Co. Kerry, Ireland, June 2023 Suddenly, everything gets wilder. The garden at Castlemaine announces itself with a renewed intensity as we barrel into Summer Solstice. It is possible, I see now, to become even more lush. …

Dispatch from Belfast: What Van Morrison tells us about in ‘The Healing Game’ Today, on the eve of the Van Morrison concert at the Europa Hotel in Belfast, I took a tour they call “The Mystic of the East,” the tour of his childhood haunts. I saw where he was born on Hyndford Street, his elementary school, Orangefield Academy and Cypress Avenue, where…

2022 ends with a majestic stillness, 2023 welcomes in the abundance that comes when we live in awe Sometimes the awe cannot be captured in a photo. Sometimes we just have to be present for it. That happened to me as I turned west toward home and the sky above the snow-capped peak of Mount Taylor presented a parade of cottony lavender clouds. …

PERSEPHONE’S KITCHEN | Stories, songs and soul-infused food from the kitchen of Ms. Persephone This lasagna comes out of the oven looking like a late-winter sunset. The roasted beets and fresh herbs take lasagna to whole new horizons. Years ago, when the twins were about 15, we were invited to…

In my flash fiction piece, “A Recipe for Desire,” which appears in Arts & Letters (Fall 2022), a 12-year-old daughter asks her mother to teach her to make a Hummingbird Cake after a long time of asking. What she’s yearning for is to know the taste of desire. Now I’m…

Vicarious food travel is always highly recommended, especially if you have a heart for Ireland. Try this Crumbed Scallops in Garlic Butter for a simple, elegant date night, from chef Maura O’Connell Foley. I’m a true believer in vicarious food travel, which is to say I’ve been letting the Ireland linger in me by cooking wildly from “My Wild Atlantic Kitchen” with my special Irish guy. Since our trip there this summer, we have made some stellar recipes from Maura O’Connell Foley’s cookbook…

Desert monsoons bring a rainbow, the sun splashes watermelon light over the Sandia Mountains, and we dance in the kitchen while we make chiles rellenos. This chiles rellenos recipe wins Best of Show — the best take on this New Mexican classic I’ve ever found. There are a lot of steps, but every step is worth it. …

Guinness sliders, lamb lettuce wraps and Dubliner cheese, plus a little Yeats. A perfect night of craic, setting the stage for the Ireland Writing Retreat on the Wild Atlantic Way Last night’s Charcuterie 17.0 was a celebration of Irish pub food, in anticipation of heading to Ireland later this month to lead the Ireland Writing Retreat on the Wild Atlantic Way. The main board features Guinness sliders on a nest of hashed potatoes, lamb lettuce wraps, coffee-and-pepper encrusted salame (a…

This week’s charcuterie celebrates the colors of Zion National Park, Escalante National Monument, Bryce Canyon and the Grand Canyon through a dance of color, with cheese, meats, olives and fruit. Call this week’s Charcuterie 14.0 the Escalante edition, celebrating the Grand Staircase, the geological strata of rock that rise up from the Grand Canyon to Zion National Park to Bryce National Park and form the Escalante-Grand Staircase National Monument.