I suppose some might not consider this a “con” in the traditional sense. Nobody lost money; nobody really lost anything except me. I didn’t con people directly, just a system I didn’t want to conform to.

I had always hated gym class. It wasn’t that I hated physical act… Read full post »

I'm not naming names, but I'm wondering: Is it the beginning of the end when you're 52 years old, and a folk/rock vocal artist you've loved since junior high school comes out with a Christmas Album including "Walking in a Winter Wonderland?"

 I don't feel at all good about this.… Read full post »

When I was a kid, there was a lady in our neighborhood (every neighborhood had one) who roamed the streets, monstrously overgrown zucchini in hand, attempting to palm them off on unwitting neighbors. That lady was my mom, and I, for better or worse, have become my mother. Only… Read full post »

I love a plant with a story. To be honest, almost every plant in my garden has a story - of the person who brought it to me, or of the trip involved in collecting the seed, or some childhood memory. I have a large fragrant evening primrose, for… Read full post »

The more religious nuts I talk with, the more convinced I become that anyone who feels an obsessive need to change others' faith definitely has some chinks in their own armor.

So it really comes as no surprise to read that George Alan Rekers, board member of  the National Association for… Read full post »

Dear Christian Fundamentalist,

You fascinate me, you really do. You speak of love, and yet base your view of me, a gay person, on a text that calls for my death; and another that (you claim) indicates who I am is so evil that God annihilated an entire city over it.… Read full post »

Spring is such a busy time of the year. The first big flush of bloom in the garden also coincides with lots of work: Planning, planting, and weeding.

Weeding gets harder when some of the weeds have really beautiful flowers; unless it's a clematis or a columbine, almost anythi… Read full post »

[No, this isn't a post about Datura, or Salvia, or opium poppies. It's about plant nostalgia and memories, and the extent  to which we can become attached to our plant memories. So if you're a DEA agent trolling for a bust, you'll have to look elsewhere I'm afraid.]

I can get very nost… Read full post »

 For a gardener, one of the most exciting times of the year is when the first garden catalogues start showing up in the mail. Everybody has their old favorites, standbys they order every year without fail; it might be a special tomato your mother grew or a poppy that is now… Read full post »

Green garlic is the star of this dish; it's such a seasonal food that anything made with it practically shouts "Spring!" Although it's only recently become better known in the US, in the Mediterranean and other areas it's a seasonal favorite, with it's fresh flavor that's… Read full post »

Anachronistic Identities

My first visit to Turkey was in 1982. I had a good friend on the island of Lesbos/Mytilene; Turkey was visible across the water. I found it strange that even from there it seemed different. Not in any definable, physical way of course; the mountains were the same color,… Read full post »

I haven't posted for a while - I kept pretty busy while I was in the US for over a month, and came home to a load of work, a new relationship and a garden that begged my attention. And then there was jetlag...all excuses but they work… Read full post »

November 16 had begun like any other Monday for Alison, and she was in confident spirits. The barista had put precisely the right amount of hazelnut syrup in her double skinny latte,  and the University of Washington department of whom she was an administrator was right on schedule for the compl… Read full post »

In one of the "Chicken Translation" posts I mentioned a dish that had been erroneously translated translated as "Sensitive meatballs." After a couple of weeks in Greece, I found myself with a serious hankering for food with a little spice in it, so I decided to make them.

The word… Read full post »

I have to admit that I go through phases when it comes to coming-out stories. Sometimes I really do think, “oh Jeezus, not another one,” because under all the variation there is one central theme: freeing ourselves from inflexible, vicious-circle thinking. And yet it’s the infinite… Read full post »

My first view of Thessaloniki (Salonica) must have been less than breathtaking. I say that because I lived there for a year and spent a lot of time in those outer neighborhoods; places like Stavroupolis and Evosmos, populated with villagers who built their houses (or at least t… Read full post »

Enshrined in all of these stories, elevated (if perhaps a bit higher in my own mind) was Greece. I read encyclopedia articles about Greece and books of Greek myths, assimilating all the most exotic and images from throughout the centuries, conveniently failing to notice what belonged to the modern ag… Read full post »

As many times as I've watched it happen over the last fifty years, I'm still amazed every year that this,

and this,

can turn into this.

Even if the big one turns out to be a tasteless doorway ornament, it will still be worth it. Read full post »

In the year 1915, at the age of 17, my maternal grandfather Christos Papanikolaou left his mother Magioritsa, his father Georgios, his sisters Eleni and Foteini and his little brother Stylianos on the Island of Marmara and sailed to Istanbul, where he and five friends would board a ship… Read full post »

Even though I grew up in Iowa, Greece was always in the background, ready to insinuate itself into our lives. There were constant reminders of it – baklava, kourambiedhes, finikia and melomakarona at Christmas, the words we knew like “kalimera” and “parakalo,” records of… Read full post »

 Okay, I'd started writing on another subject but I always love an excuse to write about my garden, especially when it involves food as well.

One of my favorite things to grow is winter squash. There are three main species that we grow in gardens, but the fruits… Read full post »

My childhood in in Iowa City, Iowa, was permeated with the illusion that my family was hopelessly run-of-the-mill. We were middle-class, lived in a nice house on the edge of town, Dad was a professor of music who was raised Southern Baptist in a family that traced its American roots back to… Read full post »

Here's one for the language geeks.

(If you are confused by the title and wonder what chicken has to do with translation, please read the earlier post, Chicken Translation Gems.)

Somewhere among the boxes of  old photos and mementos stored away in my friend Meg's house in Seattle, I hav… Read full post »

Sharing her love for seasonal foods, Stellaa has been a real inspiration! The weather in Istanbul has now settled into the muggy summer heat that will be with us till late September. In the spirit of the hazy Istanbul summer, I decided to post about something that not only takes the ed… Read full post »

Visitors to Istanbul's "European face" of Beyoglu got a bit more than they bargained for today as Istanbul's out GBLTT community capped off its Pride Week 2009 with the Istanbul Pride Parade.

Though I've been to my share of Pride Parades and usually… Read full post »