few gratings of nutmeg and some cinnamon).

• You need to temper the egg with a few spoonfuls of the slightly cooled rice and milk mixture before adding it back into the pudding.

• Victorian ovens didn’t have temperature gauges, so I guessed that a “gentle oven” might be 300°F.

• The pudding took about 1 hour and 10 minutes to cook in my oven.

• It wasn’t very sweet and might benefit from a drizzle of maple syrup or possibly served with one of the fruit compotes in Acton’s book. I actually tried mine with some leftover summer fruit salad and found it delightful.

I was reminded of a rice pudding my mother Flora, a native of Glasgow, Scotland, used to serve. Sometimes hers had raisins imbedded in it or a dollop of jam on top. This one was very good though denser than the one I remember. If you want a creamier version, here’s a link to a recipe I thought looked quite good. It’s cooked on the stove, calls for quite a quite a bit more milk and doesn’t use eggs.

Along came Mrs. Beeton

Modern Cookery went through multiple editions, but was ultimately eclipsed by Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management, also called Mrs. Beeton’s Cookery Book, first published in 1861 but also running on to multiple editions, even though the author, Isabella Beeton, who died in 1865, was said to have liberally plagiarized other writers, including Acton. One change that Beeton made that later became standard was to move ingredients to the top of the recipe.

In later editions Acton didn’t shy away from complaining about her recipes being copied. I imagine her pique would match that of cookbook authors and recipe writers of today whose work has fallen victim to AI or other writers who don’t acknowledge their sources.

Here’s what Acton wrote in the preface to the 1882 edition of her work:

“At the risk of appearing extremely egotistic, I have appended “Author’s Receipt” and “Author’s Original Receipt” to many of the contents of the following pages; but I have done it solely in self-defence, in consequence of the unscrupulous manner in which large portions of my volume have been appropriated by contemporary authors, without the slightest acknowledgment of the source from which they have been derived.”

Though Mrs. Beeton became far better known, in more recent times, Acton has been recognized as a trailblazer and widely admired by such luminaries as British cookery writer Elizabeth David, a groundbreaker herself, who called Modern Cookery “the greatest cookery book in our language.”3

Can a recipe be poetry?

I never aspired to be either a poet or a cookbook writer, but after reading (actually listening to) Eliza Acton’s English Kitchen, then diving into Acton’s rich prose in Modern Cookery, and marveling daily at the high quality of some of the food writing here on Substack, it seems to me that recipes can be, if not poetry, quite excellent prose. What do you think?

As always, I’m so grateful for your likes, comments, subscriptions and shares.

See you soon.

Ruth

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As you probably know by now, we travel a lot. And in every city, in any season, one or the other of us—usually my husband—feels that no matter how excellent the meal or how much we’ve eaten, life is incomplete without ice cream. An iPhone search turns up some 350 pictures of ice cream taken through the years (though I’m quite sure there are more!)—cones, shakes, floats, ice cream birthday cakes (a must in our house!) and rolls (including Jeff’s favorite, the Jimmy Roll from Rhode Island’s Newport Creamery), sundaes, Japanese parfaits, Italian gelato, pie à la mode, and Sicily’s famed granita and brioche breakfast, one of my favorites. (It does help that you’re in Sicily while you’re eating it!)

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Last year I wrote about trying out my Cuisinart ice cream machine for the first time after rescuing it from a heap of neglected kitchen devices and discovering how easy it was to use and the delicious concoctions that could be made in it. Lately, as temperatures have been rising steadily, even near the beach, the only foods I have felt like making or eating have been salads, watermelon and ice cream.

Out came the ice cream maker and the little recipe booklet that accompanied it when it first arrived. I’d already whipped up a batch of plain vanilla last summer to which I couldn’t resist adding some chocolate chunks. Earlier this year, at my daughter-in-law’s request, I’d made a knock-off of Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia ice cream that was quite a hit.

Peppermint ice cream, one of my favorites as a kid and still one of the two flavors that’s a must for Jeff’s birthday cake (the other is cookies and cream), seemed like a no-brainer to make. The recipe, which you can find here, called for 2 1/2 cups of mint leaves, but I had a store-bought plant that yielded only one cup. I supplemented it with about 1/4 teaspoon of peppermint flavoring and amped up the color by adding a few drops of green food gel. Without it Jeff said it just didn’t look like mint.

My ice cream (mis)adventures led to an obsession that had me planning the next batch while making the last. Below is what I’ve made so far—and I’m not done. You can find most of the recipes by clicking on the name.

• Vanilla Bean Ice Cream (rich and satisfying)

• Chocolate Ice Cream (deep chocolate flavor: I made it with King Arthur’s Triple Cocoa Blend.)

• Coconut Sherbet1 (from a recipe by David Lebovitz in his 1999 cookbook, Room for Dessert—yummy toasted coconut flavor)

• Salted Caramel Ice Cream (a bit tricky to make, but so worth it!)

• Orange Sherbet (refreshing!)

• Passion Fruit-Mango Ice Cream (a keeper!)

Along the way, I learned how to make a custard base using egg yolks that resulted in richer, more complex ice cream concoctions. I was left with a whole lot of egg whites, which I had fun (plus some frustration) turning into meringues, something my mother used to make quite often. Mom’s were sheer perfection, at least in memory. I can’t say the same for mine. The first batch turned out dry on the outside and sticky inside, while the second round was dry inside but a tad sticky on the outside. They all got devoured anyway!

I found that using superfine (or caster) sugar, added gradually, and baking (some call this process “drying out”) the meringues long and slow at around 200°F, followed by a few hours in the oven with the heat turned off, made for crisp cookies that melted in your mouth. Weather can also be a factor when it comes to these temperamental cookies—humidity and meringues are not a good match!

Here’s a recipe from the New York Times and a helpful primer on meringues from Allrecipes. I shaped mine with a spoon instead of a pastry bag and added chocolate chips to some of them. Serve them with a bowl of ice cream and you’ll be very happy!

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More for the ice cream-obsessed

What is it about ice cream that makes us crave it so much? The answer would seem to be obvious—it tastes good. But, like all things, there’s always more to the story. Sarah Masoni, developer of more than 100 ice creams (including Salt & Straw’s signature Pear and Blue Cheese), shared her thoughts with Bon Appétit magazine in a 2022 interview. Ice cream contains two things humans crave, she said—sugar and fat. But it goes deeper than that.

“We also associate ice cream with good times in our life: birthday parties, family gatherings, going down to the corner store with our parents. It’s a magical combination. Ice cream isn’t just ice cream; it’s also all the things we associate with ice cream. You can be having the worst day and ice cream can make it feel better because it helps us travel down memory lane.”

For me, that memory lane leads to the Friday night sabbath meals of my childhood, where the reward for cleaning your plate—including swallowing detested vegetables like spinach or Brussels sprouts—was ice cream. The flavors I remember are Butter Brickle, Neopolitan or Rainbow Sherbet. It includes the 5-cent cones my mother bought me at the Co-op grocery store when I was small enough to fit in the shopping basket with my chubby legs sticking out through the holes. It’s decades of ice cream birthday cakes going back to our first years in L.A. when we lived in a mobile home at the Palisades Bowl in Pacific Palisades, which burned down in January 2025. It’s the many huckleberry cones and shakes we’ve shared on our trips through the West (see below for a photo!). New memories are being made in my Cuisinart—or at least new flavors.

Do you have a special ice cream memory? A flavor you’re just dying to make or taste? I’d love to hear about it.

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FYI—some ice cream rankings

So what’s your favorite ice cream flavor? Mine seems to change, depending on where I’m traveling—it’s usually the last one I tasted! Right now it’s the lemon custard I ate at Leopold’s Ice Cream in Savannah, Georgia—tart, creamy and just the right amount of sweet. One of my all-time favorites is huckleberry, especially when whipped into a huckleberry shake at the Victor Emporium in Victor, Idaho. (I’m besotted with huckleberry anything and have written multiple stories on the subject! You can find two of them here and here.)

(Jeff’s all-time favorite is the chocolate chip from Graeter’s in Cincinnati, which he says makes the best ice cream he’s ever had, followed by the vanilla custard from Nielsen’s Frozen Custard in St. George, Utah. But topping his list is still that Jimmy Roll from Rhode Island, introduced to us by our thoughtful nephew Mike (he bought us the one you see sliced so nicely above). As Newport Creamery doesn’t ship to California, I guess I’ll have to learn how to make it!)

Apparently vanilla, the top-rated ice cream flavor for years in the U.S., fell to third place in the rankings behind chocolate and butter pecan in the International Dairy Food Association’s (IDFA) 2026 Ice Cream & Frozen Novelty Trends Survey. Here the IDFA’s chart of the top 10. I’m pleased to say I’ve already made five of them!

The IDFA also listed a few innovative flavors that grabbed my attention: Earl Grey Raspberry Stracciatella, Chocolate Chili Crisp, Exhausted Parent. The last one turns out to be for real. Invented in Madison, Wisconsin at Chocolate Shoppe Ice Cream, it’s described as “Bourbon-spiked espresso ice cream swirled with bittersweet chocolate chunks.” What exhausted parent—or perfectly awake non-parent—wouldn’t like that?

Postscript(s)

After making those custard- and cream-laden treats, it might be time to move on to something a little lighter, with fruit, nuts and herbs—perhaps sorbets, granitas and gelato. Or more ice cream? I welcome your suggestions! My son Sam has already put in a bid for an ice cream made from his favorite Japanese sweet potato, Beni Haruka (紅はるか).

Are you wondering whether you can make ice cream if you don’t have an ice cream maker? Turns out you can, though, to be honest, I haven’t tried it yet. But The Kitchn has and has outlined seven ways to do it. Click here for the story.

More temptations: Jolene Handy, author of the excellent Time Travel Kitchen on Substack, published a post about The Original Rainbow Cone, a Chicago ice cream institution that just turned 100. Rainbow Cone heaps five colorful flavors on a cone—hence the name. It turns out it’s not only in Chicago! There are two locations within driving distance of our house in SoCal. Definitely worth a trip!

Thanks for the many lovely comments about our Alaskan adventures. It’s been a kick reading them and learning about your summer travels too. , a photographer and fellow Substacker who posts an enjoyable newsletter filled with his own wonderful photos and insights, wrote that he was consuming at least two gelatos a day in Treviso (Italy). It’s “air conditioning from the inside,” he said. What a perfect description!

I hope you’re staying cool inside and out. I truly appreciate your taking the time to read, like, comment, share and subscribe to this newsletter.

See you next time!

Ruth

A cute card I came across on our recent trip to Alaska:

Hello, here’s Part 2 of my Alaska series. I’m not sure there will be a Part 3, at least until I have a chance to revisit this vast and beautiful 49th state. I saved the food portion for last.

Three weeks after returning from Alaska, I can’t get it out of my mind. Could it be the sheer majesty and remoteness of this place whose official nickname is “The Last Frontier”? The fact that so much of it—some 80%, including its capital, Juneau—is only reachable by air or water? Is it the romance of extreme weather and landscape? Is it the cordiality of the people? The deliciousness of fresh salmon and halibut? The legacy of the gold rush or its Russian heritage? The possibility of unexpected encounters with dangerous beasts—or cute ones? Most likely it’s all of these, plus the simple joy of being away—and you really do feel “away” in Alaska.

We were only in the state for 12 days, with most of our time spent in two cities—Juneau and Fairbanks, the second largest, though it’s virtually tied with Juneau at 32,515 residents vs. 32,255 (per the 2020 census).

There seems to be a friendly rivalry between the two cities over the population figures, but truly, the entire state has only about 738,737 people total, with the Anchorage metro area accounting for almost half. In a vast land area of 663,268 square miles—larger than Texas, California and Montana combined—that translates to 1.3 humans per square mile, making Alaska the most sparsely populated state in the union.

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The bottom line is, there aren’t that many folks here—except in summer when the large cruise ships show up. Though the ships usually stop for brief periods of time, they momentarily increase the local population of port cities like Juneau by thousands of tourists. You see the people crowding along the sidewalks and checking out the tourist shops, packing the tour buses and local restaurants, then vanishing back on board these giant floating cities at the end of the day.

I don’t mean to sound disparaging—I heard universal acclaim for cruising from the people I met and am curious to try it one day myself! Have you taken an Alaskan cruise? Any cruise?

We found that the locals seem to take the tourism infusion in stride; in fact, it’s really an essential driver of the economy—along with commercial fishing and energy, with the largest example of the latter being the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, which we caught a glimpse of right before boarding a narrow-gauge train for a tour of a historic gold mine in Fairbanks. Among other benefits, Alaskans receive an annual check from the oil revenues and pay no state taxes or general state income tax. It’s hardly surprising that they seem to be very supportive of their pipeline, despite opposition by environmentalists and native peoples over the years.

A rich history

Since the purchase of Alaska from the Russians in 1867, the history of the state has been intricately linked to gold. This is true of both Juneau and Fairbanks, both of whose beginnings were connected to gold strikes, though they occurred some 20 years apart.

I grew up spending time at a family camp on the edge of California’s Gold Country and was enthralled by the adventure stories of the Jack London, especially the gold rush tales—and sled dogs—of the Yukon and Alaska in Call of the Wild and White Fang. That made me all the more eager to visit defunct gold mines in Juneau and Fairbanks, learn something of their history and even try my hand at panning for gold!

On Douglas Island, a short drive across the Gastineau Channel from downtown Juneau (like 5 minutes away!) we took a walk around the picturesque ruins of the Treadwell Mine, looking at relics and partly restored buildings and trying to imagine the lives of the miners—2,000 from some 17 countries at one point, plus their families—living in this community built around what was at that time (from 1882 until a massive cave-in in 1917 and final closure in 1922) the largest, most productive hard-rock gold mine in the world. (For a deeper dive into the various gold mining techniques, click here.)

Just how rich was it? Some 3 million troy ounces of gold—worth about $12 billion at today’s prices—were produced from its four underground mines, which operated 24/7—except for Christmas and the Fourth of July.

And for the miners’ hard work of extracting that much gold, the Treadwell owners created a model community for its era, with a pool, sauna, bowling alley, baseball field and theater, among other amenities. There was also a school for 50 kids, an on-site bakery, a grocery and a general merchandise business advertised as “the best equipped” in Alaska.

Of course the only evidence of these that exists today in the few shells of buildings, moss- and graffiti-covered relics, and signs and markers placed by a Treadwell preservation group that dot the watery trail that we took. On one of the signs, you can check out the boarding house menu for Aug. 17, 1904 that includes “prime roast of beef,” cauliflower and “bird’s nest potatoes,” and “a parting song and a two-step” to end the meal, along with coffee, cognac and cigars! I guess those miners liked to live large and kick up their heels a bit!

It was a fascinating place to explore, even in the nonstop rain, which lent it a glossy, verdant sheen and left hapless visitors—that would be us—with freezing hands as we attempted to capture the dripping scene on our iPhones, hoping not to drop them in the puddles or lose them in the dense foliage. Later I learned from Cyndee Brown-Mills, who took us on a meditative tour of the wood, that the lush greenery was part of a temperate rainforest filled with western hemlock, Sitka spruce and myriad other trees and plants. Some were edible—like the spruce tips that are popular in syrups, jellies and baked goods— and others are good for healing, like Devil’s Club.

Our guide on the Treadwell trail was photographer/family therapist Jonathan Swinton, who told us that it’s one of his favorite spots to photograph. I can see why. He’s a cyanotype artist who turns his digital photographs into lovely blue-tinted images. You can read about him and see his work here. Below is one of his photos that I purchased called “Sky Opening Over Ice.”

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‘There’s gold in them there hills!’

Our foray into Fairbanks’ gold rush history was quite a different experience. It involved taking the 2-hour Gold Dredge 8 Tour aboard a replica of the narrow-gauge train that the took miners to their jobs dredging up the loose sand, rocks and gravel that held the gold treasure they were seeking.

As we rode along in this pleasant little open-sided train, Paxson, our personable young guide, gave us the lowdown on the Italian immigrant, Pedro Felix (originally Felice Pedroni), who is credited with being the first to discover gold in Fairbanks. That discovery on July 22, 1902 sparked the first gold rush in the Alaskan interior and helping ignite the gold fever that put the city of Fairbanks on the map.

Curious, I did some more digging, and came across a somewhat apocryphal sounding story about Felix in Wikipedia. Apparently, he spotted some gold in a stream (later named Pedro Creek) in the hills northeast of Fairbanks and uttered words that may ring a bell: “There’s gold in them there hills!” The declaration has been attributed to others and became particularly familiar when voiced by Yosemite Sam in the Looney Tunes cartoons—using “thar” instead of “there.”

As for our gold panning experience, we had a bit o’ luck. Helped along by some expert swishers (and undoubtedly some planted bits of ore!), we found a several minute flecks of gold at the bottom of our pans, but nothing to compare to the 19-ounce nugget discovered in July 1995 at the Silverado Gold Mine in interior Alaska and said to be worth $75,000 at today’s prices ($4,000-plus per ounce!).

(Reality check: every visitor on the tour finds gold. The operators make sure of that—and they usually talk you into buying a little see-through gold or silver locket to enclose the dust and a chain to hang it on! I bought one and promptly managed to lose it!)

A visit to (the) North Pole

No, not that North Pole—the city of North Pole, a few miles from Fairbanks, is about 1,700 miles south of the real North Pole, but it takes its name seriously (or as seriously as you can take a town called North Pole!), with striped candy cane light poles all over town, a post office that sends letters postmarked “North Pole” to your child at Christmas (click here to find out how), and street names that echo the theme: Santa Claus Lane, Kris Kringle Drive, etc.

