A different take on the standard fish a flank of salmon, without skin sauce: 3-4 tablespoons of capers 3 tablespoons of ranch dressing 1 teaspoon of herbes de Provence black pepper, fresh ground, plenty about fifteen pitted chopped Kalamata olives for pan: fifteen more, pitted, Kalamata olives 1/2 Eureka lemon, sliced paper thin and seeded … Continue reading →
Category Archives: Blog
Contrast
Here’s a photo from a walk I took yesterday. No editing, this is the raw image. How did I spend the past two weekends? Grubbing out old brambles, digging up posts, spreading between forty and fifty wheelbarrows-worth of manure from the horse stables across the way, then cheering as my husband wrestled the roto-tiller across … Continue reading →
Why it’s so hard to keep Nigeria in focus
A discussion on Facebook pointed out the lack of sufficient coverage and emphasis on the tragedy of Nigeria’s struggle with the Boko Haram group, and I have to weigh in. The reasons for our poor information and erratic, ever-corrected “facts” are not, I believe, based in racism. Having lived in Nigeria for many years, I’d like … Continue reading →
Posted in: Blog, education, history, social and anti
here comes my next book!
Here’s the cover of my next book, a thriller/science fiction yarn set in the university town of Isla Vista, California. Imagine a strong smart young woman in Southern California planning to become a scientist, who notices the gradual disappearance of the local homeless, and a sequence of strange events concerning ducks– which mount to a personally threatening … Continue reading →
Posted in: Blog, education, publishing, science, writing
Fruitcake is No Joke
Enough with the jokes about fruitcake. When Elizabeth Moon uses the fruitcake trope in her delightful Trading In Danger she does it so well I have to admire, smile, then chuckle a bit. But I also have to set the record straight about how to make a fruitcake worth the savoring. First vital point. Do … Continue reading →
Speak to the Apples
The names of apples make me happy. Here in Southern California I grow Pettingills and Gordons, Golden Dorsets and Winter Banana, Fuji, Granny Smith and a would-be Red Delicious which is neither. I instantly want to excuse myself– I, myself, would never have chosen to plant a Red Delicious, having picked up a mildly critical … Continue reading →
Two more from the past
The Tattered Hill Dark Hills Near Salinas Both of these oil paintings date back many years. They also belong to the collectors of last post’s pieces, who let us house their paintings during the renovation of their home, and it has been a pleasure to have this opportunity to live once more with my older … Continue reading →
The Repeating Hills, 1993 and 1990
I suppose I should explain– the owners of this painting are renovating their home and asked if I would house this work of mine plus a number of my others they had purchased over the years, and of course I was delighted. Delighted to remake the acquaintance of these works, to be able to spiff up the … Continue reading →
Gifts
Every so often after I’ve spent hours out in the studio painting, there’s a message waiting on the machine when I walk into the study. Hit the button– I hear the tentative young male or female voice on the recording and then a rush of words. “Professor? You won’t remember me. I took your class…” … Continue reading →
A Con-ver-sa-tion
“Welcome,” my mother said to the unwelcome guest. Her black eyes assessed the make-up, hair-sprayed brown curls, the round features of a young woman of perhaps twenty five. “What a nice house,” the guest said. She turned her big blue American eyes on my very Chinese mother and slowed her words down to one … Continue reading →
Posted in: Blog, social and anti
