Where did I grow up? What is my favorite _________?

CD and SP asked where did you grow up?


You're right-- I grew up in New England, with all its fantastic seasons (plus the extra one!  Mud season, anyone?), stodgy colonial houses, prep schools, sailors, and whale watchers.  I was born in Vermont, but my parents moved to suburban Rhode Island when I was two, so my first memories were of feeding the raccoons that lived under our porch dog biscuits (which I did get on trouble for-- probably why I remember it).  When I was four my parents moved to a more rural area, bought a horse, then another...by the time I was in junior high we had three horses and I essentially raised myself in the woods behind the barn.  It was a good deal for everyone.


I went to college in Vermont, spent a year chasing monkeys in rain forests around the world, moved to NYC for grad school, dropped out of grad school, moved to San Francisco, where I found out I really *am* an east coaster at heart, moved to Boston for grad school #2, where I realized that I was maybe not THAT much of a yankee, moved to NYC again for grad school #3, where I have remained.  Meanwhile my parents have moved to northern Vermont where they have started collecting llamas.


Speedy and I do intend to move to Western Mass (Hampshire county) in the next year or so, so we can stop working so damn much and have a yard bigger than the 12' x 20' glorified patio that we currently have.

2 Chicks 1 Hatchling asked about favorites:

Favorite book? 


Yikes!  Just one??  I will give you a range:  The Flight of the Iguana (David Quammen); Middlesex (Jeffrey Eugenides); Anna Karenina (Tolstoy); Native Speaker (Chang-Rae Lee)

Favorite musician?

I do not have a favorite musician.  If you were to peer into my iPod you would find that a) I do not update my music nearly as often as I do my food and news podcasts and b) I stopped paying attention somewhere around 1996, with rare exceptions.

I like your standard girl-with-a-guitar stuff (Ani Difranco, Melissa Ferrick, etc.) Then there's Leonard Cohen, who I absolutely adore.  Then there's the whole anti-folk genre (Mouldy Peaches, etc.)  that makes me terribly happy.  And jazz/blues.  Even a little country.  Punk.  Feminist hip hop.

Favorite food?



Spicy Thai or Korean are my favorite don't-try-this-at-home genres.  But at home, my favorite fall/winter recipe is kale simmered in veggie both served over garlic-rubbed baguette with a soft-cooked sunny-side up egg on top, sprinkled with fresh parmegiano and red pepper flakes.

On the sweet side, I will take lemon, lime, mango, passionfruit, and berry desserts over chocolate any day.  I don't believe in "too sweet" or "too rich".  I think people who say those  things are secretly trying to claim some kind of taste-bud embedded moral superiority.

Favorite trip (location)?

I went to Bhutan for a trek with my family before Bhutan had TV or the internet, when tourists were closely regulated and only a handful were allowed at a given time.  It was magical.  The glacial rivers, the mountainous terrain, the prayer flags festooning every ridge, and prayer wheels chiming in every stream.  There was no noticeable trash or pollution.  It was as close to pristine as anything I have ever seen. If I believed in a god, then I would believe it resided here.

Or in the Thai or Indonesian rain forest, at dawn, when the night sounds slowly cease and there is a moment of silence before the daytime cacophony breaks loose.  The gibbons duetting overhead every morning was my absolute favorite part of the day- before they noticed me and I spent the rest of the hours crashing through the thorny and often poisonous understory trying to keep up with them.  There is so much life there, and every living thing is stridently, brilliantly asserting itself.  If it weren't for the leeches I would still be there, chasing those damn gibbons...