From the category archives:

Stories

Phanouropita: The Year of the Saint

08.26.2010
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Well, it’s been a year in the making, but today—on the eve of Saint Phanourios’s feast day—the first leg of my journey with this Greek Orthodox saint and his cake has come to a close. (If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, please click the links in the right column or the main navigation, [...]

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Stone Barn Farm Day

08.07.2010
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“Why did the chicken cross the playground?” my son asks.
“Why?” I say.
“To get to the other slide!”
It’s not the greatest joke, I know, but my son was proud to tell it. Of course, this is not the greatest slideshow I’ve posted below, either. Not by a long shot. Actually the quality sucks, and I’m not [...]

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Kokkinopefti: Red Eggs and Koulouria

04.01.2010
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THE RED FALLS. In Greek you say Kokkinopefti, and this very literal, symbolic description serves as one popular name for the day, Holy Thursday. The red comes down, washing what it may. In this case, eggs for Easter.
In Greece on Great Thursday—what some call Maundy Thursday in English (and which, when I was little, I heard [...]

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What Weight Love?

02.14.2010
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WHO CAN TELL the weight of love? In anticipation of Valentine’s Day, I spent some time reflecting on this profound question, and my answer has been published today as part of a feature over at Leite’s Culinaria. I’m thrilled that my writing was selected for inclusion by David Leite and the new deputy editor of [...]

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A Year to Live: January

01.31.2010

TIME IS A TEASE. It leads you on in a rush—whoosh! Another year, gone?—yet once it slows down it seems it will never deliver the thing you’re waiting for. You’re always waiting for something, aren’t you? You are if you’re anything like me, head in the future a bit too much.
My days usually start like [...]

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Happy Birthday, Dad

01.13.2010

COULD IT BE TRUE, what my parents said as they walked through the door? That today was the first time they came to visit when no one else was around? That it was the first time we had a meal in my home, just the three of us together? This seems impossible. Yet while I [...]

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Birthday Figs

09.26.2009

NOT INTENDING BLASPHEMY, I am nevertheless pretty sure that when the words “It is more blessed to give than to receive” were set down in scripture, Saint Luke (or whoever wrote the book of Acts) did not have two pints of perfectly ripe, fresh figs next to him on the table. If he had, I [...]

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