“How do you feel when those cakes you spend so many hours and days to make go out the door and somebody eats them?” That was a question posed last night to Duff Goldman during his Detroit appearance. Knowing that so much hard work, attention to detail, talent and craft go into making his intricate, […]

You know the feeling, when you are overcome with emotion, it’s almost spilling out? Incredible elation, happiness, a stunning sense of this is who I am and I am so happy to be this. That’s how I felt last night when my husband commented about how he loved listening to me chant the prayer over the […]

I awoke before the alarm, in the black-dark, knowing it was a half hour more before I would truly have to step out of bed onto the cold floor and rise eyes open before the day. You know how sweet it seems to savor those last possible moments of sleep and then the rude harshness […]

Today is a day on the Jewish calendar that I have never liked, and as I’ve grown in my confidence as a free-thinking Jew, I’ve decided not to observe it. Still, many people revere Tisha b’Av, the ninth of the Hebrew month of Av, and go through all the rituals of its presence. They fast […]

The children have gone to their other parents, and the windows are open. It is cool this Michigan night, and we are fresh off the humidity of Delaware beach week, where the air is thick and heavy with moisture, and the salt scent of the ocean hovers over our every breath. I love our annual […]

First day of master swim. Dawn arrived thick, warm already, hardly any breeze. The sky was grayish-blue. The lane lines formed, we entered the water wordlessly, pushed off from the edge of the pool to swim a length and back and again. By the end of the hour, the sun glowed diamond-brilliant, its rays glistening […]

Late-day sun slanted into the high windows of the old school building. Detroit Waldorf. Indian Village. June 3, 2016. It was the third night of school programs, recitals, finishes, for my children. My husband, parents, and I sat on hard wooden folding seats in the auditorium as the third, fourth, fifth grades and then the […]

On the little slab of stone, under the shade of overgrown bushes and weeds and trees, against the cascading putter of the pond in our backyard that regenerates itself constantly, I finally could breathe. When it was all getting to be too much, when so many emails poured in and so many voices, I forgot […]

This morning, I stepped into the Dunkin’ Donuts two miles from my home, the one with kosher certification on the corner in the religious neighborhood, and waited in line to order my daughter a bagel breakfast sandwich. The refrigerator is nearly empty. All bread, bagels and other leavened foods are gone from our house, eaten […]

Robert de Niro woke every morning to a manually-set alarm clock, jumped out of bed, showered, shaved, and dressed in a suit and tie. He carried his leather briefcase to work, and set up his desk, awaiting the tasks of the day. And when his young boss thought he was of no use to her […]