As many of you know, my mother passed away peacefully this morning. She courageously fought a battle with cancer for more than 20 years, and while she lost the battle for her life, she won the hearts and spirits of many people along the way. She died a good death—at home, surrounded by family, with […]
Family
The Great Thanksgiving Countdown: 5 Holiday Hosting Tips
If you are not hosting everyone at your house, consider yourself lucky. You don’t have to clean up the whole house, manage all the expectations, or think about whether or not everything can fit in your stove at the same time. I feel lucky this year because I’m going to my brother- and sister-in-laws’ house […]
How to Get Your Kids to Read
It occurs to me that I might have found the secret formula for getting kids to read. While the media and teachers complain that kids don’t read anymore, I can’t get my kids to stop. Even Lucia, who is too young to read, is a voracious reader. I jokingly yell at Eve (age 12), “How […]
Dinner for 23—Part 2
Well, actually, it turned out to be dinner for 25 (plus one kid with swine flu quarantined in her room with Ramen noodles). The day of preparation went as planned—except that Wegmans did not have any decent organic grapes. I got the usual look, and a few comments, from people as I pushed my cart […]
Dinner for 23—Part 1
It’s my mother’s 81st birthday, and I’ve been elected to host a dinner for 23 family members at my house. Years ago, if presented with this goal, I would be totally freaking out by the day of the event. I would have been working on this night for weeks in advance, and by now have […]
In Memory of My Dad, Bob Rodale
Sunday, September 20 was the 19th anniversary of my father’s death. He was killed when he was only 60 years old, in a car accident in Russia. In retrospect, almost 20 years later, the situation seems ridiculous. Russia was still the communist Soviet Union, and the people there were going hungry from the inefficient and, […]
The Summer That Never Was…
My 12-year-old daughter keeps begging me to go back-to-school shopping, and I tell her she may not ask again for at least two weeks…but then that’s only a week before school starts. ARRRRGGGHHHHH! I feel like summer never even started! Between the constant rain and cool weather (there wasn’t one single night where I lay […]
Top 10 Tips for Sober Entertaining
I haven’t had an alcoholic drink in over 10 years, and I don’t miss it one bit (except maybe once in a while, after a hard day in the office). But it does make entertaining different, and slightly challenging. You don’t quite realize just how much entertaining revolves around alcohol, until you stop revolving around […]
Scratch
Raised on America’s first organic farm, Scratch author Maria Rodale learned how to make everyday favorites from, yes, scratch — the way you remember them; the way they turn out best.
Order NowOrganic Manifesto
Drawing on findings from leading health researchers as well as conversations with both chemical and organic farmers from coast to coast, Maria Rodale irrefutably outlines the unacceptably high cost of chemical farming on our health and our environment.
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