The town’s biggest attraction is a store called Santa Claus House, where you can shop for Christmas all year round, send a letter to your child from Santa, sample multiple varieties of fudge or one of store’s signature sodas—maybe the Red-Nosed Root Beer (root beer, strawberry and pomegranate) or Dr. Peppermint (Dr. Pepper, French vanilla and peppermint).

As you wander out, you can have a chuckle or shed a tear over some of the letters from children that make their way to this North Pole each year!

And there’s more!

Of course, there’s so much more to mention, including visiting the Totem Pole Trail and the impressive (but shrinking!😥) Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau, and, in Fairbanks, the excellent University of Alaska Museum of the North and the fascinating 44-acre Pioneer Park, a kind of theme park-like showcase of the city’s history.

We spent only about a day and a half in Denali National Park & Preserve, taking a 4-hour bus tour, walking a few trails (constantly on the lookout for bears!) and watching an interesting demonstration of the park’s sled dog team pulling a wheeled sled.

Uncomfortable in the summer heat but at home in temperatures of 40 below, the dogs are used for many tasks, including transporting people and supplies in extreme winter conditions and helping to preserve the park’s silent majesty. “There’s a lot of Alaskan history that wouldn’t have been possible without sled dogs,” Kevin, our ranger guide, tells us.

For two great overviews of our trip, I invite you to check out Jeff’s recent videos on Juneau (here and below) and Fairbanks (here). Another one on Denali National Park & Preserve will arrive in the fall.

Fish (and dog) tales

I mentioned our salmon feast at the Taku Lodge in my last post. As I seldom eat fish at home (blame it on my fish-phobic husband!), I grabbed every opportunity to consume it while in Alaska, known for the high quality and sustainability of its seafood. Quite often it was fried, not my usual choice, but it was SO good. Below are a few of my favorite fishy meals in Juneau.

We ate several times at The Rookery Café, a homey and popular little breakfast, lunch and snacking spot in downtown Juneau. The staff was friendly, the food unpretentious and reasonably priced, and the pastry case well-stocked with fresh-baked cookies and croissants. Their fried potatoes were especially good.

Right next door is Rainy Retreat Books, aptly named, especially during the week we were in the city! Any new, used or rare book you’re seeking (or hoping to discover) about Juneau or Alaska can likely be found in this shop. The children’s books in particular caught my fancy—many about the animals that are so abundant in these parts!

The book I purchased wasn’t a children’s book, but it was about an animal. A Wolf Called Romeo, by Nick Jans, is a true and moving tale about a remarkable black wolf who lived on the edge of Juneau and over a seven-year period became more and more engaged with the people and dogs of the community. I came across a placard placed in Romeo’s memory along a trail next to Mendenhall Lake near where he used to roam.

You’re likely to encounter salmon in every conceivable form in Alaska—smoked, dried, canned, jerky, dip, even donuts! Of course, there’s also salmon merchandise—T-shirts, hats, sweatshirts, hand towels, jewelry, mugs, salmon-shaped chocolates, coasters, postcards, etc.

The merchants assure buyers that all the seafood they sell is wild-caught, never farmed, and you can have it shipped flash-frozen to your door—for a price.

For obvious reasons, I didn’t go for the fresh—except at restaurants—but I did bring home some vacuum-packed smoked salmon and shipped several cans from a Fairbanks vendor aboard a riverboat cruise we took. I’m considering ordering some fresh frozen fish from the Juneau store of Taku Wild Alaska Seafood. It’s not cheap, though you get free shipping if you order $199 worth—not so hard to imagine if you go for the King Salmon, which sells for $33.50 a pound and maybe add a few packages of Cold Smoked Sockeye Salmon lox—$23.50 for 6 ounces.

One of my favorite meals was at the Pump House Restaurant & Saloon. You could spot the restaurant from the riverboat we took along Fairbanks’ Chana River. It was reconstructed in 1978 from what was once a1933 pumping station established by Alaska's largest gold mining operator at the time. It’s now a bit of a time capsule, filled with antiques and photos that are a tribute to a bygone era. There’s even a replica of an upside down dog team on the ceiling!

My meal, however, was thoroughly modern and delicious—blackened halibut with roasted tomatoes, shaved fennel, an arugula salad and corn and truffle risotto with pesto and balsamic brown butter, followed by a decadent dessert of peanut butter-chocolate pie. Probably not what late 19th or early 20th century miners ate. But if they had, they’d burn off those calories better than I did!

Well, that’s just about it for this edition. I have been cooking up a storm, including trying out a few of the recipes I wrote about in my last post. The baked beans were especially good, though there were several tweaks. I’ll tell you about it next time.

There are also a few ice cream experiments I’ve been conducting as the weather heats up that I’m excited to share. As I write this, I just realized it’s National Ice Cream Day! In summer, I think every day should be Ice Cream Day, don’t you? What are you eating and drinking to keep yourself cool inside and out?

Thanks as always for your likes, comments, subscriptions and shares. It means more than you know.

See you soon.

Ruth

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“No way,” I told my husband Jeff when he said his contact in Juneau, Alaska had arranged a ride on a float plane. I don’t like flying to begin with, though I’ve made my peace with it.

You can’t take a train to Japan, the home of our son Sam and his wife Nagisa, and a ship is too expensive and takes too long. And you can’t get to or leave Juneau, the Alaskan capital, except by air or water. As we weren’t taking a cruise, as so many do, we had to fly there. But taking to the skies in a small plane. Out of the question, I said. “Go without me. I’ll just look at the pictures.”

But of course I caved—and loved every minute of that airborne adventure. First of all, the views were spectacular. At the top of the post, you can see Jeff’s video of a float plane like the one we took (via Wings Airways) taking off over the Taku Glacier, the largest in the Juneau Icefield.

The cascading blue-tinted front of the glacier, known as the Hole-in-the-Wall Glacier, is located directly across from the Taku Glacier Lodge, a remote outpost with a colorful history some 30 air miles by float plane east of downtown Juneau. (More on the history below.)

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About that feast

Of course the reward for our 20-minute, not-so-scary morning flight was a tasty salmon brunch, with the fresh-caught coho salmon marinated in a mix of butter, brown sugar, lemon juice and white wine and barbecued on the open fire over a bed of alderwood.

Danny, our salmon chef, spends five months at the lodge from late April to late September, and along with the other seasonal workers, helps prepares the repast served to the hundreds of guests who arrive via multiple float planes four or five times a day. On the day we went, it included baked beans, peach cinnamon chip scones, apple compote, reindeer sausage, sourdough bread and spicy ginger cookies.

Along with the sumptuous meal (the salmon really did melt in my mouth, and the baked beans were maybe the best I’ve ever had), there were generous amounts of coffee, lemonade and a surprisingly delicious hot spiced tea made with, of all things, Tang, the powdered drink first made famous when it was used on John Glenn's Mercury flight in February 1962.

A woman at our table was busy thumbing through the Taku Glacier Lodge cookbook, which contained recipes for all the items on the menu—except the reindeer sausage.1 She was particularly excited by the baked goods recipes—as was I!

Of course I purchased the book, which was available at the gift shop, along with packaged versions of the lodge’s signature ginger cookies, cinnamon chip scones and other goodies. In case you’re interested, here’s a link.

In addition to the menu we consumed, the spiral-bound volume contains other recipes from friends and family, each with a note about its origin and cute illustrations by Jessalyn Ward, who co-manages the lodge with her husband Mike. Many feature bears—and the warning about them is practically the first thing you see when you step off the float plane.

The history of the lodge inside the cookbook notes that the current owners have adopted several black bears over the years (I don’t think that means inviting them to the table though!). The most famous of these, Scarface, stuck around for many years until he vanished in 2002. There’s a recipe for “Scarface Special Salmon Baste,” the very one used to season our fish. “To experience the full flavor, you must have a view of a brilliant blue glacier out your dining room window,” the note reads.

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A little lodge history

Built of logs and stone in 1923 by Dr. Harry C. DeVighne, a man who began life as an orphan in New York, had a hobo phase hopping freight trains, and later became chief surgeon to Juneau’s gold miners, the lodge was originally a hunting and fishing camp named Twin Glacier Camp after two nearby glaciers. (We learned from the staff that ice chipped off those very glaciers is used to keep the salmon we ate cold before it’s grilled!)

Later the lodge became home to Mary Joyce, who began working there as a private nurse and housekeeper to Leigh “Hack” Hackley Smith, son of the second owner, heiress Erie Louise Caughell Hackley Smith. Handsome and charming, Hack had been a decorated war hero for his service in World War I but became addicted to morphine and later to alcohol as a consequence of war wounds. But he and Joyce were devoted to Twin Glacier camp (and apparently each other!) and made numerous improvements and additions to the lodge and its surroundings, including planting a huge garden and raising 15 sled dogs and three Guernsey cows that were famous for giving salmon-flavored milk.

After Hack’s sudden death from a heart attack in 1934 while on a hunting trip, his mother deeded the lodge to Mary Joyce, who helped make it famous with her daring-do adventures, including a 1,000-mile, three-month dog sled journey from Juneau to Fairbanks to attend the 1936 Ice Carnival. She began the trip in December 1935 with a loaded sled and a five-dog team.

She traveled much of the way alone, often in temperatures that fell to 50 below zero, with few daylight hours—the norm for Alaskan winters. Media at the time took note, and Joyce became a national hero for her feats during the darkest days of the Great Depression, telling reporters, “I just wanted to see if I could do it. Most Alaskan women can take care of themselves.”2

Joyce later proved the truth of this statement by becoming one of the first Alaskan female bush pilots, a military advisor, a Hollywood consultant and actor, and a bar owner, among other achievements. After selling the lodge, she lived above one of the bars, Lucky Lady Pub, until her death in 1976. The bar still appears to be thriving in downtown Juneau.3

A 2007 book about her life, Mary Joyce: Taku to Fairbanks, 1,000 Miles by Dogteam, by Mary Greiner, sounds like a worthwhile read.

Now called Taku Glacier Lodge and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the lodge is owned by Ken and Michelle Ward, who purchased it in 1993 and raised five children there. One of them, Mike, now manages the property with his wife Jessalyn, assisted by their own young brood of three. Mary Joyce’s sled and harness are on display, and the staff eagerly share her story and the history of the lodge with every group that comes.

And finally, a few recipes

The Salmon Baste:

Taku Baked Beans:

Peach Cinnamon Chip Scones:

I imagine any of these recipes from the Taku Glacier Lodge Secret Recipes cookbook would work for the Fourth of July—or any time! (Secret no more!) I’m planning to try some or all of them—and the ginger cookies too. I’ll report back.

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Some final words

I’ve got more to say about our visit to Juneau, Fairbanks and Denali National Park, including the endless daylight that occurs at this time of year. It’s not for nothing that Alaska is nicknamed “The Land of the Midnight Sun.” It’s mind-blowing to have skies that barely darken and to find blackout curtains in every hotel room.

The opposite is also true; winters are so cold that I imagine people hibernate like the bears. But of course, they don’t. They simply go about their business and dress very warmly! They also create a lot of the great carving, beadwork and other great arts and crafts you see in the stores and museums.

The cruise ships and tourists tend to disappear. But we’ve been told it’s the most beautiful time of the year—and the aurora borealis (or northern lights) can only be seen during the darker months, especially from mid-September to March. Fairbanks is considered the prime viewing spot!

I’ve fallen in love with Alaska, at least the summer version. And after flying over glaciers once, I swallowed my fear and boarded a helicopter to land on one! I’ll just say that it was a whole lot less scary than almost everything that’s going on in our country and the world right now!

Thanks for being patient with my infrequent newsletters. As I won’t be traveling for a while, I’m going to try to be more regular, aiming for Sunday posts at least twice a month.

As always, your comments, likes, shares, subscriptions (yes, always free!) are most appreciated.

See you soon,

Ruth🌅

P.S.: Here’s a shot of sunset from the window of our motel room in Fairbanks at 12:47 a.m. on the evening following the summer solstice, June 21-22. There were almost 22 hours of daylight and the sun rose again at 2:59 a.m.! In fact it was never fully dark!

Have you ever experienced seeing the sun at midnight?

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In case you missed it, you can read about the first part of our trip to Paris here.

What luck, I thought, when a Google search shortly before our trip to France turned up a cooking school not far from our hotel in the Montmartre area of Paris. It was called Cook’n with Class and offered a range of classes for kids, families and adults—all taught in English (or in French by special request). Among the offerings: lessons in French pastries and desserts, bread baking, sauce making and bistro cuisine, and my pick, a market-to-table class lasting five to six hours that culminated in a four-course meal! Why not? It would be fun, undoubtedly delicious—maybe even educational.

As it turned out, it was all of these—and more. I credit our teacher, Fabrice Meillier, along with the group of students (eight, including me), two couples and a mother and her two grown daughters, all hailing from the U.S., with varying degrees of cooking skills and interests. We formed a convivial bunch of sous-chefs, and over the course of several hours we laughed a lot, learned new and interesting things, including about our instructor—and of course we ate very well! Here’s a picture of the first course:

I thought I’d share a few of our exchanges. As I couldn’t easily take notes while visiting a market and handling tasks that Fabrice assigned—like peeling asparagus and potatoes and hulling strawberries while also taking pictures of everything—I recorded a fair amount of video on my iPhone, only to be slightly embarrassed later to realize I was the one asking most of the questions. On the other hand, how do you ever learn anything if you don’t ask?

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At the market

“What’s the name of this market?” I ask Fabrice as we wander between the various vendors, selecting the ingredients to make our meal in a semi-democratic fashion, though our instructor has the final word. On the list: baguettes, which are essential at all Parisian repasts, it seems; a whole John Dory fish, which the French call Saint Pierre; a filet of beef, that will be cut into individual tenderloins; several bundles of big fat green asparagus (more tender than the white, Fabrice says); a selection of cheeses; multiple baskets of strawberries for a tart; herbs, vegetables and veal bones for a brown stock, and potatoes for a gratin dauphinois, a classic French dish made with sliced potatoes, cream and cheese. The menu is based on our tastes, what’s in season and the chef’s whims. (You can find a link to Fabrice’s recipes, which the school shared with us, at the bottom of this post. )

It turns out the market doesn’t have a name because it’s really just a collection of wonderful shops on a street in the charming but less touristy Jules Joffrin area Montmartre, just over the hill from Sacré-Coeur. It’s not one of Paris’s famous open-air markets but it’s a jewel of a different kind.

“This is the real Paris here,” Fabrice tells us. In other words, it’s where the locals shop, not the tourists.

At the cheese shop, he stops and inhales with satisfaction looking about in delight at the enormous stock of every kind of possible variety of fromage.

“This is better than a parfumerie,” he says. “This is pure French here. If you have to bring back a present, I think cheese is the best.” And if not cheese, “a beautiful piece of grass-fed butter.” (Vacuum-sealed in your checked luggage, it will be okay, he declares).

“You can travel with butter?” someone asks.

“I can travel with you?” Fabrice shoots back with an impudent smile.

He hints when we first meet that he has traveled the world in the course of his cooking career, which began at age 13 and has lasted 50 years. “So now you know how old I am,” he tells me.

“Where have you traveled?” I press him.

“Later, later,” he tells me, too busy shepherding students and the arranging all the ingredients once we return to the school to answer questions. (See below for the answer.)

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And then we cook…

Fabrice has exchanged his ball cap for a flat black one and an apron with a Cook’n with Class logo on it. Down the length of the long table are arrayed the produce and protein we have bought for our meal: strawberries, potatoes, asparagus, carrots, celery, onions, leeks, dill, parsley and other herbs, the filet of beef and the whole fish. At our places are knives, peelers and aprons.

Our instructor begins by writing the menu on the blackboard in white script that reminds me of handwritten menus that I’ve seen in front of bistros and cafés all over Paris—and elsewhere in France. Apparently cursive is alive and well in this country, or at least among the cheffy crowd!

As he writes, he explains some of the choices. With the green asparagus, he says, we’ll have a beurre blanc sauce (literally white butter sauce), looking around at us to see if we know what it is.

“It’s a typical French sauce that goes very well with fish and asparagus,” he says. “And we’re probably going to put in the sauce some dill and some fish eggs. You know fish eggs? I’ll show you. I have them over there.”

He shows us some salmon-colored roe that he later sprinkles into the sauce to add a literal “pop” of flavor.

My tasks seem pretty minimal—mostly chopping and peeling. Others are working cubes of butter into flour for the tarte aux fraises (strawberry tart) and braising vegetables for the brown stock that will eventually become the base of a green pepper sauce for the beef.

“This is the most important thing that you can do today,” he says, pointing at Robert who is the stir-frying veggies for the stock. “Out of a stock you can make hundreds and thousands of different dishes.”

As there’s so much going on, it’s difficult to follow exactly what’s happening at the other end of the table where the stock is being made. When I ask Fabrice to tell us what’s in it, he reels off the ingredients—onions, leeks, celery, carrots, garlic, bay leaves and fresh thyme (he hands around fresh bay leaves and thyme for us to smell.)

“Be generous with the thyme,” he says. After browning the vegetables and some bones—chicken and veal, which he roasts in the oven then adds to the stock—he spoons off some of the fat, then directs his sous-chefs to deglaze the pan with white wine, scraping up the brown bits on the bottom. The joints of the bones contain lots of collagen, the magic ingredient in the creams that women pay so much for to improve their skin, Fabrice notes. “No need to buy collagen. Just have a good meal!” he declares. (Take that, Olay!)

Later, tomato sauce and cold water are added to the stock—cold water because you want the stock to expand and cook gently to extract as much flavor as possible from the ingredients. The steak, on the other hand, needs to go into a hot pan to cook quickly so as not to lose all its juices, Fabrice explains.

