I was ten years old the Thanksgiving my mother decided to cook. This wasn’t a good thing since she never cooked, but she decided that she didn’t want to order the usual ham for the main meal – turkey, after all, was what most people had for Thanksgiving – and she always gave our housekeeper…

Today, Rachael and I started our Thanksgiving cooking. We made Ray’s honey-sweetened cranberry sauce (recipe appeared in yesterday’s blog), cooked two pumpkins and pureed the pulp for pumpkin pies, and made a delectable gravy that is a family favorite from a recipe furnished by The Barefoot Contessa, Ina Garten. The great thing about both the…

It’s time to share Ray’s wonderful honey-sweetened cranberry sauce recipe to grace your table on Thanksgiving.  It’s better to make a few days ahead so the flavors will meld.  It is easy and delicious.  No refined sugar, only honey. Here’s the recipe: 2 12 oz. packages cranberriesEquivalent volume chopped applesToss in a pan with 1/2…

I saw my beloved writing mentor John Rechy today on the sad occasion of his partner’s father’s memorial service. My friend and priest, Father Ian Elliot Davies, asked if I could drive him to the Los Angeles National Cemetary so that he could officiate. I was more than happy to accommodate. I wasn’t sure that…

We had dark-colored linoleum in our kitchen at 902 East 9th Street where I grew up. The pattern had squares and rectangles of different sizes with gray jagged mortar lines in-between. The color was a variation of reds and oranges, and my parents had that linoleum installed after we’d lived in the house for a…

Margaret Johnson was eighty-years-old and lived in an assisted living facility. She was in good shape for her age except for thick glasses, and she had a secret. She was madly in love with Sy Silverman, a seventy-five-year-old newbie who’d arrived only two months before. Sy was actually not quite as spry as Margaret, he…

I volunteered to watch my grandkids tonight so Sarah and Gregorio could have a Saturday night out. So much fun for me just hanging out with Luna, Nico and Lyla. We chatted with Grandpa on FaceTime, watched movies, ate popcorn and raspberries, then read stories. In the middle of it all, Nico lost his first…

She didn’t understand him. She had never understood him. She wondered why she loved him. He was elusive. He was foreign in his differentness. And yet. He pulled her. Yanked at her with his allure. Kept her aching for him in his absence. She knew they were no good together. They were mountain and plain….

Over the past couple of days, I’ve made a major move here at our home in LA. I have taken on the task of boxing up many of my books that were in one spot and moving them into a little office space right off of Ray and my bedroom. I have sorted the books…

It’s 9 pm and the grandfather clock is tolling out the hour. I’ve been busy all day so this is going to be a short entry tonight. If you’d like a small window into the life that Ray and I have as antique dealers, then simply type in Beaty-Leatherwood Estates into Google and you can…