Living and Cooking Solo

“What do you think of skating bears?”   That question, from a dear friend, began a column I wrote in 1991 following a weekend gathering with “girlfriends” in Colorado’s high country.  Betty died a couple of years ago from a brain aneurism, quickly and much too young.  Her younger sister, Faye, also a life-long friend, brought a copy of the column when she visited me recently.  We spent the weekend as usual, talking, remembering and laughing.  I waited until she left to read the column, knowing I would cry, which I did. My response to Betty’s question was: “I think those animal activists get a little too radical,” which leads me to believe that animal activists of the day may have been protesting skating bears.  This is only a guess, but my next comment put Betty smack in the thick of things: “Betty threw her hands on her hips and stared me down with a grin I’ve known since the big issues were heart throbs, tight blue jeans and customized Fords and Chevrol...

Recently I came across a chicken recipe that called for raspberry vinaigrette.  Since I rarely purchase ready-made vinaigrette of any type or flavor, I bulked at the idea of buying a bottle just to make this dish. A number of reasons not to purchase vinaigrette, beyond having another bottle of something strange floating around your refrigerator door and that it is so easy to make, come to mind.  If you read labels, which I do, you find water listed as the first ingredient in most processed vinaigrettes.  Next comes various types oil and, in the case of raspberry vinaigrette, the list includes such things as corn syrup and sugar.  Somewhere down the list of ingredients, you find raspberry juice concentrate and/or other artificial flavors.  The lengthy list goes on with some items just as hard to pronounce as they are to invision, which makes one wonder why something that sounds so simple should be so complicated.  I concluded that it should not and, since ...