Here are more pictures of of what we made and ate:

Below are some more nuggets of wisdom we gleaned from Fabrice in the course of the day. The part about his life—well that’s just the story we got once the food was on the table and the work was mostly done.

Cheese, butter and garlic

On cheese: “Cheese exists because we have winter,” Fabrice tells us. In cold regions in the past, people developed cheese as a sustainable source of protein in the winter months when there was little to eat and to sell for income. Many of the most famed French cheeses are made with a mold called Penicillium, related but not the same strain as in the antibiotic.

Among the cheeses we sample are a Brie stuffed with walnuts that’s made using a Penicillium camemberti mold and a sheep’s milk Roquefort that comes from one appropriately named Penicillium roqueforti. Also on the cheese plate: a Comté from the Alps that was cut from a 40 kg (88 lb) wheel, two cheeses that employ edible vegetable ash in their production, and a round cheese with an orange rind that smells “like my toes in summer,” Fabrice says. “But it tastes very, very nice.” The French like smelly cheeses, he says. Americans, not so much.

On garlic: The problem that some people have with garlic when it’s used raw is caused by the little green sprout in the middle of the clove. If you slice the peeled cloves in half (lengthwise) and dig out the sprout before chopping and adding the cloves to the dish, you remove the bitterness and the burning taste that some people find disagreeable or upsetting to their digestion. In a cooked dish—like stock—the sprouts shouldn’t be an issue, Fabrice says. (I’m hoping this method works for my mother-in-law, who avoids garlic because of the ill effects!)

On butter (especially, grass-fed butter): “Butter is a superfood. Very healthy. It’s got vitamin A, vitamin E, vitamin D, vitamin K. I know what they say, but voilà, butter is your best friend,” says Fabrice. (I doubt most experts would call butter a superfood, but it certainly did taste superb in everything we ate!)

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About Fabrice

Finally my patience was rewarded—Fabrice told us something about himself. Although quite a number of details are missing, and I didn’t get a chance to pose any follow-up questions (too bad for eternally curious me!), here’s a basic outline of what he shared of his life. What struck me most is how young he was when he got started and how many places he worked—and also how permissive his parents must have been!

Born on the island of Martinique in the French West Indies, Fabrice lived there until age 12 and then returned with his family to France. It was a difficult transition. From what he told us, it sounded like he had been a total free spirit on the island, a former French colony that’s now classified as a department and region, yet with quite a different culture than the mother country. In France, the boy suddenly had to wear shoes, trousers, coats and hats and sit still for hours in school. “So I said ‘no, not for me,’ ” he told us. Already he knew somehow that cooking would be his ticket to freedom.

And so at age 13, he went to work in a restaurant to learn to be a chef “because I knew that as a chef I could travel the world.” It was like an apprenticeship, he said, and perhaps that’s how any number of chefs got their start. (The school’s website also notes that he apprenticed at Auberge la Chancelière and had formal training at the Lycée Technique d’Hôtelleries et de Tourisme in St Cyr.)

And then Fabrice got the chance to fulfill his dream. He returned to Martinique, where he did his army service. Then he went to England, Norway, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, South Africa, the U.S., Egypt, Russia and Morocco. In Morocco, he made ice cream on the beach and loved it.

“Imagine. Just ice cream. The whole day, ice cream,” he said, his face aglow at the memory. “The beach. The ladies. It’s fun when you’re young.”

In South Africa, he was granted permanent residency, staying there 10 years, and at one point becoming the personal chef to Nelson Mandela and creating pastries for his inauguration. “I never met him,” he said, “but my first wife did. She shook his hand many times, and every time she didn’t wash (her hand) again.”

In the U.S. he worked briefly in Manhattan in New York City, then attempted to get a work visa to work at a restaurant in Napa Valley, California, but he was refused because of the controversy at that time (2003) over France’s opposition to the war in Iraq. French fries were renamed “Freedom Fries” and French chefs weren’t welcome.

I didn’t hear if it was this is what occasioned the peripatetic chef’s return to France, but it sounds like it all worked out for the best. Fabrice is happily settled in the French countryside, commuting to Paris for work. He lives in a large old house with his wife and has five children ranging in age from 7 to 29. He seems to love his job—and he’s obviously very good at it. Despite all my questions, he was a patient teacher, though he did surprise me at the end by saying he’d never met another Ruth in his life, and the only other one he knew of was Dr. Ruth, the sex therapist. Nope, I said. We’re not related.

Here is the link to most of the recipes we made at the school, Cook’n with Class. As all good cooks do, Fabrice embellished a bit during the class. For example, he added fish eggs and dill to the beurre blanc sauce, roasted veal bones and leeks to the brown sauce, and varied the tart crust somewhat from the formula he wrote on the board. C’est la vie! Cooking is both a science and an art, right? If for some reason, the link to the recipes doesn’t work, let me know and I’ll try to forward them separately.

I did make a strawberry tart this weekend and was quite pleased with the results, though it took the better part of the afternoon! (No sous-chefs!). I used the recipes for pâte brisée (shortcrust pastry) and crème pâtissière (pastry cream) provided by the school, but consulted a Serious Eats recipe for further details on making the crust. Here’s a picture of the finished tarte aux fraises!

I’d love to hear your thoughts on taking cooking classes while traveling and if you’ve come across some that you’ve really enjoyed. I’ve taken more food tours than classes, but this one was a nice surprise and resulted in the best meal I had on our trip. It also left me thinking I need to work on my techniques for making stocks, sauces and especially summer tarts. Clearly I need to take more classes in Paris!

Thanks as always for your likes, comments, shares and subscriptions—new and old. It means a lot.

See you next time!

Ruth

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We said au revoir to Paris a couple of days ago and buongiorno to Torino (Turin). I will have more to say about both in a future post, but for now, here are a few images and reflections from our stay in Paris’s 18th arrondissement—the charming bohemian area of Montmartre that was once home to such artists as Vincent van Gogh, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Pablo Picasso, Claude Monet, Amedeo Modigliani, Suzanne Valedon, Maurice Utrillo and more during the Belle Époque of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It’s still a beacon for artists and tourists alike—and of course beloved by the everyday folks who live and work there!

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There are the expected sights, like the Place du Tertre, known as the artists’ square, where you can get a sketch or caricature of yourself or linger over an aperitif or a café crême, snack on some frites or a crêpe or something heartier. Then you can wander a few streets over for a glimpse of Sacre-Coeur or the myriad tourists gathered there also gawking at the basilica, built between 1875 and 1914 in a Romano-Byzantine style and said to be the second most popular attraction in Paris after the Eiffel Tower. We didn’t go inside (but you can!) to experience the vaunted acoustics and religious mosaics. Instead, we lingered outside taking in the view of Paris, the tourists and the thousands of locks that visitors have affixed to the fences to commemorate their visit.

But when the crowds get too much, there are unexpected pleasures and escapes in this place that locals affectionately call “un petit village.” In fact it really was once a humble rural village outside the walls of Paris (incorporated into the city in 1860), a place of windmills, vineyards and farmhouses.

Out of the original 30 or so, there are two remaining windmills (and no, the celebrated neon one at the Moulin Rouge cabaret is not one of them—it’s just for show). There’s also a beautiful and productive vineyard that isn’t open to the public, except for briefly during the October harvest festival for private bookings and guided tours. You can catch enticing glimpses of the vines (there are some 20 grape varieties) from the street and from the Musée du Montmartre, a must-see destination for its connection to the history of the area and to the artists who once lived and/or worked there, its flower-filled gardens, inspired by works that Renoir painted on site, and its unpretentious café.

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Last but of course not at all least in this brief taste of our week’s sojourn in Montmartre is the incredible food. As much as we ate, we also feasted with our eyes—on the amazing breads and pastries at Boulangerie Alexine and some of the other food places near our hotel on Rue Tholozé.

When it comes to the food, drink—or art or shopping, for that matter—in Montmartre, it doesn’t feel like it’s only about the food or the painting, the pair of earrings you have your eye on or the song you heard a crowd of locals singing with spirit at the bar on a late Sunday night. If you let yourself linger for just a moment longer, if you’re not racing to get to the next landmark on your Instagram checklist, a feeling of well-being may come over you, a sense of being among old friends, even if you just met the people you’re with. You may find yourself sharing a laugh, a story, a song over a drink, a connection that’s even more precious and rare when it’s between people of difference cultures and countries, especially in the crazy warring world we’re living in. At least that’s how it felt to me in Montmartre. And honestly, that’s really the best part about traveling.

I must say it does help to know a few words of French—so here’s a fond merci to Mlle. Hursh, wherever she is. She was my enthusiastic 7th and 8th grade French teacher many, many years ago who had us all barking like seals as we practiced saying French R’s in the back of our throat! Struggling in the last day or two to make myself understood in Italy makes me realize how valuable those early language lessons were. More recently, my Spanish friend Manda, a native of Nice, has helped me brush up on my français, so merci, Manda too!

So consult your phrasebooks, your translation apps or a friendly native speaker—when you’re heading to a new country! It really does help!

Apropos of finding humor in translation, here are two signs that caught my attention on our travels:

So, yes, my “notes” have turned into more of a letter—and I still have more to say. Stay tuned for the story of the very best meal I had in Paris—and how I helped make it in an excellent market-to-table cooking class in Montmartre. And then I want to tell you about the wonderful “literary” hotel where we stayed, themed around a 20th century writer popular in France but unfamiliar to most Americans—including me.

Til then, ciao—which apparently means goodbye—and sometimes hello—in a host of languages!

Ruth

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With a brother-in-law who lives in Atlanta, I had always heard about the Southern Gothic city of Savannah about four hours away. I also had vague memories of moody scenes in a graveyard, a murder and a trial from the 1997 film Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, directed by Clint Eastwood and based on the bestselling nonfiction book by John Berendt. So this year, when my husband Jeff put together a southern PhotowalksTV trip that would take us from Atlanta to Charleston, Savannah and St. Augustine, I decided to come along to find out what was behind all that buzz.

I wasn’t disappointed. There was much more to explore and enjoy in Savannah than we could possibly fit into a short visit, but we did our best. Jeff gives his take on the trip in the his latest Photowalks episode. What follows are some of my highlights.

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Strolling Savannah

Savannah is one of the great walkable cities, home to historic mansions, churches, museums, parks and graveyards, most best seen on foot. And of course there’s also some classic southern food, but more on that in a bit!

You really don’t need a car in Savannah unless you want to explore areas outside the city, but if you only have about 2 1/2 days, as we did, you want to spend it in center of town, with one exception—a trip to the deliciously moody Southern Gothic Bonaventure Cemetery that plays such an outsized role in Berendt’s book and is immortalized in the haunting photo of the Bird Girl statue that graces its cover.

Jeff used the cemetery as a setting for some of the videos and photos in his latest PhotowalksTV episode. To see it, click on the link below:

In retrospect, I wish I had accompanied him on the ride to see some of the elaborate Victorian-era marble statues in the cemetery, considered the area’s most beautiful and romantic. Jeff sought to capture its charms with his iPhone. Here’s one black and white image I like:

Before setting off to see the city on foot, I settled in to our room on the fourth floor of the five-story River Street Inn, a former cotton warehouse built in 1817 along the Savannah River and repurposed as a 99-room hotel. Elements of the inn—its heart pine floors, timber beams and walls of ballast stone, along with the once-gritty waterfront down below that has been developed into a riverfront dining and shopping area—are nods to its industrial roots in the cotton trade. It’s not hard to imagine giant bales of cotton being piled in the open-structure interior stairwell and hauled onto rail and barges in the nearby river.

One interesting note: Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin in 1793 at Mulberry Grove Plantation near Savannah, helping to turn cotton into an enormously profitable industry in Savannah and throughout the South. Unfortunately, that business was largely built on the backs of large numbers of enslaved Black workers and contributed to conditions that set the country on a course toward the Civil War. (You can read more about that here.)

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Which way should I walk? It almost didn’t matter. In almost any direction, I was bound to bump into the city’s famous squares. There are 22 in all, down from the original 24. Lush green spaces overhung with the town’s signature Spanish moss-draped live oaks, the squares punctuate the downtown and form its unique grid pattern. In Berendt’s book, a local woman called Mary Harty tells him, “The squares are our little oases of tranquility.”

The city plan was the brainstorm of James Oglethorpe, a British Army officer, member of Parliament and philanthropist who established the town on a high bluff overlooking the Savannah River in 1733, shortly after founding Georgia, America’s 13th and final colony, and naming it for King George II.

Most of the squares are named for historic figures or military events, with monuments, statues and engraved signs along every path, detailing events that date back to the country’s founding and before.

“Johnson Square is named for Governor Robert Johnson of South Carolina who befriended the colonists when Georgia was first settled,” says one marker in the square that is the oldest and largest of them all. Another one in the same square marks President George Washington’s Southern tour of 1791, noting where the President attended church, lodged and dined in Savannah.

An America 250 note that I learned from watching Jeff’s Photowalks episode: On August 10, 1776, the newly created Declaration of Independence was read aloud in this square and an effigy of Britain’s King George III was buried.

The squares are surrounded by short little streets that force cars to proceed slowly around them. On these and on the side streets sit mansions, churches, houses made of ancient brick or stucco, with shutters and graceful wrought-iron fencing, some narrow and tall, others large and expansive, most hinting at long histories and dark secrets, possibly a ghost or two.

Many of the buildings bear plaques that share points of historic interest or pride. One hundred sixty-one years after the end of the Civil War, Confederate war heroes are still celebrated, as is the case of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston:

More walkable sights

My favorite Savannah walk was to a famed fountain in Forsyth Park only about a mile from our hotel. It’s probably the city’s most photographed landmark. More than 150 years old, it’s made of cast-iron and has been renovated and repainted multiple times.

To reach it is a straight shot south along Bull Street from the gold-domed city hall. Along the way, you meander through five squares and past or near a number of landmarks. Among them is the Mercer-Williams House, a historic mansion, now a museum. Originally built for Gen. Hugh W. Mercer, great grandfather of celebrated songwriter Johnny Mercer, it was the scene of the murder (or act of self-defense, depending on your point of view) at the center of Berendt’s book.

Also on your route: the birthplace mansion and museum of Juliette Gordon Low, the founder of the Girl Scouts; the admissions office of the popular Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), and Mikve Israel, founded in 1733, the oldest Jewish congregation in the South and the third oldest in the U.S. Just a block or two away is the Telfair Academy museum, a two-story neoclassical mansion that was completed about 1820 and is where you can visit the Bird Girl statue as well as a collection of 19th and 20th century art. A few blocks away is the Owens-Thomas House & Slave Quarters, another historic residence and museum that examines the art, architecture, and history of the home through the lens of slavery.

As you can imagine, we didn’t get a chance to explore most of these places in the short time we had—but we did take a lot of pictures to remind us of why we want to return. And of course we did find time to eat—some complete meals, but also plenty of noshing and a few foodie gifts to take home or to inspire future kitchen adventures! Here are some of our choices.

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Savannah Eats!

The Olde Pink House Restaurant & Tavern

We were lucky enough to be invited to this beautiful pink mansion that dates back to 1771 (everything in this town is old—it must be why I felt so at home!). It was like having dinner in someone’s elegant dining room. Throughout the manse are collections of oil portraits and antiques that reflect Savannah’s and Georgia’s history. You almost expect that at any moment one of the early colonial leaders who met to plan their strategy of resistance against the British in this house might wander through the door.

A waiter told us that the Georgian-style residence, built on a lot that was originally a land grant from the British crown, had at various times been a bank, a lawyer’s office, a bookstore, library and tea house before it became a restaurant! Its striking pink color was originally unintended, a result of red bricks bleeding through white plaster. Eventually, one of the owners gave up on trying to cover the offending color and just painted the building pink!

The menu is characterized as “New Southern,” which I believe means inventive takes on Southern classics—like the crispy whole flounder I had, scored in a diamond pattern, dusted with flour, flash-fried and covered in an apricot-shallot glaze. It was a huge portion—and delicious—though just a touch too sweet for my taste. Jeff’s classic fried chicken was more my style, but he only shared a leg! I definitely wanted more. The biscuits and the key lime pie (yes, we had that pie once again!) were also superb. I’d return to this gorgeous place in a hot minute! Thank you, Supriya of Visit Savannah!

Clary’s Café

Originally a drugstore, pharmacy and soda fountain that claims a 1903 start date, Clary’s evolved into the full-service breakfast and lunch restaurant it is today while retaining the warmth and personality that make it so memorable in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. In the book, John Berendt becomes a regular at Clary’s and finds it “a clearinghouse of information, a bourse of gossip”—in other words, gold for an author!

For Jeff and me, getting ready to hit the road again, it was a comfortable stop, a place that felt like you might like to become a regular if you stuck around Savannah for any length of time. As it was, we ordered our favorite comfort foods— a Greek omelet with spinach, tomatoes, peppers, onions and feta cheese for me and a grilled cheese with fries for Jeff.

J. Christopher’s

This was just a delightful, unpretentious place with friendly servers and lots of colorful, topical and/or amusing local art on the walls. Open for breakfast, lunch or brunch, the food suits the decor—delicious and not in the least intimidating. This is another spot I’d come to on repeat if I lived in this city.

There were Southern specialties like shrimp and grits, several hearty skillet specials that sounded perfect if you were very hungry, along with pancakes, waffles, sandwiches and salads—and great coffee. I picked another omelette—the Billy Goat—spinach, portobello mushrooms, roasted red peppers and goat cheese. Jeff got an open-face chicken sandwich with melted cheese on top (he does love his melted cheese!). We were both very satisfied.

