Food Archives - Page 3 of 4 - Southern Girl Gone Global

Les Jardins de Bala for Lunch with a View

January 24, 2015June 28, 2017Cindy McCain

Les Jardins de Bala, my favorite lunch spot in town, is perched atop the 5-star hotel, Les Jardins de La Koutoubia, located in the front of Marrakech’s Medina. Sun lovers can eat the best Indian food I’ve found while overlooking the pool, the Koutoubia Mosque, and the Atlas Mountains. Around the corner are tables in the shade with comfy leather couches overlooking the ground floor pool. In the terrace gardens birds sing on boughs where bougainvillea and lemons bob in the wind.

The staff is amazing, friendly and accommodating, making every visit a pleasure. I love that they serve my usual request, Chicken Tikka Masala, from their dinner menu no matter the time of day. For those needing a break from souk shopping or jumping Jamaa el Fna Square, follow the doorman outside the hotel who’ll escort you up the elevator to a hidden haven. If local and unable to do lunch during the work week, drop by to toast the sunset.

My first time here was last month with my children visiting for the holidays. It’s now “our place.”

988931_10153050363797288_7800881215494394963_n — My colleague and photographer friend, Rabi’a Laurie Neeno

1781761_10153050298467288_5223079317224442639_o (1) — Jasna and me Photo Credit: Rabi’a Laurie Neeno

10608419_10153050262462288_712255814617363461_o — Photo by Rabi’a Laurie Neeno

10818333_10153050289697288_5083240251560016707_o — Photo by Rabi’a Laurie Neeno

10924676_10153050311052288_5010456095754618105_o — A good day in the souks Photo by Rabi’a Laurie Neeno

1557249_10153050299132288_1117378510873711589_o — A House Special for that Sunset Toast. Cuantro, Mailbu Rum & Bombay Gin Photo Credit: Rabi’a Laurie Neeno

Christmas Day in London

December 29, 2014January 3, 2015Cindy McCain

Christmas Day we attended the service at Westminster Abbey, another gift. Seats had been reserved months in advance but days before our trip someone returned three. The sermon referenced the truce on December 25, 1914 between English and German soldiers. More on the story here. As we sang hymns and heard the children’s choir in a cathedral built in 1066 where William the Conqueror was crowned on Christmas Day, I thought of my city, Marrakech, built in 1062, and of my new friends who live there. I thought of all the unrest in 2014 in my home country and abroad. And, as I try to do every day, I thanked God for His power which is greater than the world’s problems. With hope I prayed for peace.

After church we boarded a cruiser on the Thames and sailed to the Tower of London and back. Then we caught a black cab to The Castle in Notting Hill where we joined the locals in eating turkey and roast beef, popping Christmas crackers, and wearing paper crowns.

After walking back to the hotel and Skyping with family, as if on cue BBC provided a tradition usually done after Taylor and I decorated our tree on Jenry Court. We watched White Christmas. So many Christmas miracles. My cup runneth over.

Here’s to light, love, and life in 2015.

On a boat before us someone released pumpkin-sized bubbles into the air

Christmas Eve in London

December 28, 2014November 23, 2019Cindy McCain

Seems like old times. My children are asleep in the next room and I’m up early writing. The Three Musketeers are together again.

We spent a Happy Christmas in Merry Ole England, my first love as an English lit teacher when I began traveling abroad. My son wanted to see London, and my daughter has loved it since she, my niece, and I toured when they were in high school. I know the Brits know how to do the holidays. In fact, last week my English department coworkers and their wives got the festivities started. Nick, Anna and their gorgeous girls dressed in holiday frocks rang doorbells to surprise neighbors with plates of cookies and candies. Richard and Louise (below), hosted a Christmas party at their apartment, where I bought handmade gifts Louise makes for her business, Bodkin and Binca.

