I feel it appropriate to consider those people and places that have had an important place in my heart — folks and towns that have changed me and set into place another piece of the jigsaw puzzle of life.

So consider…

Hi Doni,

Just my annual I’m-too-cheap-to-pay-for-an-international-stamp Holiday Card, but the sentiment is heartfelt. I’m still thrilled and in awe at how quickly and how great your news site has become (I almost hesitated when I said “news site”, it’s SO much…

There will always be a soft spot in my heart for the appellation of Auxey-Duresses. I bought a case of the wine back in 2005. I had never heard of the appellation before but I tasted one at a wine…

The plane hit the tarmac at Charles deGaulle-Roissy airport at ten o’clock on a brisk March evening. A lone figure, whose face was disquietly similar to mine, stepped out onto French soil, his sharp, square jaw set tight against the…

I just bought my first Marxist newspaper today. The doorbell rang and a young woman in her twenties, outfitted in the obligatory green workman’s coat, stood at the door to my apartment and began to rattle off a sales pitch…

There’s a point in a reader’s life where he can take only so much angst, so much navel contemplation and so much soul-vomiting confession in his literature. The brain freezes up, short-circuits and runs to a book where the major…

Unlike the sentiments in the jazz standard by Vernon Duke and E. Y. Harburg, April in Paris is pretty miserable weather-wise. The air is damp and chilly, and we still wrap scarves around our necks against the cool gusts of…

I’ve returned from a trip to Romania where I spoke to the kids at the American International School in Bucharest. It was a great trip. However, it was also cold and wet and muddy, so I probably didn’t see it in…

It snowed in Paris yesterday. I’ve only seen it once or twice in my seven years here but it’s magical. And of course, like everyone else here when they see snow falling here in the City of Lights, my first…

Florence is so deeply rooted in the history of art and politics that it leaves little room for much else. Even the food is steeped in politics. A tax levied on salt in 1540 by Pope Paolo III caused the…

I was dead, to begin with.

Dead tired after the train ride from Paris to London. The ride through the Chunnel was longer than usual due to tunnel repairs after an accident in September. My cab ride through the busy streets…

The problem I have with eating in autumn is two-fold. First, when the weather is gray and damp as it has been here Paris the last few days, I want something warm and comforting like gratin Dauphinois (grah-tan doh-fee-nwahz), that…

When I moved to Paris I assumed I’d encounter all kinds of foreign items in the grocery stores; different brands of toothpaste, soap, soft drinks, plastic wrap, garbage bags, razor blades and junk food. But I figured the vegetables would…

Here in Paris the autumn harvest of beans is in the markets now. Well, maybe they’ve been around for a while, but at any rate, I’ve just noticed them.

I’ve been hungry for something comforting, but also green (but not the…

While sifting through boxes and suitcases from a previous life, I came across an old treasure. It was actually three treasures, three cassette tape recordings of Charlotte’s Web, read by the author, E.B. White. I hadn’t listened to them for…

It’s been a while since I’ve visited you, almost seven years. I hadn’t even written you. So I admit I was a bit wary and nervous when I flew into Redding Municipal Airport a few weeks ago. Would you remember…

She began:

“My dear Noel,  I don’t know what to write to you, so I shall tell you a…

Moderate Alcohol Consumption May Improve Memory 

“Drinking alcohol in moderate amounts may improve the ability to create and maintain memories properly, according to a new study from the University of Auckland in New Zealand and Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. 
Published in…

Pigeons are a fact of city life; like…

by Doug Cushman

PARIS — Preparations for the holiday season here in the City of Lights aren’t much different here than they are in any other big American city.

The shop doorways are draped with the obligatory garlands accompanied…