Sweet endings

River Street Sweets

I have a Pavlov’s Dog type of response to being given free samples of things. I start salivating and then I buy something. This was especially true in Savannah when I was offered tastes of some really fine chocolate pralines. I’d had some regular pralines on our trip to New Orleans last year. I enjoyed them but didn’t fall in love. This was a different story.

The flagship store of this small Savannah-based family-owned business was just a few steep staircases down from where we were staying, and the folks who worked there were generous with their samples. I made the mistake of not bringing home enough of those chocolate pralines, so I will just have to order some—or possibly attempt to make them myself. Here’s a recipe I found! Have you ever made pralines?

Pralines aren’t the only sweet thing you can get at River Street Sweets! Here are a few others:

Okay, that’s it for now. For those of you reading this, thanks for sticking with me until the end. Thanks also for your likes, shares and subscriptions (still free!). I’m always grateful for your comments too! Have you ever visited Savannah?

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I’ll have one more post from our trip to the South—St. Augustine, Florida—but not right away. We’re off on another overseas adventure—Paris, Turin and Milan. Look for a few “postcards” from the road. I’m hoping European airplanes don’t run short of fuel when it comes time for our return flight. Or perhaps I hope they do; it will give us an excuse to keep traveling!

If you plan to be among the protesters on May Day Strong on May 1, more power to you, but please do stay safe.

Ciao!

Ruth

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Passover begins today, April 1, at sundown. Yes, it’s April Fools’ Day—and you’re welcome to laugh. The joke’s on me actually. I’m really late with this post. Your Seder may be already underway—or over—if you’re celebrating! But luckily Passover (also called Pesach, with a gutteral “h” sound at the end like Bach) is another Jewish holiday that, like Hanukkah, lasts for eight days and nights, so there are more chances to read this—or skip to the end where I talk recipes!

Passover commemorates an event that is key to the Book of Exodus, the Israelites’ liberation from slavery in Egypt, a foundational story of the Jewish people. While some scholars find no evidence that the Jews were ever slaves in Egypt, others cite historical facts that support at least some portion of the story. In the words of George and Ira Gershwin’s popular song from the opera Porgy and Bess (which incidentally is based on a tale set in Charleston, the city we just visited and the subject of last week’s post), we all know the facts in the Bible “ain’t necessarily so.” But still, the story and the holiday at which we retell it every year have lasted for more than 3,000 years! That has to count for something!

In my own life, not a year has passed that we haven’t celebrated Passover, even though lately, the gatherings have become much smaller as people have moved on or passed away. When I was young, it was a joyous occasion at which our extended family took to heart one of the core requirements of the Haggadah (the little book we read that guides us through the prayers, songs, symbols [mostly food!] and meaning of the Seder) the edict that “in every generation, a person must see himself (or herself) as if he (or she!) had come out of Egypt.”

On a deeper level, we are invited to consider what are the things that enslave us and from which we seek liberation, whether it be drugs or food, a job or relationship or perhaps our own emotions, prejudices or habits—or, looking beyond ourselves, a cruel and incompetent leader (a modern-day pharoah or president perhaps?).

Another core message of the Seder is the biblical injunction to welcome and empathize with the stranger: “for you know the feelings of the stranger, having yourselves been strangers in the land of Egypt.” (Exodus 23:9)

This last was almost literally true for our family as my grandparents and their children arrived in the U.S. after escaping from Nazi Germany in 1938, with my father, mother and two older brothers coming a decade later from Scotland, my mother’s birthplace.

That close escape that made our life in America possible was always the background story that informed our Seders—so, for the grandparents, aunts and uncles who had actually endured that transition and survived, and for the next generation—we 18 grandchildren who were the product of their survival—it felt very personal. If not for their courage and foresight, we wouldn’t be here.

Here’s a piece I wrote about this a few years ago:

In 2026, there are far fewer of us—including the loss last December of my second cousin Ursula, who was the last link with that immigrant past. She shared some of her thoughts about the deep meaning that Passover held for her in the post above. I also wrote about her recipe for Tzwechkenkuchen—plum tart—in another story that you can find here. Though the tart isn’t kosher for Passover, it’s delicious and a family favorite!

Below is a photo I took of Ursula with her late sister Barbara several years back.

She and her three siblings and their parents immigrated to America from Germany at about the same time as my grandparents and aunts and uncles. Ursula was only 5 and became, along with her sister and two brothers, proud and productive American citizens—as did the members of my family.

They were the lucky ones, because the doors to this country swung closed pretty quickly against the tide of Jewish refugees seeking entry. Hundreds of thousands who wished to come here were forced to emigrate elsewhere if they were lucky enough to find a host country (which many couldn’t) or remain in Europe to face the war unleashed by Hitler and ultimately the horrors of the Holocaust.

Somehow it feels like déjà vu as we watch our country not only shutting its doors to immigrants once again, but also witness the ramping up of deportations and detention of those branded as criminals, though most have done little more than overstay their visas—if that! And then there are people, mostly U.S. citizens—who are lawfully and nonviolently protesting in the best American tradition that are being demonized, bullied, arrested—and even killed.

Luckily, more than 8 million of us showed up for peaceful No Kings Day rallies around the country last weekend, something you can be sure never happened in Nazi Germany. Eric Estrin, a former television writer/producer and now Substack blogger, was one of them and was inspired to write a witty take on the event tied to Passover: “Let my people go. Again: 10 new plagues for a modern Seder,” casting the president as our new Pharaoh. It includes a new verse for a popular Passover song, “Go Down Moses.”

“With Donald as our president,
Let my people go
Our future’s bleak, our money’s spent,
Let my people go
Go out, voters
Hold signs and sing your chants
Tell old Donald,
Let my people go.”

For a much needed lift, listen to Louis Armstrong’s fantastic take on this old African American spiritual.

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Dayenu! Let’s eat!

That means enough already (and it’s a Passover song too!). This holiday isn’t only about soul-searching and lamenting about politics and the state of the world; thankfully, it’s also about family, friends—and food, of course. And the meal is always a challenge and an adventure.

Last year we hosted the Seder at our house, and though I loved it, it really is quite a lot of work. I wrote about it in a post that also included a recipe for matzo ball soup from the great Joan Nathan, who has long been my Jewish cooking inspiration. This year, I’m enjoying the luxury of a celebrating at other peoples’ homes (thank you, Tina and Andy, Marla and Bob!). I volunteered to bring dessert—always my favorite thing to make anyway.

But Passover desserts can be a bit tricky. All those ingredients that you’re not supposed to have in your kitchen during the holiday—flour in particular, but yeast is definitely verboten, and while baking powder and baking soda can be used, they usually require Kosher for Passover certification. And then if you happen to have people at the table who are dairy- or gluten free—or vegan—that adds yet another layer. Add to that nut allergies and you’ve got more issues because many Passover desserts substitute nut flours for wheat flour. So by then you might be tearing your hair out and saying, “Maybe those Manischewitz macaroons aren’t so bad after all!”

But if you’re a person who actually enjoys a challenge when it comes to food (and especially if you’re not making the entire Seder meal and have time to be creative!), this might turn out to be kind of fun.

And that’s how it is with me. So what did I make? After enjoying several slices of key lime pie on our trip through the South, I couldn’t get this tart, creamy not-too-sweet pie out of my mind. It’s usually made with a graham cracker crust, but graham crackers include wheat flour, a no-no at Passover.

Interestingly enough, matzo, matzo meal and other kosher-for-Pesach products are usually made with wheat flour. But the wheat is handled in a special way: it must be prepared and baked in less than 18 minutes. That’s the amount of time that Jewish law specifies that it takes for flour to ferment—or rise, which isn’t allowed on Passover. Why? Because when the Israelites were fleeing Egypt, they were in too much of a hurry to let the dough rise—so voilà, we eat matzo for eight days! For some it’s torture. I, however, can’t get enough! Here’s a post in which I talk about some of the ways I enjoy it.

Anyway, about that key lime pie: I found a recipe on King Arthur Baking Co. and adapted it. After Passover I hope to make it again with the traditional graham cracker crust. I also think this pie would be a great choice for Easter!

To adapt the crust for a single-crust 9-inch pie, I checked out pie maven and fellow Substacker Kate McDermott’s recipe for Gluten-Free Nutty No-Bake Crust in her book, Art of the Pie. Her all-nut crust would work as written for Passover, but I worried that it might not hold together with a baked filling, so I added some matzo meal.

1. Instead of 1 cup each of almond meal and hazelnut meal, I ground enough roasted sliced almonds and roasted pecans to make 1 1/2 cups nut meal total in a food processor. (You could easily sub other nut meals—Kate’s recipe calls for almond and hazelnut meals.)

2. I added to the nuts about 1/4 cup matzo cake meal and 1/4 cup matzo meal (you could use a half cup of one or the other—or just grind up enough matzo to make a half a cup).

3. I added 2 tablespoons of sugar and 1/4 teaspoon of salt.

4. Then I drizzled in 5 tablespoons of unsalted butter, melted. (Kate says you can use either salted or unsalted.)

5. Kate suggests mixing ingredients together with clean hands or a fork, but I got lazy and just mixed it all up in the food processor. (I think her method is probably better as it’s too easy to over-mix in a processor.)

6. As the dough seemed a little too wet and not quite sweet enough, I added another tablespoon of sugar and more matzo cake meal until it held together.

7. I patted the dough into a pyrex pie dish and then followed the King Arthur key lime pie recipe from there, baking the crust for 15 minutes in a 325°F oven, adding some unsweetened coconut flakes after about 10 minutes in (my idea, not KAB’s), then removing the baked shell, cooling it, then pouring in the filling.

8. After baking the filled pie for the required amount of time, I cooled it in the fridge, wrapped it tightly in plastic wrap and foil and froze it—to be gilded with whipped cream and served several days later!

*Notes:

• I used Floribbean Key Lime Juice, which I purchased from King Arthur, but the recipe suggests you can use regular limes or fresh key limes, if you can find them.

• Other than the matzo meal, I didn’t use products that were marked kosher for Passover, so if you’re strictly kosher, this might not be the dessert to choose. It also contains dairy (condensed milk), so if you’re serving meat at your meal, this wouldn’t work for those who are very observant—especially with a whipped cream topping.

On my list of Passover desserts still to come are: almond-walnut macaroons (another Joan Nathan recipe from her King Solomon’s Table cookbook), chocolate chip meringues and a flourless, dairy-free orange cake made with whole oranges and blanched almonds from Claudia Roden’s The Book of Jewish Food. It’s apparently a famous cake made with oranges that are boiled whole for 1 1/2 hours! Stay tuned for more pictures of these hopefully successful desserts and the final verdict on my Passover key lime pie!

Thanks for being here at this very busy and nerve-racking time. Wishing you the very happiest of holidays and a more peaceful, caring world in which to enjoy them.

See you soon,

Ruth

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Last month, we continued our “America at 250” journey that began in Boston in October by visiting four southern U.S. cities—Atlanta; Charleston, South Carolina; Savannah, Georgia, and St. Augustine, Florida.

I returned home with 2,000-plus photos on my phone, pitifully few notes and a head spinning from the sights, tastes and rich history that we had sampled. Even though each of these cities deserves its own story, I’m leaving that to my husband Jeff (Jefferson Graham to some of you). He has a travel show, PhotowalksTV, that runs on YouTube and Scripps News, with the first of several episodes about our trip running this weekend. Here’s the link:

Just FYI—the program features some terrific original music by Jeff’s brother, Jez Graham, an accomplished musician who can be heard playing piano at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport at The Piano Bar every Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Tuesday on Concourse E. Jeff also put together a great tribute to his brother here.

As for me, I’m sharing a few highlights from our trip, with the focus on some great museums, a little history and a couple of restaurants. After trying to squeeze it all into a single newsletter, I’ve decided to save Savannah and St Augustine for future posts.

Remembering Dr. King

In Atlanta, the birthplace of Martin Luther King, Jr., we visited The King Center, created by his widow, Coretta Scott King, as a living memorial to her husband and all he stood for following his death in 1968.

Originally called the Martin Luther King, Jr., Center for Nonviolent Social Change, it includes a peaceful garden area with several monuments outlining the principles of nonviolence that motivated King throughout his adult life and which he modeled on Mahatma Gandhi’s teachings and his own Christian faith.

A gentle waterfall descends over steps into a reflecting pool that surrounds the shared tomb of King and his wife. On the steps are inscribed some of the words from his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, delivered at the Lincoln Memorial on Aug. 28, 1963 and still worth reading in its entirety:

“We will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

It seemed particularly important to pay homage to Dr. King at this moment when President Trump, with a big assist from the Supreme Court, appears intent on undoing signature civil rights achievements that MLK helped turn into reality—specifically the Voting Rights Act of 1965, along with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs in the public and private sectors that are now being dismantled.

We also toured the Ebenezer Baptist Church, where King was baptized, ordained and co-pastored with his father until his assassination in Memphis on April 4, 1968. Rev. Raphael Warnock, the junior senator from Georgia since 2021, has been Ebenezer’s senior pastor for the past 21 years.

The church basement is filled with photos and memorabilia of his life and death, including the humble wooden farm wagon drawn by two mules that carried his body over the 4.3 miles between a private memorial service at the church and a later one at his alma mater, Morehouse College. The clock in the sanctuary is stopped at 10:30 a.m., the time of the service.

Both The King Center and the church are located on Auburn Avenue, the heart of a historic black neighborhood and also the street where MLK was born on Jan. 15, 1929 in the home of his maternal grandparents. The house, a two-story Queen Anne Victorian, is currently under renovation. Along with the church, the reflecting pool and garden surrounding the Kings’ tomb, it is part of the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park, managed by the National Park Service. The King Center remains a private nonprofit.

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Charleston

So far, it doesn’t look as if the president’s attempts to whitewash and remove references to civil rights struggles, racism and/or slavery have affected the exhibits we saw in Atlanta—or the powerful ones we viewed elsewhere on our trip, particularly at two Charleston-based institutions: the International African American Museum (IAAM) and the Old Slave Mart Museum, Charleston’s oldest museum of African American history and the first museum on the history of slavery in the United States. Hopefully they won’t.

We found the museums fascinating, horrifying, but also inspiring as we came across stories of those who had endured unimaginable suffering yet overcame so much and helped make life better for generations that followed. I couldn’t help wondering how it was that there was so much I had never been taught in school or learned later in life.

The IAAM exhibits are particularly moving, memorable and extensive—covering everything from the origin of the transatlantic slave trade to Charleston’s pivotal role in the Civil War to Reconstruction to Civic Rights to the election of Barack Obama to the present .

Opening in late June 2023, the museum is located on the Gadsden’s Wharf, the entry point for more than 100,000 enslaved Africans during the peak of the international slave trade (1783-1808). Charleston, founded by the English in 1670 as Charles Town and named for King Charles II, was the port city where a majority of North American slaves were bought and sold, with the lucrative trade continuing long after the legal importation of slaves ended in 1808.

Several exhibits trace the history of slavery from its origins, primarily in West and West Central Africa. The Transatlantic slave trade—the Middle Passage, as it was called—took place between 1501 and 1855 with some 12.5 million Africans forced onto slave ships for brutal voyages to the Americas. Conditions were so wretched that some 1.8 million of these men, women and children died along the way and many more from disease and brutal treatment after arriving.

Much of Charleston’s great wealth, including its beautifully preserved antebellum mansions and plantations that draw so many visitors, was built upon the labors of African slaves and their descendants, with many becoming skilled in graceful iron work, bricklaying, stone masonry and carpentry that can be seen in the homes along the ancient city streets of the downtown area and by the seafront. A number of those built before the Civil War have been carefully preserved or restored, often with markers pointing out their history.

As the IAAM exhibit, as well as that at the Old Slave Mart Museum, make clear, descendants of the millions of slaves who survived had profound impacts on the many places where they landed in North and South America and the Caribbean.

One striking example of this are the unique Gullah Geechee communities along the coasts of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and northern Florida. The Africans from whom they were descended were particularly prized for their expertise in growing rice, with the area of Africa from which they were taken sometimes referred to as the Rice Coast. They were largely responsible for creating their white masters’ lucrative rice plantations in the South Carolina and Georgia Lowcountry using practices they had learned in Africa.1

One of the techniques involved separating the grains of rice from the chaff, the dry husks encasing it, using handwoven baskets with flat bottoms called fanner baskets. Initially made of bulrushes, today, descendants of those original slaves have carried on the weaving tradition by making and selling intricate baskets, mats and other objects woven from a combination of materials gathered in the coastal marshlands, fields and forests of the South Carolina and Georgia Lowcountry—primarily sweetgrass, palmetto fronds, longleaf pine needles and bulrushes.

You can find stunning examples of the art at the Charleston City Market, where they are considered collector’s items and sell for anywhere from $30 for smaller pieces to $500 for larger, more intricate examples. There are also folks selling the baskets along Meeting Street in downtown Charleston. That’s where I bought a trivet from Betty, 75, who told me that she’s been making the baskets since she was 5. She learned the craft from her grandmother who in turn learned it from hers. Now Betty is teaching it to her own daughter, Shirley.

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A taste of the South

The cuisine of the Lowcountry and of the South itself were also enormously influenced by the African roots of those who were forcibly brought to this country. A note in the IAAM Gullah Geechee exhibit makes this clear:

“Gullah Geechee cuisine includes okra, cowpeas, sesame, rice, spices, and peppers—plants traditionally cultivated in West and West Central Africa. European turnips, collards, and cabbage and Native American squashes, pumpkins, and corn are also part of Gullah Geechee food traditions. Cooks often draw from African-influenced practices of slow-cooking in large earthenware or iron pots, with bits of chicken, pork, or seafood added for flavoring. These transatlantic influences continue to play a major role in shaping American southern cuisine today.”

