At the end of the 1800s, one Irish poet suggested that one Irish playwright visit the rugged, remote Irish island of Inishmaan. For one thing, said the poet, island people spoke the Gaelic Irish language – some of the few to do so back when Ireland was still part of Great Britain. And for another […]
NOTE: This is the second of two articles inspired by seeing Christopher Nolan’s remarkable film of The Odyssey. The story is true. I’ve simply never written it down before. It’s been more than half a century, but I can still feel my face pressed against the cold stone of the ancient stage, hearing a young […]
NOTE: This is the first of two articles. It’s not a review of the extraordinary Christopher Nolan film that I just watched, now opening on screens around the world. I’ve read close to twenty first-rate, deeply pondered, intelligent, literate reviews of the movie written by professionals – and why should anyone read UN-intelligent, IL-literate, UN-professional […]
Melanzana (Italian) or Melitzana (Greek) – that is the question. Or at least it was the question through much of today, as I wrestled with making Italian eggplant Parmigiana or Greek Moussaka for my dinner. I have loved both dishes in restaurants for decades, of course – and both cultures and cuisines, mixed with extensive […]
Life may be more complicated than any bowl of cherries. But leave it to the French, as with so many things, to use them best when they are in season. The cherries, that is. Not the French. Sharing taste and especially some textures with pancakes, flan and custard, the French dessert oddly named clafoutis started […]
When I was growing up in New Orleans, no one ate shrimp and grits, and no restaurants offered the dish on their menus – even on menus that offered shrimp and, in some different context, grits. Shrimp and grits was simply not a New Orleans dish, in an era when that was the first, sometimes […]
NOTE: Necessity being the mother of entrepreneurial invention, I clearly would have missed out on a ton of adventures had I been able to spend my entire career with the one employer I truly loved – United Press International. Who knows what I might have become with UPI, though maybe something less weird and/or interesting […]
NOTE: I’ve been promising and/or threatening myself to publish fiction here from time to time, since writing novels has been a significant part of my life. The other night I had a dream, and like most dreams it had some kind of beginning but nothing resembling an end. This story is what I think the […]
Jamestown Settlement and Yorktown, both in Virginia and both part of crucial early moments in the commonwealth’s history, make for strange but fascinating bedfellows. The first is the place England made its initial go in the New World, despite starvation and an understandably violent pushback from native Americans beginning in 1607. The second is the […]
As we speak, my 60th book – Virginia Ham: A History of Salt and Smoke– is making its way into the retail settings of the world. On the in-person side, I will be speaking and signing at Fonts Books & Gifts in McLean, Va., Tuesday May 12 at 7 p.m. And I’m especially happy to […]