I couldn’t wait to smell and taste mulled wine at Christmas markets from Covent Garden to Camden. For weeks colleagues talked of seeing our families again and of eating our ways through our destinations. Whether spending Christmas in the US, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, Singapore, Austria, or India all dreamed like Clare of sugarplum fairies and other creature comforts we don’t find in Africa.

My mission was to bring back vanilla, nutmeg, and other spices for baking and to stock up on snuggle wear for the winter. Thanks to a colleague who turned me onto Primark, I was able to fill a carryon of plush sweaters, a scarf and a robe for 5 GBPs each.

Here’s how our holiday began…

In order to meet Taylor and Cole at Heathrow on Christmas Eve, I had to take a flight on December 23. The Colonnade, my first “sight unseen” purchase from Priceline was amazing. For $95 USD I booked this 4-star Victorian gem. The doorman led me to a room where classical music was playing softly and fruit, coffees and teas, and cookies were spread. After dinner next door at the Prince Alfred, I enjoyed my two favorite guilty pleasures for the first time since August–sliding into a bubble bath (I have only a shower in Morocco), then slipping under a down comforter.

Waiting for the loves of my life was very Love Actually. Family members stood, as I did, flowers in hand, staring at the door. I had to keep dabbing tears when I saw others hug, afraid I’d miss my two walk through the gate.

Since watching my fall addiction, BBC’s The Paradise, I’ve wanted to see Selfridges lit up for the holidays.

Taylor excited to be back on Oxford Street

Christmas Eve at Hyde Park’s Winter Wonderland

Love the little legs waiting patiently for a spin

A child inspired Christmas. They say Christmas is for kids. My gift this year was kissing my children–now grown– again. We missed celebrating with the rest of the family but knew–even before we Skyped–that we are always together in spirit. Watching The Holiday, the movie that made me want to do this trip years ago, we waited for Father Christmas. For the first time ever, there would be no tangible gifts under the tree, but we’d awaken as we went to sleep–with joy, thanksgiving, and love.

Incognito: Moments in Marrakesh

September 29, 2014August 12, 2015Cindy McCain

If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.

Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

So… my cover was blown. Last weekend I lost my huge floppy hat—the one I wear to shield me from the sun and would-be purse-snatchers. Gone are the days of tucking my hair in its crown and hiding behind sunglasses and in clothes bought in the souks. Of being so incognito a friend passed me in our courtyard, took a double take, and asked, “Is that you Cindy?” as I headed out to the grocery down the street. Though I laughed at friends from home who told me to darken my hair, I must now admit the only other person here I know who has been accosted (euphemism for mugged) was my blond teacher- friend across the hall. Add to that a Southern accent and you get being double-teamed in a narrow souk with a thirty-something man and a thirteen-year-old boy. Because the man on the motorcycle was following me so closely I feared he’d hit me, I turned and motioned him to pass. When he laughed and refused, enjoying his game, I turned to walk on, almost tripping over a boy kneeled in front of me. He was making a lewd gesture with his empty water bottle as if he planned to push it up my skirt. As I jumped back, startled and disgusted, he sprung out of the way like a cackling Jack-in-the-Box. Motorcycle Guy and two other men guffawed, enjoying the sideshow.

Pressing on, determined to keep the blond hair I’ve had my entire life, I decided to fulfill another fantasy. I’d be Grace Kelley. Though I have no convertible to zip around in– hair scarf blowing in the breeze–I’d be 60s chic (though without the period-perfect handbag I bought here but can never carry when alone). Thing is, pulling off Tippi Hedren is hard to do when wearing clown clothes. Genie pants, which I live in on the weekends, are comfortable but not flattering. Try to look like a local by wearing a loose smock with M. C. Hammer drawers. In disguise I am no longer a soft target, a lone lamb cut off from the herd, but I don’t look anything like the Princess of Monaco either. Not even the romanticized version of myself I saw tripping lightly down the street of my new French-flavored neighborhood.