We were treated to some of these influences in several meals we ate during our trip. One of my favorites was at Magnolias in Charleston, where we dined on our last night.

It was the first of several times on this trip that I dined on flounder, which is apparently a very popular local fish. This was my favorite preparation—the whole dish was sumptuous example of local cooking that our cheerful server Willy presented with a flourish and rattled off a description when I asked, including further explaining rice “perloo” (variably spelled purloo, pirlou, or pilau). Magnolias’s preparation was made with jasmine rice, not Carolina Gold:

“Parmesan-crusted flounder with creek shrimp perloo. It also comes with a white wine butter sauce, chopped asparagus, corn and tomato salad. Perloo is rice cooked with a vegetable, which happens to be rice cooked in lobster stock with shrimp, bell pepper, onion and minced celery.”

All I can say is it was yummy!

Some other local dishes on the restaurant’s dinner menu I would have liked to try: fried green tomatoes, cornmeal-fried catfish and the buttermilk-fried chicken breast served with mashed potatoes, collard greens and a cracked pepper biscuit in herb gravy. Clearly we will have to go back for more!

The Silver Skillet, Atlanta

And here’s one more enjoyable food experience we had—breakfast at the venerable Silver Skillet in Atlanta. Just staring at the celebrities on the wall of the 70-year-old diner (Dennis Quaid, Hugh Jackman, Dave Chappelle, Ryan Gosling) could make you smile before you’d even taken a bite. The diner has been the setting for many a movie and TV show shot in Atlanta over the years. Among them: The Founder (2016), Taken 3 (2014), Trouble with the Curve (2012), Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (2013), Remember the Titans (2000), and The Real McCoy (1993).

And then there’s the deeply southern comfort food/‘50s-era diner style menu that’s a throwback to another time, as are the vinyl booths in shades of olive green and pumpkin, the large, sweating aluminum pitchers of water, the ice-cube-tray fluorescent lights, the hand-lettered and white on black block-lettered specials and daily items adorning the wall and signs designed to make you chuckle or groan:

“If you are what you eat, then I am FAST, EASY & CHEAP!”

“Service With a Smile…MOST OF THE TIME.”

And of course there’s the food, including some very tender biscuits. Sadly, I only had one bite of the most delectable fried chicken from my brother-in-law Jez’s chicken and waffle plate. The secret, our server explained, was soaking the chicken in buttermilk before dredging it in the seasoned flour and frying it to a crisp golden brown. Apparently that’s the general rule for Southern fried chicken. If it isn’t, I hope someone will tell me.

Of course the menu—along with the items advertised on the walls—was chock full of things I wanted to try—particularly the lemon ice box pie, for which the Silver Skillet is famous. Check out this video from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in which owner Teresa Breckenridge demonstrates how the pie is made. You can find a recipe from Saveur here.

And here’s a great interview Jeff did with Teresa Breckenridge in which she talks about the many films that have featured the diner, what she considers to be the most popular menu items and her personal favorites.

More to come…

After writing already too much, I realize I can’t include it all in a single post, so there’s more to come—the beautiful moss-draped trees of Savannah, the magic Fountain of Youth (whose effect I’m still awaiting) from St. Augustine, some amazing chocolate pralines. Stay tuned. There are a couple of holidays coming up too and another No Kings Day protest on March 28 for those interested in standing up for democracy. I’m sure Dr. King would approve.

Thanks as always for your likes, comments and shares. If you’re a recent subscriber, I’m so very glad you’re here. If you’re a longtime subscriber, I’m ever so grateful.

See you next time.

Ruth

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I have a distinct childhood memory of watching my mother rolling out sheets of pale yellow cookie dough, cutting circles with a drinking glass and putting teaspoons of prune-walnut filling in the centers. With deft fingers, she would turn the circles into plump little triangles, pinching the corners together, leaving a small opening in the middle for the filling to peek through. By watching my mother work, I learned to make these odd little pastries too.

Called hamantaschen, they are the signature cookie of the Jewish holiday of Purim. And to me, it wasn’t—and isn’t—Purim without digging into a a plate of these miniature cookie/tarts.

The name hamantaschen likely derived from a play on words on a triangular poppy seed-filled pastry called Mohntaschen—literally poppy seed pockets—popular in Germany and Eastern Europe in the 19th century. As time went by, the word mohn probably morphed into Haman, with hamantaschen meaning “Haman's pockets” (the singular is hamantasch). When I was growing up, we were always told it meant Haman's hat (just imagine a three-cornered hat like the one Paul Revere wore, only stuffed with poppy seeds or prunes!).

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In Israel, the cookies are called oznei Haman, or Haman's ears, and some popular fillings include poppy seed, halvah, date paste and chocolate spread.

No matter what they’re called, the cookies are associated with a wicked man called Haman, who, according to the story of Purim (recounted in the Book of Esther, or Megillat Ester in Hebrew), convinces the king of 5th-century B.C.E. Persia to let him exterminate all the Jews. This calamity is averted when Esther, the king's wife, who just happens to be Jewish (though her husband hadn’t known it!) persuades him to get rid of Haman instead.

One of the most joyous of Jewish holidays, customs on this day include dressing up as the key characters in the Purim tale, exchanging gifts of food and drink, donating to the poor and reciting the story of Esther, with accompanying “boos” and the sound of noisemakers whenever the name of Haman is said. My favorite custom, of course, is making and eating hamantaschen!

Not surprisingly, given the evolution of its name, the cookie traditionally contained poppy seed (mohn) or other German or Eastern European-style fillings, such as prune or apricot (lekvar) fillings. But, if tradition isn’t your thing—or you just want to have some fun—there's a lot of room for creativity when it comes to hamantaschen. A BuzzFeed list of 32 Crazy Hamantaschen for Purim includes Savory Carmelized Onion, Candy Cane Cheesecake, and Ganache and Salted Caramel varieties, among others. If you have a yen for campfire cookouts, you can whip up a batch of Smores hamantaschen (mini marshmallows and chocolate spread in a graham cracker crust).

There are also variations on how to shape the cookies into the requisite three-corner shape without having the cookies open up while baking and/or erupt like mini volcanoes. On her blog, Tori Avey gives an excellent step-by-step description of how to fold the cookies in a sort of triangular pouch that remains intact in the oven. She also includes several excellent recipes.

I prefer the "pinch" method that I learned from my mother. After a bit of practice, I've found it works well, with few cookies spewing fruit and nut “lava” in the oven. Some recipes suggest using a little egg white or water to moisten the edges of the dough to help them stick together. You can play around. But there are a few steps to follow that make the difference between a happy hamantasch experience and one that makes you give up and reach for the nearest Girl Scout Thin Mint. (But should you have a yen for one, you're in luck—there's actually a recipe for chocolate mint hamantaschen!)

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For the dough, I used a recipe I found in one of my favorite and now very dog-eared Jewish cookbooks, Joan Nathan's The Jewish Holiday Kitchen. It’s a simple butter cookie dough that you can make in a mixer, food processor or by hand if you prefer. I made three fillings: prune-walnut in honor of my mother (you can find the recipe below—and, even if you have some bad associations with prunes, you may change your mind after trying this recipe!), apricot (link here), and poppy seed (link here). There are also readymade cake and pastry fillings from Solo that are convenient, delicious and very popular.

Jams or preserves that you may already have on hand, such as raspberry, cherry and strawberry, also make good fillings, though sometimes they’re a little thin and tend to bubble out of the cookies when they’re baking. One way around that is to simmer them for a few minutes to remove some of the liquid; they’ll thicken as they cool, but beware of overcooking because they’ll become pasty and dry. As my husband is a chocoholic, Nutella, with a sprinkling of mini chocolate chips, is also on my list of requisite fillings. Another filling that may appeal to chocolate lovers is Chocolate Sesame Spread from the tahini maker Soom.

Making hamantaschen is a bit of a project, but it’s also an excellent distraction from whatever ails us—and that’s a lot lately, including a troubling resurgence of antisemitism in this country and elsewhere. They’re also great to share. And who doesn’t like a triangular cookie? They’re even popular with squares! (Tee hee!)

Some Recipes

Hamantaschen

Makes enough for 24 to 36 cookies*

(Adapted from Joan Nathan's The Jewish Holiday Kitchen)

Ingredients:

2/3 cup unsalted butter (or pareve shortening), softened

1/2 cup sugar

1 large egg

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

2 1/2-3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

Grated zest of 1 small orange (optional)

1 egg, beaten, mixed with 1 teaspoon of water (optional—for brushing cookies before putting them in oven)

Directions:

1. Cream the butter and sugar in the large bowl of a mixer, in a food processor or by hand.**

2. Add the egg, vanilla and the orange zest, if using. Continue mixing until the batter is smooth.

3. Sift 2 1/2 cups of the flour, the baking powder and salt into a small bowl. Save the remaining half cup to add to sprinkle on the board and/or dough if needed when you roll it out later.

4. Add the flour to the butter mixture, mixing or pulsing until a ball of dough is formed. Try to avoid over-mixing as it will create a tough dough. You may find the dough holds together perfectly and you still have some leftover flour. That’s fine as you can always add more if necessary when you roll out the dough.

5. Split the dough into three or four balls, wrapping each in plastic wrap. Refrigerate 3-4 hours or overnight.

6. When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Cover a cookie sheet with parchment or grease it lightly with butter or a spritz of oil.

7. Take a packet of dough (you should remove it from the fridge at least 10 to 15 minutes ahead of time to let it soften) and roll out to the thickness of about 1/8 inch (you just have to guess at this!) on a lightly floured board. You can also use a piece of plastic on top to help avoid sticking and to keep from adding too much flour. Sometimes, I also put plastic under the dough as well. Cut the dough into 2 1/2- to 3-inch circles (I use a floured glass that is just shy of 3 inches in diameter).***

8. Fill the circles of dough with about 1 teaspoon of filling (better too little than too much!). Then, using your two forefingers, push the top two thirds of the cookie toward the center. Fold up the bottom third upward with your two thumbs, and press lightly together, leaving some of the filling showing in the center. Lightly pinch the three seams together, but make sure that they’re sticking together or they’ll open in the oven.

9. If you wish, lightly brush the cookies with a beaten egg, thinned with water, before putting them in the oven. (It gives the cookies a kind of burnished look, but I don’t always do this.) Bake for 10-15 minutes until lightly browned, flipping the tray halfway through to make sure they’re browning evenly. Transfer to a cooling rack.

Notes:
*The number of cookies is dependent on how thick you roll the dough and how large you make the cookies. I usually use a water glass measuring almost 3 inches to cut out the circles, but you can go larger if you like, adding proportionally more filling.
**I have found that the food processor works beautifully for making the dough. I pulse the butter a few times before adding the sugar, egg and vanilla and mixing until smooth. I then added the flour and pulse a few times until well combined.
***If you don't have a cookie or biscuit cutter, a floured water glass works fine, although sometimes you have to use a knife to coax the circle of dough out of the glass. I’ve also used canning rings.

Prune-Walnut Filling

(Try it—you might like it!)

Ingredients:

1 cup finely chopped pitted prunes

1/4 cup raisins, soaked in 1/4 cup juice, sweet wine or water

1 cup water (or more if needed)

1 pinch salt

2-3 tablespoons lemon juice

1 teaspoon lemon zest

1/4 cup honey

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Directions:

1. Put chopped prunes into small saucepan with water and soaked raisins, including juice.

2. Boil, then simmer until soft, checking frequently to make sure the liquid hasn't boiled away. Before it does, be sure to add more water. The smell of burnt prunes is not very appetizing!

3. Add the lemon juice, zest and honey. Stir well.

4. Mash with a potato masher or use an immersion blender if you want a smoother consistency. (I didn't, and the cookies tasted just fine.) Stir in chopped walnuts. If you prefer, you can substitute other chopped nuts, such as almonds.

Thanks for reading this edition of Ruthtalksfood. If you enjoyed it, please click “like” to let me know, or leave a comment or suggestion for future topics and share with a friend. To receive these posts in your inbox, please don’t forget to subscribe.

See you next time with news and photos from our latest road adventures in Georgia, South Carolina and Florida. Meanwhile, stay warm and make some cookies!

Ruth

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We aren’t a family that pays a lot of attention to sports. One Super Bowl Sunday in 1984 we fell in love with our very first house and put down an offer, surprised and thrilled to find our dream home on such an unusually quiet family neighborhood on Los Angeles’s popular Westside. Somehow we’d missed the fact that the streets were so empty because everyone was at home watching the game. Here’s the story I wrote about this and a famous Super Bowl ad that ran at that time:

This weekend is a doubleheader when it comes to sports. Not only is the Super Bowl happening, but the Winter Olympics have kicked off in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo in northern Italy. It’s almost sacrilegious not to tune in at least for a while. And I did to some of the Olympics Opening Ceremony, which, I admit, made me tear up, especially while watching the Parade of Nations and the exuberant athletes from some 90-plus countries waving their countries’ flags with such pride and hope. It felt like for one brief, shining moment the world was united and at peace, fulfilling the theme of harmony (armonia in Italian) of these Olympic games.

But then back to reality. World harmony is a lofty and laudable goal, but you might be caught up in more earthbound matters—like what to serve your guests or yourself! Whether you’re watching the Olympics competition, the Super Bowl, just waiting to see Bad Bunny perform in Spanish in the Halftime Show—or possibly tuning in for the Puppy Bowl adoption event (yup, it’s a thing)—your mind might be on food—specifically, snacks. Grazing rather than sitting down for a meal makes sense when you’re curled up on the couch, plopped in a La-Z-Boy that’s well past its prime or just hobnobbing with friends while moseying about the living room in the vicinity of the TV.

When it comes to Super Bowl snacks and American tastes, they do seem a bit predictable. I happened upon a Reader’s Digest report on the most popular Super Bowl snacks by state. The overall stats based on some Instacart data from the previous year showed a clear overall winner.

Cheese!

Most preferred among snacks was cheese, primarily of the processed, melty variety, including the sliced American kind, Velveeta, and “queso,” a mixture of American or Velveeta cheese, chiles and sometimes tomatoes, onions, meat and corn—the type of mixture that’s typically melted over chips.

Processed cheese usually includes a lot of other non-cheese additives like dyes, preservatives and emulsifiers to promote its melting qualities. The history of Velveeta makes for fascinating reading. One interest note: the ingredient list doesn’t include any actual cheese.

Are you turned off yet? It really doesn’t sound healthy, but it’s historically cheaper than regular cheese and has that ooey-gooey texture when melted that probably appeals to our senses. Still, give me a good cheddar, brie or goat cheese—and I’ll be very happy!

But perhaps using processed cheese isn’t mandatory. I found this recipe from Once Upon a Chef for a Chile con Queso that used the real thing. It may be delicious, but still rather rich. For me, better options for a healthy dip would be guacamole, salsa or hummus. If you want to make the latter from this New York Times recipe (based on one from Jerusalem by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi), you might not have time to soak the chickpeas today, so skip steps 1 and 2 and use the drained canned beans.

Runners-up in the Reader’s Digest snack category, were tortilla chips and savory chicken wings. California and Arizona had a penchant for French onion dip; South Dakota and New Mexico used a lot of canned, diced tomatoes; tortilla chips were big in New England. You can read more about the report here.

All those ingredients do sound like they’d be just what you need to make a giant plate of nachos—perfect for Super Bowl or Olympic snacking. Again, in this recipe, no processed cheese is used.

Party Mix—aka Crispix Mix

As I didn’t want to be a party pooper, I gave in to my husband Jeff’s craving for Party Mix—what’s usually called Chex Mix these days—except mine was made with Crispix, Jeff’s favorite cereal. I made two versions—savory and sweet. The first is found on the back of the box, though instead of bagel chips, I used Cheez-Its.

Here’s the original recipe, with my notes and modifications. It serves 18, takes about 10 minutes of prep and 45 minutes of cooking time, if made in an oven:

Ingredients:

7 cups of Crispix (or sub a combo of your favorite Chex cereal if you wish)

1 cup mixed nuts (I used pecans because that’s all I had)

1 cup pretzels

2 teaspoons lemon juice

3 tablespoons or butter, melted (I used unsalted and added a couple of teaspoons of olive oil)

4 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce*

1/4 teaspoon garlic salt**

1/4 teaspoon onion salt**

*If you don’t have Worcestershire sauce, try subbing soy sauce, more lemon juice, or more spices, like smoked paprika or za’atar to up the flavor quotient.

**I used garlic and onion powder and added about a teaspoon of salt.

Directions:

1. In a large bowl, mix together the cereal, pretzels and nuts.

2. Melt the butter in a small saucepan or in the microwave. Mix with the lemon juice and Worcestershire sauce and stir into the cereal mixture. Add a little additional olive oil if needed.

3. Spread out evenly on a 13 x 9 x 2-inch baking pan and bake at 250°F for 45 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes.

I added a handful of Cheez-Its afterwards. You could include bagel chips or other crackers in the mix if you like. I thought the savory note of the Worcestershire sauce was great, but my husband didn’t (could it be that hint of anchovy?). Jeff’s preference was for my sweet version of the mix. No mystery. It contained chocolate!

To make this one, I followed step 1. Then, in step two, I left out the Worcestershire sauce, added about 3 tablespoons brown sugar, a couple of tablespoons of maple syrup, a dash of cinnamon, salt and a few grinds of black pepper to the butter, melted it all together, then poured the liquid over the dry cereal and nut mix. After spreading the mixture in the pan, I sprinkled mini chocolate chips over the top and then followed step 3. While the mix was cooling, I added some M&M’s, raisins and roasted peanuts.

Jeff’s verdict?

“Yum!” And “Don’t make it again—it’s addictive!”

