Cooking

  • Joan Fontaine

    Rose Madeline Mula: If You Can’t Stand the Heat

    Rose Madeline Mula Writes: “It was with considerable trepidation, therefore, that I entered the kitchen of my hostess, the legendary actress, Joan Fontaine, one long-ago Thanksgiving morning, to offer my assistance. Acting was not Miss Fontaine’s only talent. Not by a long shot. She was also a hole-in-one golfer, a prize-winning fisherwoman, a hot air…

  • An Undocumented Childhood by Rose Madeline Mula

    An Undocumented Childhood by Rose Madeline Mula

    Rose Mula Writes: Some people never leave home without their American Express card; I never leave home without a camera. Digitized pictures of the twenty-five countries and forty-plus states of America that I’ve visited since my first tour of exotic New Hampshire constantly flash on my computer monitors and digital frames throughout my home, helping…

  • Julia Sneden Wrote: Love Your Library

    Julia Sneden Wrote: Love Your Library

    Julia Sneden Wrote: My mind’s eye can still see the face of the Children’s Librarian, although I have long since forgotten her name. We will be wise to continue to back up our knowledge of history and literature and art and science with hard copy. She kept up with my reading level, suggesting writers and…

  • high heels

    Julia Sneden Wrote: If The Shoe Fits … You Can Bet It’s Not Fashionable

    Julia Sneden Wrote: My mother was a mini Imelda Marcos. She kept upwards of 40 pairs of shoes well into her 80’s, and was crushed when she had to give up high heels following a heart attack at the age of 89. Her sole criterion in buying shoes was style, not comfort, and she was…

  • Vintage jewelry, Wikimedia Commons

    Joan L.Cannon Wrote: A Family Inheritance: More Than ‘Things’ … Emblems of Our Lives

    Joan Cannon wrote: As one advances in years, one accumulates possessions the way a caddis fly larva accumulates grit. The glue that makes us carry it all along with us is in a way self-secreted as well. However, it’s psychic rather than physical — emotional rather than material. Perhaps the most obvious example is a…

  • ways to grasp a pencil

    Julia Sneden Wrote: Old Dogs, New Tricks

    Julia Sneden wrote: At the age of 37, I started a new career as a kindergarten teacher. My first day on the job, the lead teacher, who was in her 70’s and scared me every bit as much as she scared the children, watched me writing a note. “You’ll have to change the way you…

  • Captain Charles E. Yeager

    Joan Cannon Writes: Finding the Right Excuse; Committing Words to Paper Because …

    Joan Cannon Writes: Think of the poets and novelists and playwrights whose words sink into the consciousness of thousands and even millions and remain there, as emblems, guides, beacons of hope or warnings of disasters, and the excuse (as if one is needed) presents itself. Maybe there’s information or a revelation for some unknown viewer…

  • stack of books

    Joan Cannon Asked: What is a Book Club? An Old-Fashioned Book Report? A Program Given By an Author? What Is the Accepted Practice?

    Joan L. Cannnon wrote: A year or so ago, I was invited to attend a tea given by the combined membership of all the book clubs in the town where I now live. A presentation was scheduled for the proprietor of the much-loved local independent book store cum gift shop. She is a legend in…

  • Strengthening Public Television … The Tide Has Turned: More About Nova and Downton Abbey

    State legislators’ support for public television is strengthening after nearly a decade of deep spending cuts and sharp ideological opposition from some lawmakers to the very idea of taxpayer-supported TV. In winning the additional money, boosters have successfully argued that public television is about more than NOVA and Downton Abbey.

  • Reissuing Ferida’s Wolff’s Backyard: Home Farm Produce; Hibiscus Beauty and Wouldn’t That Be Peachy?

    I know I complain about the squirrels eating everything we plant, the reason we constructed a screened-in vegetable garden, but in truth, I like them. They are inventive and extremely smart. They help me remember that ‘different’ is only an adjective, it does not mean inferior. And different is how we all are, from other…

  • Abstract Painter Alma Thomas Work Resonates With Vibrant Color, Dense Paint and Energetic Pattern

    Featuring more than fifty paintings and works on paper spanning all phases of the artist’s evolving practice, Alma Thomas will offer the first comprehensive overview in almost two decades of this singular artist’s achievement. “For many years a teacher by profession, she continues to teach us through her example about the possibilities of art and…

  • Liz Shuler, AFL-CIO’s Secretary-Treasurer: Women and Work

    “Shuler’s commitment to reaching out to young people, engaging them in their unions and communities and opening leadership opportunities for them has resulted in the AFL-CIO’s important Next Up Young Workers Initiative. Today’s young workers are part of the largest generation to enter the workforce since the baby boomers, and the most diverse and technologically…

  • What Do You Know About Capturing End-of-Life Preferences in Electronic Health Records?

    The Pew Trusts has commented on this issue as part of new regulations governing the EHR Incentive Program, asking Medicare & Medicaid Services to ensure that doctors are aware of patients’ advance care plans and can easily locate them. Pew also endorsed the recently introduced Personalize Your Care Act 2.0, which includes a provision requiring…

  • Were They “The Good Ol’ Days?” Doing the Math or Not

    Joan L. Cannon writes: I can scarcely believe what I recall as the prices of things — like stamps for a first-class letter at three cents. I sometimes wish I were a statistician with the ability to research and do the sums that would tell me whether the prices were the same proportion of ordinary…

  • Advancing Potential Zika Treatments; a Collaborative Effort with Johns Hopkins University and Florida State University

    Researchers at the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) recently identified compounds that potentially can be used to inhibit Zika virus replication and reduce its ability to kill brain cells. These compounds now can be studied by the broader research community to help combat the Zika public health crisis.

  • Julia Sneden’s Magic Moments at the End of Summer

    Julia Sneden wrote: There are a number of small ceremonies we perform as we see summer out. We put away hot weather clothing and dig out sweaters. We fold up the light blankets for storage, and hang the quilts out to air. My own favorite activity to mark summer’s end is one that I discovered…

  • Presidential Proclamation — Women’s Equality Day, 2016

    Nearly one century ago, with boundless courage and relentless commitment, dedicated women who had marched, advocated, and organized for the right to cast a vote finally saw their efforts rewarded on August 26, 1920, when the 19th Amendment was certified and the right to vote was secured.

  • Printing a Child’s World at the Met Museum, The Summer of Hamilton at New York Historical Society and Roz Chast at Museum of the City of New York

    Printed works for or about children are the focus of the installation Printing a Child’s World at the Met Museum. More than two dozen works from the late 19th and early 20th centuries — primarily children’s books, illustrations, and prints by artists are being shown. And, believe it or not, in 2004 the New-York Historical…