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Here we are on the eve of another Christmas. Those of us with children in our lives have the opportunity to relive our own childhood through them. We hear their giggles and see the glimmer in their eyes. It is our chance to carry family traditions into the next generation but it is also a time of some sadness. Last year, our "baby" was 10 and still wrote a letter to Santa to leave by his tray of cookies and milk which the adults dutifully ate leaving crumbs scattered about as proof of his sweet...

It's almost Thanksgiving again. For me, there is always a tinge of sadness that surrounds that day of giving thanks because my only sibling, my dearest friend, my brother Raymond died the week before Thanksgiving in 1962. It's been 47 years and I miss him still, as I do my parents and grandparents. They are all gone now and I am the memory keeper.

I love to cook. I come by it naturally since both my grandmother and my mother were known for their cooking skills, I collect cookbooks,...

As I sit here, the sound of sleet and ice beating against the windows brings a chill to my body although I'm not cold. It's a mental chill rather than a physical one. As I look out the east facing window behind my desk, the gunmetal gray sky and the treetops of century old hardwoods being tossed about in the wind all add to the cold. The boughs of the hemlocks are brittle with the ice that encapsules the needles turning them into oblong blocks of frozen green.

The pup hasn't budged...

As someone who loves to cook, Sundays are my time to prepare my food for the week. I love the smells and colors of the kitchen.

I have a few favorites in my kitchen. My big black cast one frying pan that belonged first to my great-grandmother, then my grandmother, my mother, and now me. Someday it will be my daughter's and then my granddaughters. I have thousands of dollars worth of professional cookware but cast iron is still my favorite.

I love my chef's knives...

It's the time we await and long for throughout the cold winter, wet spring and hot, humid summer. The slightly acrid aroma of the red, yellow and brown leaves fills the air and mixes with the musty smell of damp leaf mold underfoot. The sky is always at its bluest, and the clouds their whitest. I believe that heaven is modeled after the New England fall.

It's a time for grandmothers to watch their grandsons play "fall ball' and sew halloween costumes for their princess granddaughters....