I agree. How often do the coincidence of the Super Bowl and Olympics give me the excuse?

What’s your favorite snack? Does it have to be healthy? Are you a Super Bowl fan? Bad Bunny lover/hater? Olympics watcher? I’d love to hear from you!

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Next week we’re hitting the road again.

See you soon!

Ruth

P.S.: Suddenly it’s turned summer here at the beach. When I’m not playing around in the kitchen, I’m wandering down to the sea. Here’s what it looked like one recent morning from the pier.

Hello again. I’ve been hibernating despite the summery temps here in Southern California (yes, east-of-the-Rockies friends, I do feel guilty!). We’ve had company, and it’s been fun to try to pretend that life is “normal, though the news is anything but. There’s may be no ice (lowercase) coating our highways and byways, but ICE—the government’s anti-immigrant enforcement goons, er cops —have been hard at work arresting allegedly “dangerous criminals” operating on the sunny streets of L.A.

More often than not, they’re flower or fruit vendors or factory workers with no criminal record doing work they’ve done quietly to the delight and benefit of their customers for years—until black vans with tinted windows suddenly appear and masked men with guns pile out to grab and zip-tie them, shove them in the back of the vehicles and drive them away to unknown destinations—or deport them to countries where they haven’t lived in decades or maybe never lived.

Is this the new normal?

To understate the obvious, it’s been a pretty horrifying start to the milestone year that marks the 250th anniversary of this country’s founding and of the signing of one of its foundational documents, the Declaration of Independence. A supreme irony of a moment that should be cause for celebrating the survival of our precious democracy against the odds for two and a half centuries is that it feels like everything that it stands for is being trashed and thrown under the bus by our very own government.

At the top of the list is the invasion of our cities by a poorly trained ICE “army” that pepper-sprays, shoots and kills folks just exercising their constitutional right to protest peacefully, as we’ve been seeing in Minneapolis for the past few weeks—particularly with the apparent murders of two peaceful participants—Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both American citizens. Talking about the horror of these events and of what has been happening to our country, perhaps the most eloquent and commonsensical voice I heard amid the chatter last week was that of late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel. Here’s just one line of his impassioned monologue:

“Can we agree that peaceful protesters, including moms driving SUVs on their way back from dropping their 6-year-old at school and a nurse who stepped in to protect a woman from harm don’t deserve to be shot dead in the street by the people we are paying to protect us?”

If you have the time, the clip is worth watching in its entirety.

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Okay, you say. This is all very important, but can you please talk about something a little lighter—like those baked goodies you wrote about last time?

Yes, of course. I’ve included a few photos at the end of this post—they were delicious, along with the delectable treats my daughter-in-law made. But first, I just wanted to share a few relevant notes from our fall trip following in the footsteps of the trail of the American Revolution and the founding of this country 250 years ago.

One of the highlights was visiting Philadelphia, the place where America’s foundational documents, the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, were debated and adopted. We arrived just in time for the second No Kings march to protest authoritarian policies of the present government. Independence Hall, where those documents came into being, was closed because of the government shutdown, but an outdoor exhibit on slavery and the contradictions between the American ideal of equality for all and the Founders’ exclusion of everyone but free white men of property and “good character” was fascinating.

The President’s House, as this small brick structure is called, marks the site of the home of our first two presidents, George Washington and John Adams, in the 1790’s. At that time, the America’s capital was in Philadelphia after moving from New York City and before moving to Washington, D.C. in 1800. The bricks walls of the exhibit were covered with plaques detailing historic facts that our current government now finds objectionable and ordered to be removed last month. Here’s one of the plaques that details how President Washington “controlled the lives of more than 300 enslaved Africans and their descendants” on Mount Vernon, his 8,000-acre plantation in northern Virginia, which we also visited.

And here’s another plaque about Martha Washington’s slaves, Oney (Ona) Judge, who escaped to New Hampshire and later told her story to the press, saying she fled from Martha because she overheard the president’s wife “state her intention of giving the young woman (Oney) to her granddaughter.” Oney longed to learn to read and to know more about religion.

And here are some workers removing signs from the exhibit in January at the behest of the current president, who apparently doesn’t like that they shed an unflattering light on the country’s history. (Elsewhere information about climate change and history is being removed or altered in national parks across the nation, to the dismay of parks personnel, whose numbers have also been decimated.)

The removal of the plaques in Philadelphia has provoked a fight with the city, which developed the exhibit before the National Park Service took over. The city is suing the federal government, claiming that the NPS caused “ ‘irreparable harm’ when they changed ‘the first federal property to feature a slave memorial.’ ”

“Ultimately, the government gets to choose the message it wants to convey,” argued an attorney for the federal government in response.

Does that include rewriting history and omitting the uncomfortable parts, like slavery or climate change? Apparently it does.

Luckily, at the Museum of the American Revolution, less than a mile away from the President’s House, exhibits are not subject to the president’s whims. There we saw displays that didn’t shy away from mentions of where the equality promised in the Declaration of Independence fell short.

Elizabeth Freeman, an enslaved woman in Massachusetts, sued for her freedom and won her case in 1781, setting a precedent that eventually led to the abolition of slavery in the state. Quoted in the exhibit, she said,

“Any time while I was a slave, if one minute's freedom had been offered to me, and I had been told I must die at the end of that minute, I would have taken it — just to stand one minute on God's earth a free woman — I would.”

There was also a portion of a quote from Abigail Adams, wife and key advisor to the nation’s second president, John Adams, from a famous letter to her husband in Philadelphia, written in 1776 while he was in the midst of helping to draft the laws that would govern a new nation.

“I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If particuliar care and attention is not paid to the Ladies we are determined to foment a Rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation.”1

Hard to believe the words were written 250 years ago! Way to go, Abigail!

Despite Abigail’s word of warning about tyrannical husbands, I do have a word of praise for my own, Jefferson Graham. His latest episode on PhotowalksTV and on Scripps News about our visit to Philadelphia is worth a look. In addition to its importance in American history, there’s so much to see, do and eat in this city—especially those very tasty Philly cheesesteaks!

As for me, I’m trying not to be sad that my house and larder are now empty after the departure of my beloved “kids.” Most of the treats I promised were duly made and devoured. I was particularly proud of the single-layer carrot cake adapted from a Dorie Greenspan recipe (with slightly less sugar, no raisins and toasted coconut chips atop the cream cheese frosting) and the cherry-chocolate ice cream based on an online recipe I discovered for Cherry Garcia ice cream.

It was all quite yummy, along with some of my daughter-in-law’s specialty, her homemade gyoza (I make an exception and eat pork, which I usually avoid, just for these exceptional, perfectly shaped little bundles). There were also some knockout cookies from a dear friend who is a gifted baker and cook. I hope to make them one of these days and share the recipes with you. Meanwhile, here are some pictures of those gyoza and those superb cookies packaged as if store-bought, though definitely not!—Butter Balls, which remind me of Russian tea cookies, and Black Snowballs, a melt-in-your-mouth brownie-cookie with a whisper of liqueur.

Meanwhile, as this is a weekend of protests, I’m heading off to one in my neighborhood. I can almost bet there’s one near you if you want to add your voice to the rising clamor of dissent. The more folks, the better, but do stay safe.

As always, thanks for reading, liking, sharing, commenting and subscribing. It means more than you know, especially in this moment.

See you next time,

Ruth

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Hello, everyone! Welcome to my first newsletter of 2026. I’m glad you’re here!

So far, it hasn’t been a banner year, at least as far as the state of the country and the world goes. It seems that every day there are new outrages in the news that leave us feeling helpless—but we are not! The folks who joined the ICE Out for Good protests around the country last weekend proved that!

But meanwhile, life goes on—and we’re expecting company!

My son and his wife are coming to visit this week from Japan. A year ago when they flew in, the skies were were thick with ash from the fires that were burning through two communities and threatening several more. I worried that their plane might be diverted because of the smoke and, if that didn’t happen, whether the air would be safe to breathe once they landed.

This year, torrential rains have helped stave off the fire danger, though the devil Santa Ana winds that tore through our 50-foot-high eucalyptus in its aftermath were terrifying. Definitely time for a tree trim!

And that’s just what’s been going on in my neighborhood. We won’t talk about murder in Minneapolis or empire-building in Venezuela. I’m trying to leave the politics to editorial writers and savvy historians like Heather Cox Richardson and stick to writing about food. It’s a great distraction.

And it’s really all the “kids” (well they’re heading toward 40, but they’ll always be kids to me!) want to talk about, specifically the things they hope I’ll make for them—or with them. The carb- and dessert-centric list is growing, so I’ve got to finish writing and get busy. Below are a few things I’ll be making.

• There are sweet potato muffins for my son “like the ones you made last year from the Trader Joe’s sweet potatoes I didn’t like,” he said. The recipe was from Allrecipes, with the sugar and oil reduced. I bought a whole bag of Murasaki sweet potatoes at TJ’s. Obviously I’ll have to figure out something else to do with them—maybe pancakes or pie!

• There’s a classic carrot cake with cream cheese frosting for my daughter-in-law—no pineapple or raisins, just coconut and walnuts. “I just want it plain,” she tells me. “One layer.” I’m adapting a recipe from Dorie Greenspan’s new cookbook, Dorie’s Anytime Cakes. If it meets my DIL’s approval, I’ll post a picture next time.

• There’s challah, braided egg bread, of which they’re both huge fans, and possibly some Japanese milk bread—or shokupan—a tall, fluffy loaf made using a cooked flour and milk paste called yudane in Japanese (tangzhong in Chinese). It’s said to help the bread stay fresh longer. I actually tried using it in a challah; it really works—and improves the flavor too!

• I’ve also received a request for potato latkes since the kids missed my Hanukkah party and we were too busy shopping and eating out for me to make them on our recent visit to Japan. There might be some jam-filled rugelach too—another Hanukkah staple they (and everyone else!) seem to crave.

• After bragging about the delicious ice cream I made in my rediscovered Cuisinart ice cream maker, there’s now a request for some frozen custard made with cherries and dark chocolate. I can’t believe I actually came across some fresh cherries in January, once again at TJ’s. Of course they’re neither local nor in season, but, hey, it’s for a good cause.

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Soup’s on!

Of course muffins, bread, cake and ice cream do not a balanced meal make, so obviously there will be other dishes on the menu. One I would definitely vote for is soup. Even in sunny southern California, it’s chilly enough to warrant making a big pot of it, though in this house we eat it 12 months a year!

The internet has been awash in soup recipes lately. In her latest post, Substack blogger (Between the Layers) and cookbook author Anne Byrn writes about a white bean soup made from dry beans that she calls “the easiest soup in the world.” Like some of the best dishes, it doesn’t require an exact recipe, says Anne—just a mix of ingredients that most of us use when making soup—onions, celery, carrots, garlic, broth, possibly some meat. It sounds like the kind of dish that would, as my mother used to say, “warm the cockles of your heart.”

Speaking of Mom, I recently made one of her old standbys, lentil soup, which I wrote about two years ago. You can find the story and recipe below:

It’s also really easy to spin a soup out of leftovers of various sorts. I made a tasty no-recipe soup from a Pakistani chicken and rice dish I found in the New York Times.

Again, it begins with that magic trio of chopped onion, carrots and celery that the French refer to as mirepoix and that forms the basis of many a soup—and almost any dish. Add this to the leftovers, along with several cups of chicken or vegetable broth or water, other chopped vegetables of your choice, a little tomato paste or sauce, chopped parsley, bay leaves, cumin, salt, pepper and other spices and herbs that complement the leftovers you’re using (in this case, garam masala), simmer for a while, and voilà—a delicious, filling soup! Accompanied by some cornbread or a slice of toasted challah or rye, how can you go wrong?

To market, to market…

Well that’s it for today. All this talk of food has made me hungry! I’m off to the market, grateful the skies are clear once again, glad for the small measure of happiness I can bring to those I love by doing something I find comforting too—cooking and sharing. Is there a way that might translate to solving the world’s woes? I doubt it, but at least it does help keep my mind off the news!

Thanks again for reading, liking, commenting and subscribing. Wishing you joy in life, whatever you do.

See you next time.

Ruth

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I’m not much of a drinker, yet I’m feeling a bit of a holiday hangover. I think it’s the effect of staring in the rearview mirror at 12 months that zipped by and left my head spinning. Yes, this was a very tough year politically, climatically (thank you, Mother Nature!), and personally for SO many people. Think fires, ICE raids, soaring prices, and massive layoffs, to name but a few.

Still, it was also a good year in many ways for us, with weeks of travel, mostly in the U.S., capped off with a two-week sojourn in Japan. It leaves me wondering: is it acceptable to enjoy ourselves while others are suffering? It’s an age-old question. Of course, we should do what we can to help: Donate, volunteer, march, write postcards, run for office. It’s never okay to stop caring. But, believe it or not, finding joy in stressful, perilous times can be an act of resistance. Here’s a recent story from NPR that’s worth checking out: "Joy as Resistance." What do you think?

(Please note: If this post cuts off in your email, click on the link or read it on the Substack app.)

Here’s some of what I wrote about in 2025.

The fire this time

The year began with a sad and shocking event that was just a few miles from our door—catastrophic fires that wiped out two historic communities in greater Los Angeles—Pacific Palisades and Altadena, 103 and 138 years old, respectively.

The fire in Pacific Palisades that started on January 7 felt particularly personal because our very first home in Southern California was in a one-bedroom trailer in the Palisades Bowl mobile home park, which was among the very first places to burn down. While wealthy Pac Pal, as locals call it, is currently being rebuilt and another mobile home park right next to the Bowl has been cleared for further development, our park (along with its former tenants, who enjoyed some of the only affordable rent in this affluent community) remains a blackened wasteland because of ongoing issues with the owners. I haven’t had the heart to revisit the downtown where we used to love shopping at a vibrant farmers market, nor to check out the ashy remains of our beloved park.

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Galveston to New Orleans

On Galveston Island, famous for its beaches and Victorian architecture and for surviving a devastating 1900 hurricane that all but wiped out the town, we watched Juan, aka “The Taffy Man,” turn out a batch of pineapple taffy at 98-year-old La King’s confectionery and dined happily on muffaletta sandwiches, shrimp and crab gumbo and cheese-stuffed meatballs at Maceo Spice & Import Co. We couldn’t help eyeing the lavishly decorated purple, green and gold King Cakes that were everywhere on display for Mardi Gras (yes, it’s huge here too!), finally breaking down and digging into a slice (very sweet but yummy!).

In New Orleans, we marched in a parade, took in some classic New Orleans jazz at Preservation Jazz Hall and sampled some incredible Creole cuisine at Dooky Chase’s Restaurant, frequented over the years by civil rights leaders, including Martin Luther King, Jr. and NAACP attorney Thurgood Marshall, long before he was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, and American presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, among others.

Of course we also indulged in those sublime powdered sugar-drenched beignets, the signature offering—along with a café au lait made from New Orleans’ distinctive chicory coffee—of the Café du Monde in the city’s French Quarter. I definitely want to go back for more!

Route 66, from Chicago to L.A.!

A 2,448-mile road trip through eight states from Chicago to L.A. in three weeks (to celebrate the route’s 100th anniversary in 2026) seemed too ambitious when my husband Jeff first suggested it—and it was. You’d hardly get your bearings in one town before you’d be off to the next. It was a race through nostalgic odes to a past that wasn’t as idyllic as the ‘50’s-style diners, sexy cutouts of Elvis and Marilyn and antique Phillips 66 gas pumps made it appear. It was still a lot of fun though.

The only problem was that after we returned, everyone wanted us to pick favorites—places, restaurants, experiences, etc. We sometimes fudged: Our favorite might be the last town we visited, the most recent delicious meal or snack, the latest memorable sight or encounter. I still think that’s a reasonable answer, especially when you’re spending a night here, a night there.

As it turned out there were many memorable places, though after many stops, the sights began to blur together, the meals—often hotdogs, burgers, fries and shakes grabbed on the go—were sometimes forgettable, or memorable for the wrong reason, like the salad I insisted on ordering at the Steak ‘n Shake in Springfield, Missouri, after one too many beef- and grease-laden repasts. Jeff said it served me right that it was so disappointing. Clearly a place called Steak ‘n Shake would not be known for its gourmet greens! Spending the night in the Elvis Suite at the city’s Best Western Route 66 Rail Haven Motel did provide some solace, however.

Chicago!

The start of the famed “Mother Road” (so named by John Steinbeck in The Grapes of Wrath), this city takes a back seat—or Second City status—to no place else. We loved it for its great architecture, art, people and food—including its celebrated deep-dish pizza, hot dogs and Chicago beef sandwiches. I also got a chance to finally meet fellow Substacker Jolene Handy in person after years of admiring her and her delightful Time Travel Kitchen blog from afar.

On the Revolutionary Trail

We took another three-week trip in October, this time from Boston to Washington, D.C. on the eve of the country’s 250th birthday in 2026. I wrote about our very first stop in Boston.

Of course there’s much more to say about each of the places we visited—Providence and Newport, Rhode Island; New York City; Philadelphia; Washington Crossing Park, PA; Hartford, Connecticut; Washington, D.C., and Mount Vernon, George Washington’s historic estate in Fairfax County, Virginia. Each is worthy of its own story, not only for its role in the American Revolution, but also for its sights, later history and food scene. I’m hoping to share some of these tales in the new year.

A moment with Lincoln in D.C.

We were in the nation’s capital during the shutdown. While most of the Smithsonian museums were closed, it was still possible to visit the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials, the Washington Monument and the Capitol.

