Latest Posts
How to Make a Website and a Swedish Almond Wreath
After I retired from Williams, I decided it was time for a makeover of sorts. I don’t mean my look or my hair or even my wardrobe. It was all about my presence on the Web. My old website was functional but stale, and I wanted a site that was not just more beautiful, but…
How to Write a Russian Cookbook in the Age of Trump
When my brilliant editor at Ten Speed Press asked me to write a new Russian cookbook, I cringed. I couldn’t help remembering what happened the first time around. September 1, 1983 was the pub date of my very first cookbook, A la Russe: A Cookbook of Russian Hospitality. It’s a date I remember precisely because…
Five things I found in my freezer
The hardest thing about retiring from Williams was clearing my office of 34 years’ worth of accumulated stuff. It wasn’t just the volume of papers and books that I had to contemplate whether to save or to toss. It was the emotional, archeological experience of sifting through the objects and artifacts that represented my life….
Cheesemaking in Georgia
The Republic of Georgia, that is. The Beatles may have claimed that “Georgia’s always on my my-my-my-my-my-my mind,” but I can truthfully say that Georgia really is on my mind these days as I prepare a 25th Anniversary edition of my cookbook The Georgian Feast… Happily, now you can sample over two-dozen Georgian varietals at…
Women under siege
During the Siege of Leningrad, which lasted for nearly 900 days between 1941 and 1944, people had to be creative beyond measure simply to stay alive. Because most of the men were away at the front, that burden fell largely on the city’s women. Although the government supplied rations according to hierarchies of labor, the…