Pittsburgh Egg Cream Egg creams are like mother’s milk for us New Yorkers and they’re on the beverage menu in every coffee shop and diner in the five boroughs.   Yet apparently in other parts of the country this ambrosial comfort drink is practically unknown! After visiting friends in Pittsburgh years ago,   we were… Read More

The Cat and the Forshpeiz As early as the turn of the 20th century,  East-European Jewish immigrants began traveling north from New York City to vacation and escape the summer heat in the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York. But it was after WWII in the 1940s and 50s that this influx reached it’s peak… Read More

Box Score When I was a girl growing up in the Bronx dozens of daily and weekly newspapers were being published in New York City.  My parents read the Times,  the Herald Tribune,  and the New York Post which was delivered to our house every afternoon. The Post was founded in 1801 by Alexander Hamilton… Read More

Frenched! I was 11 years old the first time I went away to camp.   Until then I’d spent wonderful summers with my family at my grandmother’s small Catskill hotel.  (See My Heart Remembers My Grandmother’s Hotel,  My Game Mother,  The Troubadour, and Playing with Fire) But my grandmother had just sold the hotel,  and in… Read More

Family Photo I never knew my husband Danny’s father Naftali,  sadly he died while Danny was still in college.   But Naftali was one of nine siblings and I had the good fortune to know many of my husband’s  aunts and uncles.   (See  Tracing Our Roots,   College Girl –  for Aunt Hannah,  and  Minyan… Read More

Blizzard  I was born in Charleston, SC where my dad was stationed during WW II.   After the war we returned to my folks’ native New York where they bought a house on the GI bill.  (See Parkchester, Celebrate Me Home,  Magnolia, The Story of a Garden,  and Mr Bucco and the Ginger Cat) And so… Read More

Spoiler Alert! When Chevy Chase’s movie European Vacation  came out I watched it with my son and we thought it was hilarious. My husband hadn’t seen it and we regaled him with all the funny bits.  Sometime later we watched it together,  but to our surprise he didn’t find it very funny. Then he told… Read More

Words with Suzy I’m not much of a gamester although both my parents played bridge,  my dad played chess,  and my mom played mah jongg,   (See My Game Mother) Of course as a kid I certainly played Monopoly and all the other popular board games of the day,  and in fact for years there was… Read More

Life is a Highway  You may remember that I’ve banged up a few cars in my day, including my husband’s beloved T -bird.  (See Fender Bender and Rainy Night on the Highway) Finally I decided it was time to face the music and so early one Sunday morning I found myself at a mid-town hotel for a day-long… Read More

Rainy Night on the Highway I confess I’m not the best of drivers and I’ve had my share of accidents,  and have also taken some blame when I wasn’t even behind the wheel.  (See Fender Bender,  and The Chain Letter and the Fender Bender) Back in the late 60s I was working in a public library… Read More