Swamp Thing

Posted by on Apr 21, 2013 in dish | 0 comments   After a weekend in Sunny San Diego, mimi can’t begin to say how happy she is to be back in her Central Florida swamp. The first time I ever flew west, I spent much of the time with my forehead pressed to the window, watching the landscape change from brilliant Southern green to hard-baked desert brown. Florida and California may have palm trees and beaches in common, but that’s where the...
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mimi’s Black Magic Chili

Posted by on Oct 28, 2012 in dish | 0 comments Tonight is the church’s Halloween Hoedown and the return of the church-wide Chili Cookoff. If there’s one thing that’s pretty certain in church-related cooking contests, it’s that the Bero/Gaston women will do very well. Mama, aka Miss Carolyn, is famous for her homemade soups and ridiculously good pecan shortbread, while middle sis, Cigi, makes a chocolate thing so good...
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Stop the Insanity

Posted by on Apr 15, 2011 in dish | 0 comments It’s FCAT week in Florida, which means several things:A)vomiting elementary school studentsB)stressed-out high schoolersC)overtaxed teachersD)all of the aboveIf you answered D, go to the head of the class. You see, when it’s standardized test week in the state of Florida, time slows (if not stops altogether), kids bail, and normally sane teachers kinda lose it a little. There’s just something...
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Spring Break

Posted by on Mar 25, 2011 in dish | 0 comments Four denizens of Chez mimi with no alarm clocks to set. Three new books waiting to be read. Two bare feet. One top down on Inga, the convertibeetle. Spring Break at last!
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Orange Blossom Special

Posted by on Mar 4, 2011 in dish | 0 comments The key scene in Marcel Proust’s À la recherce du temps perdu, or Remembrance of Things Past, is the madeleine episode, where the smell and taste of a cookie transports the narrator back to his childhood. (You can see a cartoon version of this famous French scene in the Pixar film Ratatouille). This happens to me every spring when the orange trees bloom.When we first moved to Central Florida, we...
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