At the Lincoln Memorial, the early morning light cast a golden glow on Abraham Lincoln’s clenched left fist and on the wall behind his great head. His face looked solemn but filled with purpose. One could imagine he might rise from his marble perch and recite the words of the Gettysburg Address, delivered in the midst of the Civil War on Nov. 19, 1863 and carved onto the memorial’s south wall. In it he rededicated himself to the cause for which the soldiers buried at Gettysburg had given their lives:

“We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

The memorial felt like a holy place, and I hoped that Americans would again find the will to defend the bedrock democratic principles embodied in Lincoln’s words—hopefully without resorting to another civil war.

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Home Sweet Home

Of course all good trips come to an end. At home, I indulged in my usual passion for baking—a very happy pastime, especially when done in company with my friend Evelyn Schmitt. Evelyn, an extraordinary photographer, loved sharing her family recipe for Green Kettle Cake, which isn’t green but rather a deep chocolate brown!

Other baking highlights included making apple strudel, learning the importance of keeping everything cool (including yourself!) when making pie from a foremost expert on the subject of pie, Kate McDermott (do check out Kate’s newsletter here); revisiting a fall favorite, plum tart, whipping up an oatmeal pie, and trying out a very old recipe from my mother!

I also made my first batch of homemade ice cream and was shocked that it was so good. My future ambition is to duplicate the popular Jimmy Roll—a rolled ice cream log of vanilla and chocolate ice cream covered in chocolate sprinkles that we first discovered at the Newport Creamery in Rhode Island.

Ever since he tried one a few years back, my husband has been obsessed with Jimmy Rolls, and as there’s no possibility of having one delivered from 3,000 miles away, I shall have to learn to make it—and I will (with a little coaching from my nephew Mike!). I even brought home some “jimmies” (sprinkles) from an old-fashioned ice cream shop called Franklin’s in Philadelphia. Look for a Jimmy Roll in time for your next birthday, Jeff!

I have learned that Cole’s, famed inventor of the French dip sandwich (though its rival, Philippe the Original, has a friendly dispute about that!) and for being the oldest public house in L.A., suddenly became so popular after announcing its closing last August that the owner decided to keep it open through the holidays. It’s a testament to the power of the press—or is it simply good business to announce you’re closing, then wait and see if the crowds show up? I’m hoping the restaurant will stick around into 2026 so finally we can brave the long lines and nab a table—and a sandwich! Here’s my original story:

What’s up in 2026?

Next year, there are more travels in store, including a birthday trip to Europe in late April and early May. It’s my turn to choose where we’re going, but I’m undecided. I’m drawn to France and northern Spain in part because of my urge to improve my French and Spanish and love of both places. We’ve got relatives in England, Spain, France and Italy, and I’ve got roots in Germany and Scotland. But I’m open to suggestions. Any ideas? I’d love to hear from you.

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That’s it for this long look in the rearview mirror! It’s about time I check out what’s right in front of me, don’t you think?

Thanks for reading, liking, commenting, sharing and subscribing. And thanks to all the other wonderful bloggers who have inspired, entertained, educated and encouraged me in so many ways. To share even a partial list of who they are would take an entire post—and that will be on the to-do list for next year.

Wishing everyone a very happy, healthy and safe New Year. 🥳🎉🥂

See you in 2026!

Ruth

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Usually at this time of year, I’m up to my elbows—literally!—in a messy batter of grated potatoes, onions, eggs and flour, followed by a frying frenzy that leaves my entire house smelling like the potato latkes that I make in the dozens for my annual Hanukkah party. But this year is different.

On the first night of the holiday, I’m still in Japan where Hanukkah is virtually unknown, except for several Chabad (Orthodox Jewish) outposts in four Japanese cities, including Kobe, where we’re staying. A couple of years ago I brought a menorah in my luggage and lit candles with my son at his in-laws’ house.

We even attempted a game of dreidel—the Hanukkah game of chance. I think everyone was amused and curious, but even in Japan, where only about 1% of the population is Christian, Christmas is a much bigger holiday, and the New Year is the most important of all! Hanukkah here, as everywhere, can’t compete.

But then why should it? It’s actually a great holiday in its own right—and given that it lasts eight days, I’ll get home just in time to make some of the traditional favorites, including:

• Latkes (click here for the recipe I use from the great Joan Nathan);

• My favorite rugelach cookie from Dorie Greenspan (see my post and recipe here); and

• Maybe a brisket (link here).

For other Hanukkah recipes, I suggest checking out Leah Koenig’s blog, The Jewish Table. Her latest post on black and white donuts made from store-bought frozen puff pastry dough sounds like a winner.

Last year I wrote about why Hanukkah is so meaningful to me. In case you missed it or want to reread it, here’s the link:

If you’re celebrating the holiday, here’s wishing you a bright and meaningful eight days and nights. The significance of the Hanukkah lights that increase by one each evening is more than simply a celebration of the victory of faith over might—though that is certainly compelling message in these troubling times—but it also reminds us of the power of light to banish darkness, just as kindness and hope can counteract cruelty and despair. At this darkest time of the year, I believe that’s a universal message that people of any faith can get behind.

Thanks as always for taking the time to read, like and comment. If you know someone you think might enjoy this newsletter, please do share it.

See you soon!

Ruth

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We’re in Japan once again visiting our son and daughter-in-law in the lead-up to the holidays. This is perhaps our tenth or eleventh visit here since 2017—I’ve lost count. It’s always a surprise to see what a big deal Christmas is here, with shop windows brimming with holiday decorations, store shelves stocked with Yule-themed gifts and nonstop Christmas standards playing at the Starbucks where I stop for a coffee (pronounced “kō-hee” here).

In Japan Christmas is celebrated as a secular holiday, with Kentucky Fried Chicken and a fancy strawberry shortcake on the menu rather than ham, turkey, cookies and pies.

Here’s what I wrote about the experience when we visited a year ago:

https://ruthtalksfood.substack.com/p/christmas-in-japan

Note: With so many photos, this post may be too long to see in email, so do click on the title to see the whole thing in your web browser or in your Substack app.

Mall-a-daze

Unlike America where shopping malls are in decline (while online commerce is booming), in-person shopping seems to be thriving in Japan—and not just for the holidays. Crowds surge through the colorful warrens of shopping arcades with small shops that sell everything from hand-stitched kimonos and artisan pottery to fresh local produce to more modern shops hawking the latest electronics, camera gear and trendy clothes. Need a warm coat or a Kobe tartan? A coffee break? An eye exam? Some reflexology therapy? A tin of Christmas cookies? A pair of sneakers, some fresh fruit, a living room rug, or a lacquered wooden bowl? They’ve got you covered.

Whether first thing in the morning as the stores are just opening, or at mid-afternoon or the early evening, I find myself wandering through the local shopping arcades in the Motomachi area of Kobe where we always stay, drawn to particularly to the 1.2-km (three-quarter-mile) covered shopping street a block or two away from our hotel, with its 300 or so stores, some more than 100 years old.

Across the street is another arcade that is a magnet for shoppers, the equally long Sannomiya Center Street that leads to a huge train station with multiple railway lines. It has a chain cafe (St.-Marc’s) that is a favorite stop for my chocoholic husband Jeff. There he can indulge his sweet tooth with not just one but two Kit-Kat treats—an ice cream parfait and a pastry that’s wrapped around a Kit-Kat bar and melted to the bliss point. The parfait includes a crunchy surprise: Frosted Flakes swirled into the fudge at the bottom. Jeff devours every morsel. After walking 25,000 daily steps, I guess he’s entitled to the treat!

Along with feeding our earthly cravings, it’s possible to find sustenance for the spirit if you glance down beneath your feet (assuming the swarming crowds don’t get in the way). There are pieces of floor art under glass, some salutes to loved ones, others expressing hopes for humanity, and some, like the double lotus blossom below, a tribute to the resilience of the people of Kobe following the devastating Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake, also known as the Kobe Earthquake, that took place on January 17, 1995, killing more than 5,000 people and destroying the city.

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Waterfront Kobe

Another walk we always take is to the Port of Kobe waterfront area called Meriken Park. It’s where you’ll see the landmark red Kobe Port Tower, the sail-like structure of the Maritime Museum, and everyone’s favorite photo spot, the waterside BE KOBE monument, built to commemorate the 150th anniversary of opening the Port of KOBE in 2017.

There’s also the Port of Kobe Memorial Park, preserved to share the story of the Kobe earthquake and the city’s recovery. Visiting the waterfront at night, especially if you’re lucky enough to see a fireworks show, is definitely worthwhile. The light show continues with a gorgeous display of colors lighting up the tower, museum, the nearby ferris wheel at Kobe Harborland.

An unexpected sight that I came upon near the Kobe Port was a sculpture designed by world-reknowned architect Frank Gehry, who just died Friday at age 96. Installed in 1987, “Fish Dance” was inspired by Gehry’s lifelong fascination with fish, particularly the live carp that his immigrant grandmother kept in the bathtub and used to make gefilte fish when he was a kid. I’ve eaten quite a lot of fish in Japan, but so far no gefilte fish!

Kobe Beef

All that walking can build an appetite. There are so many choices, but when I travel with my husband, I’m often limited because (drum roll, please!), he doesn’t eat fish—or any sea creatures for that matter—and there’s a lot of both in Japan, not only in sushi, but in the seaweed wrappings and sprinklings that contain and flavor everything from sushi and soup to bread and rice.

But then in this city, there’s the famous Kobe Beef. I’d heard of it long before we came here, but it wasn’t that high on my list of must-try eats. For one thing, we’ve both been advised to avoid beef for health reasons. But come on—it’s Kobe, and everyone wants to know what you think of the beef!

But first, what’s so special about Kobe Beef, you ask? It turns out it only comes from a particular lineage of “Wagyu,” or Japanese cattle—the Japanese Black breed of Tajima cows, which can only be found here. These are raised according to strict standards in the Hyogo prefecture, which includes Kobe. They are the only legitimate source of Kobe Beef, prized for its fine fat marbling and sumptuous flavor. You can read more about its history and how its raised and marketed here.

It just so happens we’re surrounded with signs advertising Kobe Beef, including a restaurant steps from our hotel, next to the entrance to Kobe’s Chinatown (Nankinmachi), with a giant black steer plastered on the front. How can we pass it up? We don’t.

It really is a delightful way to eat, barbecuing slices of meat and vegetables (much too few of those!) on a blazing hot barbecue right in the center of your table. I ordered a small bottle of sake, which really added to the experience.

Jeff’s comment after our meal: “It was surprisingly great! I loved cooking it at the table. We just ordered way too much.”

I would say the same—the beef was succulent, with some cuts a bit thicker than others, but all very tender and delicious. If you’re going to eat beef, then go with the Kobe variety, but be mindful of how much you order! As for the price, we just ordered and ate it and didn’t think about it—we’re not clear on the exchange rate anyway, though I know it’s in our favor. And the thing is: it’s definitely cheaper in Japan—and there’s no tipping!

However, later on, looking at some pictures of the pretty black Tajima cows did made me feel suitably guilty about being a meat consumer and ready to return to my vegetable-forward California diet.

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Substack Meetup in Osaka!

Jeff and I had the pleasure of meeting up in Osaka with digital nomads, writers and fellow Substackers, Michael Jensen and Brent Hartinger, authors of the wonderful blog Brent and Michael Are Going Places. They’re currently staying in Osaka for two months, part of the slow travel they’ve been doing since selling their home in Seattle and hitting the road in 2017. Make sure to read their latest piece on testing whether the ubiquitous plastic models of menu items—called sampuru in Japanese— accurately reflect the look and taste of the fare at typical Osakan restaurants. I gather that the answer is a qualified no!

Thanks as always for liking, commenting, sharing and subscribing to my newsletter. See you soon!

Ruth

When I made an apple pie the other day, I had master pie teacher Kate McDermott by my side. No, not literally. I’ve never met Kate in person, but I had finally given in to my urge to purchase her comprehensive, James Beard-nominated book on pie-making, Art of the Pie: A Practical Guide to Homemade Crusts, Fillings, and Life. Though the book was published nine years ago, I only became aware of it and Kate when I began reading her wonderful newsletter on Substack.

Though I knew this was the quintessential book about pie that I really ought to own, I had resisted buying it because my shelves are already bursting with cookbooks, many sprouting multiple bookmarks of recipes still to be made. But the holidays were fast approaching—specifically Thanksgiving—and that means pie!1 Nothing else will do. While I’ve made quite a number of pies—and even received compliments on some of them—they are not my most frequent or successful baking endeavor.

To put it bluntly, I’m a little insecure when it comes to pies. Coffee cakes and muffins? No problem. Cookies, crisps, bars and babkas? Ditto. Bread and rolls? Sure, though sourdough and rye are still works in progress (on hold at the moment!). But when it comes to pie, I begin to doubt my baking chops. It’s the crust that causes the anguish. It stretches, weeps and sags. I overwork or underwork the dough. The top crust doesn’t quite fit over the bottom, or the edges look sloppy like hems that have come undone. Fillings bubble through the cracks; soggy bottoms prevail! I feel like I’m cheating if I buy a readymade one—too many memories of my mother creating everything from scratch, though, oddly, I can’t summon a single image of her making pie.

Enter Kate McDermott. Not for nothing does Kate sometimes don her “piechiatrist” hat. She not only offers clear directions for making several different kinds of dough, including how to mix it, shape it, chill it, roll it and make it your own with vents, appliqués, crimps and woven lattices—but she holds your hand virtually through the pages of her book with words of wisdom that give the nervous baker, the one who fears failure at every turn, the confidence to march forward and achieve pie glory—or at least gladness in the quest.

Her common sense “Rules of Pie Making and Life” bear reading and re-reading, especially at this frenetic time of year. My favorite rule is one she shared again the other day in her latest Thanksgiving post:

Kate McDermott's Newsletter

# 374: Keep Everything Chilled, Especially Yourself

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9 months ago · 46 likes · 15 comments

“Chill your dough, the flour, the fats, your pastry cloth, the bowl you make your dough in, even the work bowl and blade of your food processor if you’re not doing it by hand,” she says in the introduction to Art of the Pie. But the most important thing is to chill yourself. “…if you are uptight about your pie dough, fussing and fretting over every little tug and tear, you are probably expending energy you simply don’t need to. Perfection is one of those things that can drive people crazy.”

Clearly she’s talking to me!

Kate has taught pie-making and baking to thousands in virtual classes and at Art of the Pie Day Camp workshops at Pie Cottage, her home on the Olympic Peninsula, as well as across the country and internationally. Not only has she taught the art of making pie to others, pie “has been a taskmaster, a teacher and a healer for me,” she says in the introduction to her book.

“Each time I make a pie, I feel an unbroken line of pie makers who have come before me, pouring their tears, laughter, and wisdom into me and right out through my hands.”

One of that unbroken chain was Kate’s grandmother, whom she calls Geeg (pronounced “Jeedge”). Geeg, who grew up on an Iowa farm, lived with the family at their home in Santa Barbara, California. She was the family pie-maker and literally passed the baton—actually her rolling pin—to Kate on the day she died, as her granddaughter relates in a moving story in Art of the Pie.

Unbeknownst to them, Geeg had probably suffered a stroke and was acting confused as the family debated whether to call for medical care. When Kate in a moment of insight asked her, “Geeg, can you make a pie?” something extraordinary happened.

“She stopped in her tracks, looked directly at me with light blue eyes that could see deep into you, and said, ‘Well, yes!’ ”

When Kate placed all the ingredients in front of her, she began making pie dough from the flour, salt, a big blue can of Crisco and ice water in Kate’s mother’s yellow Pyrex mixing bowl. As if aware that time was short, she didn’t wait to chill the dough but began rolling it out at once. At one point, she stopped and with tears streaming down her cheeks handed the rolling pin to her granddaughter to finish the job. “Geeg had passed her pie mantle to me,” Kate wrote.

Kate grew up in a house that was right next to the mortuary that her father, Thomas Joseph McDermott, had started in 1938. Her mother Louise taught piano and organ next door and served as the mortuary organist. While baking was an ever-present part of her life, so was music, and Kate later became a professional accompanist on piano and harpsichord, a teacher and a music coach.

Along with her guidance on pies and life, she also offers tips on music to bake pie by in her book, and often includes suggestions in her newsletter as well. One of her favorites is Joni Mitchell’s “Sisotowbell Lane.” Others include Aretha Franklin’s “Respect,” Joe Cocker’s “Feeling All Right” and Jefferson Airplane’s “Enigmatic.” All of them “date me as having grown up in the 1960s flower-power era,” she admits. But, as I grew up in that era too, I like Kate’s choices. My tastes run more to classical music, podcasts, audiobooks and NPR, but a little bit of Aretha goes a long way to inject some energy into a pie-making session (or anything else!).

How did Kate go from a career in music to becoming a pie-making mentor, teacher, bestselling cookbook author and popular blogger? That’s another story she tells in her book, in her newsletter (specifically in “Post #249: P is for Pie”) and to curious fans like yours truly who pose the question.

It happened when she was married to a man who was very well-connected in the food world whom she refers to in the book as the “Mulchman” because they met when she reached out to him to learn more about improving the soil in her cottage garden. When we talk, she calls him her third “wuzband.” Her pie adventures began as a kind of quest for the holy grail of apple pies after he asked her one day to make him one.

“I said, ‘Sure.’ I bake. Big deal. It’s a pie.”

Of course it was a big deal—she really wanted to impress this man who knew everybody who was anyone in the food world. Her first attempt didn’t go as she had hoped.

“I bake a pie, and it’s a good pie, and I come into his office, which was in the house and say, ‘Here’s a piece of pie.’ He takes a bite, sets down the fork. And there’s silence. And he says, ‘Maybe you can work on the crust.’ ”

When Kate related the story to the editor who worked on all three of her published books, the response was: “Why didn’t you pick up a rolling pin and hit him over the head?” (I wondered the same!)