But, honestly, whether I’ve been in a getup or not, there have been some shenanigans. Like last Friday when the cab driver agreed to 20 dirhams (less than $3 and a fair price here) to get me to the bus station where I needed to buy a ticket for the weekend. He later charged me seven times that amount after taking me on a no-joyride. When I arrived at the bus station, he insisted on waiting for me rather than my hailing another cab, chatting me up in English about what I was going to buy at my next stop, Djemma el-Fna Square. When I said “lanterns” he sped off, taking me to a friend on a deserted alley who owned a lighting shop far from where I was meeting friends for dinner. When his friend leaned into the car, confident I’d follow him inside, I told the driver again to take me to the square. Seemingly obliging, he sped off, this time stopping before another shop on the back forty, equally far from the square. Fed up, I said I’d just walk to the square, which he assured me was only a few blocks up the street and to the right. Thrilled to escape, I paid and trekked a half an hour in scary territory, burdened by an invisible “Kick Me” sign like the ones kids taped to peers’ backs in grade school. Not only did he dump me far from my destination. He charged me 150 dirhams for “assisting” me with shopping. Had I not been so desperate to escape, I’d have argued.

Still, of the countless cab rides I’ve taken these last six weeks, only three have been frustrating. In another case of Medina mayhem, my friend and I were taken for a ride. Literally. We showed our driver the address of a riad we’d read about tucked away in the souks. We knew he could only drive us so far, but when he dropped us off on a deserted dead end and assured us we were only two quick turns away from the restaurant, we trusted him. Once we turned that first and only corner, we realized we were in some back alley of a souk so narrow we had to walk single-file. Too late to turn back given there were no cabs where he left us, we were mice in a maze of 12 feet walls, unable to find any landmarks when we looked up. Twisting and turning several times–not the two he promised– for awhile without another human in sight, we feared what lay around the next bend. It was the stuff nightmares are made of. When we saw a group of guys coming toward us, we plowed through, picking up speed till we were running to the beams of light ahead. Finally spilling out into a main souk, we went into the first hotel we found, starved and scared. The clerk said the riad we sought was far away and his hotel was full for dinner, but with a flick of the wrist he signaled a white-robed man hovering in the alley to take us to a place he—this stranger—recommended. We followed the mysterious man with a camel-sized grin down another alley off the artery of the souk we’d finally found. Just as we wondered if this, too, was a trick, we rounded a corner where a heavy ornate door swung open to another world. Inside a secret garden awaited. I don’t recall where we were headed, but loved the serenity of Le Riad Monceau, where we landed.

One of the last pieces of advice I was given before I moved was to be wise about who I allow into my garden. Ah, to be known– unmasked, unafraid, undaunted. Being admitted into a garden, an oasis, particularly in the commerce and chaos of the souks, is rest and freedom. Happiness is to find beauty everywhere. So is remembering sometimes when we feel terribly lost and confused, relief is just around the corner.

Our guide who brought us here and loved to pop around for pictures.

Friday Night Lights: Jemaa el Fna Square

September 18, 2014June 22, 2019Cindy McCain

They were women who wore brightly coloured djellabas with silky hoods halfway down their backs, and their hands and feet were covered in an intricate web of design. ‘Tattoos,’ Bea whispered. ‘Henna,’ the woman nearest me laughed, noticing my fascinated stare.-–Esther Freud, Hideous Kinky

Last Friday my friend, Jasna, and I returned to Jemaa el Fna where Esther Freud, great granddaughter of Sigmund Freud, lived in the early 70s with her mother and sister. In her autobiographical novel, Hideous Kinky, Freud tells the story of her mom taking her and her sister, Bea, from London to live in Marrakesh in search of adventure. The five-year-old paints their expat life as an exciting, confusing time. Real. Surreal. I get it.

