TESTING TRAVAILS We’d been in Europe for three days, and we’d tried to do everything right, but now it looked like we could face a 250€ fine from the Belgian government. We had spent the day with 3M friends in the scenic town of Knokke-Heist, enjoying delicious meals and bicycling along the North Sea coast. On beautiful, paved paths, we’d biked through nature reserves and sheep-covered farmland, and even across…

My sister-in-law, Nimmou Nilakantan, is a poet who lives in Bangalore, India. In her latest poem below, she captures the yearlong Covid 19 pandemic and gives it an apt name. This past weekend, she wrote to me of her country’s worsening crisis: “India is literally burning and Bangalore is in shambles. The whole day we hear the sirens of ambulances and see horrific images on T.V and the newspapers. It…

In this post I’ll take you to a land where malls are still magical. Not only in appearance, but in their ability to soothe two homesick Americans. When my husband, Sankar, and I moved to Istanbul in 2010, we anticipated a lot of challenges. Communicating in a strange new language. Navigating a city of 16 million. Experiencing culture shock. But we didn’t quite anticipate the number of hours each weekend…

Mylar garlands. Muzak Jingle Bells. Santa hats. The normal gaudy props of American Christmas. I was surprised to encounter similar items when I spent time in non-Christian countries. In Singapore, a hotel lobby nearly the size of a football field greeted us with a half dozen flocked trees. In Delhi last year, a group of child carolers, who surely didn’t know the meaning of the words, warbled “Silver Bells” and…

I grew up with the oven on. In addition to baking meat and potato main dishes, my mother baked desserts:  pies, cookies, quick breads dense with fruits and walnuts, and frosted cakes in every flavor, one each week. Also crisps and crumbles, caramel rolls, and coffee cakes. Our kitchen, inexpertly designed by my parents, was the biggest room in our 1950s rambler house. Mom had a wall oven that she…