The challenge set off a singleminded mission to make the best apple pie her wuzband had ever tasted. Kate worked on the project on a daily basis for 2 1/2 years. Sometimes there were five different preparations of dough in a day. What kinds of apples worked together? What types of spices? She tried them all.

As she tells it in her newsletter:

“(T)he wuzband ate piece after piece after piece and, although he didn’t make pie himself, he freely shared his feedback with me. ‘Not light enough, not flaky, too dry, too greasy, this is like cardboard, the edge is too thick, the edge is too thin, this one falls apart, needs more…’ At times I wearied from his comments and occasionally I made an exact repeat of a recipe he had just criticized only to hear him say, ‘This one is soooo much better.’ I put the recipe books aside, found what worked for me and kept practicing and adjusting. One day he tasted an apple pie I had made with Black Twig, Bramley Seedling, Baldwin, Cox Orange Pippin and Gravenstein apples and said, ‘I don’t think this could get any better.’ Not quite the words of love I had hoped for but it was the most he could give.”

Her wuzband’s food world connections paid off, and chefs and food writers were soon beating a path to Kate’s door to learn how to make pie. The transition from teaching music to teaching pie-making wasn’t so tough after all, she found. She had mixed herself a new career—and it’s still going strong!

“(A)fter sixteen years, many thousands of students around the globe, the honor of writing three books and receiving a James Beard Nomination, I’m still teaching pie-making. I consider myself a practitioner of a craft and with each pie I create and workshop I teach I learn something new,” she wrote.

One day at the end of one of the popular multi-day Pie Camps held at her cottage, Kate related the story of her pie-teaching origins to her class, admitting that the words she’d been longing for from the Mulchman were: “Darling, you make the best pie!” When a student impulsively put his arm around her and said them a deep radio-type voice, she burst into tears. He agreed to record them for her. Now his voice and those words are the ringtone on Kate’s phone. You can hear them in her “P is for Pie” post.

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As for me, I’m going to bring this newsletter to a close, even though there’s so much more to say about Kate—her life in the Northwest, her passion for gardening and reading, for her son Duncan, also a gifted pie-maker, and her new grandson, for her adorable dog Bosco, whom she calls Mr. B, for her hometown of Santa Barbara and for the many people, places and memories it holds.

But it’s time to make the turkey and bake those pies I’ve got chilling in fridge and freezer. I made Kate’s “Quintessential Apple Pie,” (here’s another link to the recipe), though not with that combination of apples that earned her wuzband’s approval. I used the best mix of apples I could find at the supermarket, mostly organic—Granny Smith, Fuji, Gala, Pink Lady, Jazz and Honeycrisp—slicing rather than chunking them and leaving the skins attached, as Kate suggests.

I also didn’t make Kate’s preferred leaf lard and butter dough, the one she teaches to pie makers everywhere and uses in her own baking, though I hope to try it one day soon. My mother-in-law, the guest of honor who celebrates her birthday on Thanksgiving, is vegetarian, and I still have a few inhibitions developed in a childhood spent in a quasi-kosher household (i.e., no pork or shellfish).

Instead, I made Kate’s butter and shortening dough for both the double-crust apple and single-crust pumpkin pies. It’s basically the same recipe as the one with lard and butter, using, yes, that white fluffy stuff in the bright blue can in place of lard (if it was good enough for Geeg, it’s good enough for me!).

Neither pie has been baked as of this writing. The proof will be in the eating. I’ll let you know the verdict in my next post! I’m hoping no one says, “Maybe you can work on the crust.” I’m not ready for 2 1/2 years of experimentation à la Kate, but I definitely plan on practicing my pie craft—perhaps someday in person at Pie Cottage! Meanwhile, there are a lot of sweet and savory recipes and a wealth of different crusts to try in Art of the Pie. Hoping to learn to chill, watch my boundaries and vent, both when making pie and in real life!

Until next time, here’s wishing everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving. Whether you have a small or large gathering, dine out or skip all the celebrating and take a walk, I hope you find something and someone to be thankful for. I’m grateful to those of you who took the time to read, like, comment, share and/or subscribe to this newsletter.

Ruth🦃🥧😘

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Hello again!

We recently returned from a 21-day trip through the northeast, from Boston, Massachusetts to Washington, D.C., to visit some historic American places and symbols on the eve of the country’s 250th birthday. It was fun, enlightening, overwhelming and often delicious as we sampled regional, local and ethnic eats and treats.

The route took us from the Boston Freedom Trail to Lexington, where the first shots in the American Revolution were fired, to Newport, R.I., the site of the nation’s oldest synagogue building, oldest public lending library, and some stunning Gilded Age mansions, to New York to visit Lady Liberty and recall our heritage as a land of immigrants, to Philadelphia, where the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were debated and signed, to D.C., where we were pleased to discover that the White House was still standing (even if the East Wing was not!). Our final stop was George Washington’s favorite tavern in Alexandria, VA, still thriving after 240 years, with a menu that included a version of the first President’s favorite dish: roasted duck with corn pudding!

I won’t attempt to cover all this in a single post. Instead I’m writing about our first stop, Boston, with future tales to come.

Tea and memory

Boston was where the resistance to British rule that led to the American Revolution really had its start. Remember the Tea Party? No, not that one—the original that resulted in 342 chests of tea being dumped in the Boston Harbor to protest taxation without representation. Well, that revolt against the British Crown started in this city that some dub the Cradle of Liberty—and others just call Beantown!

I love tea—and beans—but for me, Boston has also had a more personal significance. It’s where I first landed at 18, a naive schoolgirl en route to college, having no idea what the future would hold, just eager for it to begin. Here’s a picture of me at the San Francisco Airport in the days when family members were permitted to come into the terminal to see you off.

Away from home for the first time, I was immediately smitten with Boston. Compared to the sleepy little university town where I’d grown up (Palo Alto, which no one seemed to have heard of back then but which is now the center of the Silicon Valley tech universe!), Boston seemed ancient, quaint, quintessentially New England—red brick, cobblestone alleys, darkened taverns, leafy streets, strange accents directing me to “Hahvahd” or asking me if I wanted “jimmies” on my cone. Of course I did—once I realized that jimmies were chocolate sprinkles!

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There were cemeteries right in the middle of town with paths beckoning you to walk among worn gray headstones that you’d squint to decipher. I never really bothered to learn much about the local history back then because there was so much else to interest me in those days—like campus rebellions (and boys!). Returning after more than a half-century was nostalgic and a little sad because you can’t quite summon the feelings of the girl you were all those decades ago—except when you’re lucky enough to meet a friend you knew then and reminisce for a few hours. (Thanks, dear Sandy!)

On the Freedom Trail

Just to follow the red brick line that marks the 16 sites along Boston’s 2 1/2-mile Freedom Trail is to bump into the many landmarks of America’s colonial and revolutionary history and to pique your curiosity to know more about how this country came to be—the Boston Common, the oldest public park in the U.S., once a pasture used for grazing and site for Puritanical punishments and protests; the Granary Burial Ground, the resting place of leading luminaries of the Revolution, John Hancock, Paul Revere and Samuel Adams, along with the five victims of the Boston Massacre; the Old State House, the center of royal government in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and the focal point for many of the Revolution’s most dramatic events, including the massacre; the Old North Church, famed for the the lanterns that signaled the arrival of British troops—“One if by land, two if by sea”—in the well-known Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem; the statue of Paul Revere, the hero of that poem, as well as his house, the oldest still standing home in downtown Boston, which is preserved as a museum.

If you do decide to take a tour, you’d be lucky to have Rob Crean as your guide. A standup comic by night, Crean, decked out in Revolutionary garb, complete with a cocked hat, black boots and a silver fife, puts his humor and knowledge of history to good use. His full-throated announcement of the tour is hard to miss:

Italian treats

Boston’s North End, settled in the 1630s by Puritans and one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city and the U.S., is the site of many stops on the Freedom Trail, including the Old North Church and Revere’s house. It’s also well known for its excellent Italian cuisine.

After its early colonial period, a succession of immigrant populations flowed through it, settling, then moving on, including Irish refugees fleeing famine in the mid-19th century; Jews, Italians, Portuguese, and Greeks after that, and then the Italians in the 20th century. The Italian character of the area has stuck around, especially impressive in the colorful array of restaurants, pastry shops and cafes, many along Hanover and Salem streets and on the narrow side streets.

Of course, it’s the baked goods that always catch my eye first. Just staring at the trays of multicolored cookies at Bova’s will make your mouth water, and the super flaky sfogliatelle filled with ricotta and semolina at Bricco Panetteria, along with everything in the bakery case!) will do the same. We were told we needed to check out Modern Pastry, but we couldn’t get in the door, nor at Mike’s Pastry, famous for its wide variety of cannoli (I counted 21 different kinds!) and distinctive blue and white bakery boxes. It seemed that all of Boston was there on the warm October night as we were passing by.

Omni Parker House

Walking along the Freedom Trail, it was impossible not to notice the Omni Parker House with its gilded exterior and elegant Victorian era interior. Originally called the Parker House Hotel, it opened in 1855, making it the longest continually running hotel in the country. It became home of the Saturday Club, which held banquet meetings there on the last Saturday of the month and drew an illustrious group of male writers, poets, scientists, philosophers and historians, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, among many others. Charles Dickens stayed at the hotel for several months from 1867-68 and delivered a reading of A Christmas Carol there. Actor John Wilkes Booth apparently spent a night at the hotel in April 1865 and practiced his marksman at a nearby range a few days before assassinating President Lincoln.

In 1946 John F. Kennedy announced his candidacy for Massachusetts’ 11th congressional district at the hotel and is said to have proposed to Jackie at table 40 at Parker’s Restaurant.

But what most piqued my interest were two iconic bakery items that were invented at the hotel—Boston Cream Pie and Parker House Rolls. Of course, we ordered both when we had lunch at beautiful Parker’s Restaurant. It was said that the pie, really a sponge cake with a pastry cream filling and a chocolate frosting, was invented shortly after the hotel opened by the hotel chef, based on a popular New England dessert called American “Pudding-cake pie.” The Omni Parker House website describes how the cake came to be:

“When Parker House’s own Chef Anezin and his bake staff drizzled chocolate icing onto sponge cake filled with vanilla custard, something new and sensational was born. Originally dubbed ‘Parker House Chocolate Cream Pie,’ Boston Cream Pie became an immediate and perennial hit.”

Labeled a pie because it was originally baked in a pie tin, Boston Cream Pie was declared the official state dessert of Massachusetts on December 12, 1996, beating out the Toll House Cookie, the Fig Newton and Indian Pudding.1

At the restaurant we were served a very cute miniature version of the famous cake, but it had all the required elements, the creamy filling between sponge layers, the chocolatey top and the toasted sliced almonds.

I’m tempted to try to make the larger version. You can find a recipe for the “pie” here or, if you’re not up for doing the baking yourself, order it (for a hefty $99.95, though shipping is free!) here. You can watch a video (below) of the hotel’s executive chef Gerard Tice talking to Susan Spencer of CBS News’ Sunday Morning about the continuing popularity of the dessert, as well as some surprising folks who once worked in the restaurant.

As for the equally famous Parker House Rolls, the story of how they were invented in the 1870s seems to change with the telling, but involves some variation of an angry baker, usually said to be German, who threw the rolls in the oven (or, in some versions, at the wall), resulting in a slightly folded appearance that has been compared to a pocketbook (purse).

Apparently the recipe for Parker House Rolls remained a secret for years, but after the rolls became a favorite of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt in the 1930s, the White House cook requested the recipe—and the secret was out!

There’s a whole lot more lore about these rolls contained in an interview that Allrecipe writer Devon O’Brien did with Omni Parker House historian Susan Wilson in 2022. Among them is that German-born French composer Jacques Offenbach was so enamored of the rolls when he visited the Parker House in 1872 that he started singing about them: “Parker House rolls, Parker House rolls, how I love you,” and later expanded the song into an opera. (The opera part is most likely a charming myth.)2

The rolls we were served were missing a fold, but were soft, buttery and delicious nonetheless. I think they would be a perfect choice for the Thanksgiving table to sop up turkey gravy or to slather with soft butter. Here’s a link to the Omni Parker House recipe and second recipe from the New York Times (gift link, I hope—write if it doesn’t work). This last one is based on a recipe Marion Cunningham adapted from an entry in The Fanny Farmer Cookbook.

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Cambridge and Harvard

In addition to Boston, I revisited Harvard Square in Cambridge, where I waitressed one summer at a historic and now long-gone European restaurant called The Window Shop. It was located in a home on Brattle Street that was once a blacksmith shop made famous in a Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem, The Village Blacksmith.

The 1808 Federal-style building with the outdoor patio is still there but is now an adult school. On the day I was there I noticed a cooking class in progress in the kitchen. I had a sudden memory flash of the many delicate cream and nut tortes the skilled immigrant bakers made back then and how we’d slam the heavy refrigerator doors on purpose in hope of sampling a few of the ruined pastries.

Of course we also visited Harvard Yard, peaceful and serene despite the university being one of those in the crosshairs of federal government defunding efforts these days. Founded in 1636, it’s the country’s oldest college, named for its first benefactor, John Harvard, whose statue is a gathering spot for tours of prospective students.

On a sunny fall day, Harvard Yard is a beautiful place to stroll—or to have a picnic, as we did on some freshly made bagels from a new Harvard Square takeout called PopUp Bagels, part of an East Coast chain and really very good, especially when the bagels are fresh from the oven and delivered in a steaming bag into your waiting hands!

‘A hotbed of revolt’

Cemeteries share some of the most telling tales. Here’s a sign on the Old Burying Ground in Cambridge, just across the street from Harvard, attesting to it being the last resting place of all classes and races: “Burial place of early settlers, Tory landowners and slaves and prominent men of Cambridge, 1635.”

Nearby is another sign detailing how the American Revolution came to Cambridge as the Patriots were angered by the unelected leaders appointed by the British to rule over them.

“Cambridge was now a hotbed of revolt,” a billboard about this history reads. “Its early leaders had almost all been educated at Harvard: John and Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Joseph Warren, James Otis, Josiah Quincy, Artemas Ward. They returned to address college students, urging them to join the fight for independence.”

Not long after the battles of Lexington and Concord where outnumbered Patriots managed to defeat the British, Cambridge became the headquarters of the provincial government and army, and General George Washington arrived to take control as Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army on July 3, 1775. In the next 11 months, he directed the siege of Boston, eventually forcing the British out of the city and achieving the first great victory of the Revolution.

Of course the war was just getting started and continued for eight years until Sept. 3, 1783, with its outcome being uncertain for much of that time.

We also visited Lexington, enjoying more glimpses of history, fall colors and some modern political signage that might have resonated with the Patriot militias of 1775. Then we were off to Rhode Island. More on that and the rest of our adventures in a future edition.

Thanks as always for coming along for the ride.

Ruth

In Philadelphia, the city where the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution were drafted and signed, thousands of protesters gathered this weekend in the grand tradition of American politics to protest government policies they feel are pushing our country toward an autocracy.

We just happened to be in Philadelphia on what was the 14th day of our 21-day journey to visit key places marking the birthplace of America 250 years ago. What more historic spot to check out than Philadelphia? And what more historic venue to stage a No Kings rally than in front of Independence Hall, where both the Declaration and the Constitution were debated and adopted?

It turned out to be as much a party as a serious rally. There were a lot of silly costumes—frogs, birds, Elvis and Gritty, the mascot of the city’s 7-foot orange mascot of the city’s hockey team, the Philadelphia Flyers. People were waving American flags, playing kazoos, enjoying the mild fall weather, but also making their point that free speech, the right to gather and the expectation that their government would represent all the people, not just a single party, was part of their birthright as American citizens. Many wore yellow, seen as a worldwide symbol of democracy and hope.

On this trip, we’ve been hearing about how the founders of our country were people who spoke out, protesting and fighting for the right to be free to disagree with a tyrannical king and his policies. At the rally, speaker after speaker made that point.

I unexpectedly bumped into Maryland Congressman Jamie Raskin, the famed lead in the second impeachment trial against Donald Trump, as he waded through the crowd en route to the speaker platform. He seemed in campaign mode as he shook every proffered hand, including mine. A former constitutional law professor, his address to the crowd showed his continued passion for our Constitution and its relevance in this moment.

“Hello, Philadelphia,” Raskin said. “America thanks you for fighting tyrants since 1776. Democracy was launched right here in this city.”

“In this city, James Madison and the framers wrote in the building behind us the world’s first democratic constitution. …The preamble began with those three magic words, not I the king, but ‘We the people,’ the only source of sovereign power. Our framers overthrew the king. They wrote an anti-king constitution.”

Just the day before, I marveled at the 305-foot gift from France, the Statue of Liberty, the symbol of democracy here and around the world.

On Saturday, I put on my T-shirt, purchased in Boston at the Old North Church where Paul Revere and his Patriot buddies had set up a signal to warn of the arrival of the British troops: “One if by land, two if by sea.”

It’s been a great journey, and, along with Revolution, there have been some awfully good treats, including a thick shake called “Awful Awful” that’s not awful at all at Newport Creamery in Rhode Island (where we also have fallen in love with the famed Jimmy Roll). More to come on that, Philly cheesesteak and a fascinating new farm-to-table restaurant here called Honeysuckle where every dish has a story—and some were inspired by books.

Just wondering: Did you attend a No Kings rally over the weekend? Thoughts on the American Revolution then and now?

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Thanks for your likes, comments and shares. Upon my return I’ll have lots more to tell you about this amazing historical journey.

See you then.

Ruth