Last Days of an Iconic French Cultural Figure This photo hangs on a wall in my kitchen. It sums up the stereotypical essence of traditional concierges of the past. I stayed once in a garret in Paris on the Île Saint-Louis for a month. Unlike the woman in Robert Doisneau’s iconic photo, the building’s concierge … More The Dying of the French Concierge
I’ve always wanted to make my way, to make a pilgrimage if you please, to Oxford, Mississippi, to worship at a shrine there. It’s not your ordinary saint’s tomb nor is it a grand cathedral bathed in a kaleidoscope of light when early morning sunlight blazes through stained glass. No, I journeyed many miles just … More Deep in William Faulkner’s South: Myth, Reality, and Cooking
Miles and miles of endless, empty roads, only the occasional passing freight truck for hours on end, vast open spaces on either side, sagebrush, sand, merciless sunshine, roadrunners darting across the asphalt, jarring hypnotized drivers awake faster than a double Big Jolt. The desert, to the uninitiated, seems barren, lifeless, a place to be gotten … More Cuisine in Arizona’s Sonoran Desert: Cholla Buds
Available in Kindle and paperback, distributed by Ingram to nearly all online booksellers. A story of a family, immigration, and farming. And lots of comfort food. From page 247: The Endless Cookie Jar | 247
A sneak preview of the cover of my upcoming book, filled with comfort food and memories, a culinary memoir inspired by my mother-in-law. Cover design by Cathy Gibbons Reedy
I woke up this morning thinking of our plight here in the U.S. vis-a-vis COVID-19. Then, for some reason, the front cover of Edward Steichen’s 1955 book*, The Family of Man, by photographer Edward Steichen, popped up from some vast repository in my memory library: Steichen said the people “looked at the pictures, and … More We are All Interconnected, We are the “Family of Man”*: Thoughts on the COVID-19 Response
I’ve been cooking for a long time. And it’s just not fun any more. I used to spend hours cooking, trying new recipes, thrilled to see the joy on people’s faces as they dug into one of my lemon meringue pies or my spin on curried chicken. And I remember when it all started. … More When Cooking is No Longer Fun: The Mental Load of Daily Cooking
She stares off to the right, her head turned in an attempt to hide the deformity. The jutting of her lip, the sad look on her face, these things tell me something. I think they do, anyway, But I still see it, past the the curve of her nose. The closed eye, silent and unseeing. … More Who is this Woman? Thoughts on Family History and Oppression of Women
CYNTHIA D. BERTELSEN 
You must be logged in to post a comment.