Learning my mom’s love of plants has been a lifelong process. My mother is a teacher. She has worked at a small elementary school in southwest Calgary for over twenty years teaching music and whatever grade they can slot her into. For my entire childhood, […]

When I lived in Austin I had a friend with somewhere around 80 acres of land in the Texas Hill Country west of San Antonio. We’d stay in a crude cabin on the property, generally in the fall when the weather was cooler. We’d wander […]

A Trace of Chamomile: Marian Hedwig Mülberger’s Spring Flowers Tucked under feathery chamomile leaves are the geometric initials MHM. Nothing else identifies the artist of the spring flower guide, Frühlingsblumen. Each page of the accordion-pleated booklet displays four or five plants arranged like specimens in […]

Is this a garden story? My brother ate a bug from the garden, then he went to the hill in the backyard and tried to fly.   My mother laughed her head off. Author: Susan Medalie Featured Image Photo Credit: CC0 Public Domain. See more […]

My wife, when she fell ill, was advised by the physicians to chew on gooseberries in order to gain some vital energies.  She kept salted gooseberries in a bottle and chewed on them occasionally. There is something very special about this fruit; may be it […]

My father, Michele, was born in a small town in Italy called Bitetto, about 20 miles from Bari. He eventually bought a house in Canarsie, Brooklyn, that had a plot of land where he could do some gardening. He loved gardening and planted a lot […]

Which came first, Bogart or the books? I really can’t remember, but Raymond Chandler has been a fixture in my life since I was a teenager. The 1970s British paperback of his novel The Big Sleep (first published in 1939) featured a still from Howard […]

Summers in California are marked by hands with deep purple liquid running along palm lines and in between the fingers, dripping off the sides and trailing down the wrists, tiny brown hairs stuck to fingers and palms. Every time I look at a pair of […]

[English Translation below] Mon grand-père Paul vivait à Haute-Rivoire, un petit village dans les monts du Lyonnais. A chaque fois que j’allais les voir, lui et ma grand-mère ces dernières années, je repartais avec un sac plein de légumes de son potager : des choux […]

I spent my elementary school vacations at my best friend’s home in Los Angeles, California. We grew up in Historic Filipinotown, an enclave home to the city’s first wave of immigrants from the Philippines. Her home had avocado and orange trees, abundant kudzu, and plenty […]