Tagged: memories

Pot roast with taters and gravy

Smell memory revisited…

A few years back I visited the topic of smell memory. It’s something I think of a lot as I wander the planet, as I find it almost constantly triggered these days. I was vividly reminded of my olfactory awareness Sunday night as a chuck roast was undergoing its magical transformation by low, slow heat in my oven. Trapped in a Dutch oven with a few friends—onion, garlic, and tomatoes—along with...

Logan and Laramie cuddled up

I miss having thick hair

Amanda used to really like my thick hair. Now the only thing thick above my neck is my head. Hey… at least I’ll admit it. Actually, my beard is pretty thick… thick enough, in fact, to intimidate my razor. There are days it’ll barely slice through – and the electric gadget can just forget it. Amanda brought home some stuff called Biotin the other week since it was on sale at...

Western burger

Smell memory

If a picture is worth a thousand words it has nothing on the simplest of smells. Many a day I’ve been pedaling along a country road and caught a whiff of some tree or flower or weed and been transported back home. When I visit the piney woods of east Texas I’m no longer in Texas but back pedaling a mountain bike through the forests in Research Triangle Park. Today, I...

The new comfort food

Having grown up a southerner, comfort food means mac & cheese, pot roast, meat loaf, mashed potatoes, and all the like. Yet, now, my comfort food is a big bowl of curry chicken rice noodle soup from Pho Que Huong. How do these things happen?

Penguin

Stories

The Presbyterian way of dealing with death is through a Celebration of Life. Commending a soul on to the afterlife. Erupting from the junction of two large, very Presbyterian families, I’ve known the passing of a loved one to be a time when the family rejoined, shared stories, shared food and shared friendship. Yes, we’d lost a brother or sister or mother or father or aunt or uncle. But, the kingdom...