Note–when the Henna Lady grabs your hand and begins drawing, despite your telling her plainly, “Not today,” she expects to get paid. Like the Turtle Guy, no matter how much she ignores your protests and claims to “just want to show you something,” she will ask for cash in the end. Lots. Likewise, be wary of some cab drivers when seeking a riad in the souks. More on that later…

The square was lit with the lights of a hundred stalls of food. They appeared at sunset and were set out in lanes through which you could wander and choose where to eat your supper. There were stalls decorated with the heads of sheep where meat kebabs grilled on spits, and others that sold snails that you picked out of their shells with a piece of wire. There were cauldrons of harira – a soup that was only on sale in the evening – and whole stalls devoted to fried fish, and others that sold chopped spinach soaked in oil and covered in olives like a pie. Each stall had a tilley lamp or two which they pumped to keep the bulbs burning and metal benches on three sides where you could sit and eat.

We sat up late into the night drinking syrupy mint tea.

A cousin to the Henna Lady and Turtle Guy, Food Stall Sam competes with the other guys who hand you a menu, grab you by the arm, and attempt to usher you to a seat. And yes, he jumped into the picture, then wanted to be paid. One of the other guys used flattery: “You’re so skinny. You must sit and eat.” Another called us his “homies” as we circled twice trying to decide, and another, took the pragmatic, perhaps more honest approach: “Same shit at all these stalls. Might as well eat here.”

In the end, I had lamb skewers and couscous, then chose sweets from a rolling cart to take home.

I’d be back, often. But Saturday I left the old for for the new, calm for cacophony, where I read by a beautiful blue pool. More on that in next post….

Cooking for Company

November 20, 2013March 30, 2020Cindy McCain

Ok, so I was going to write that tonight I am cooking and eating with Frank. No lie, I have shared more time in the kitchen with that boy, Sinatra, than any male I know. But to be truthful, I’m hanging with the whole Rat Pack. Dean Martin, fav of my sis and Mama Sargeant, is singing right now as I eat my new Dish Darling—Coq au Riesling. I just made it the cover shot of my Pinterest “I Fancy Food” Board. (Need I say more? For all those who know my go-to cliché, “long story short,” the answer is, of course, I will say more. Always.)

Coq au Riesling renders the best “sop” I’ve ever had, and coming from a Kentucky-Turned-Tennessee-Girl raised on buttermilk and red-eye gravies, you can trust me. And Ella. I never allow my puppy “people food,” but tonight I slathered the creamy concoction over her Iams. The little lab mix lapped it up. I varied the recipe by using rosemary and lemon thyme from my deck rather than parsley, and to prevent family feuds, I used all legs rather than equal parts of legs and thighs. My Mama Lou called legs “drumsticks,” and she and my dad preferred them to any other part of the chicken. So do my kids and I.

You can also trust my rave review because I’m about to go all gut honest and still raw…again. First of all, like my dad who called “Izod” shirts “Izog,” and my mom who makes Walmart and Kroger plural, I did a brain switch on the name of the chef, Nigel Slater, who created Coq au Riesling. When I pinned Alida Ryder’s blogpost in which Nigel’s recipe was reprinted, I thought the name read “Nigella Lawson.” I hadn’t seen the brunette British bombshell in years, so when I Googled “Nigel Slater” to see what she was up to, I discovered she is a he. Both are food gurus, but they are very different people. So technically, tonight the Brat Pack welcomed Nigel, not Nigella, to dinner. Though I didn’t dream up the traditionally French dish, my oversized imagination transported me to Paris where I sat, not at my kitchen table, but as a Parisian sidewalk cafe. Mama Lou taught me how to do that when we’d fly to France via her rocking chair and then move to the couch where tv trays were tables at Maxims. And as I did last month when in Paris for real, I, of course, snapped a picture.

Which brings me to a bit of a struggle due to the Facebook/Pinterest Effect. While we were once frightened by 1984 or The Truman Show, we find ourselves teetering between putting on a positive face/showing gratitude and living in a “Look How Great My Life Is” photo shoot (ie) trying to cook like The Barefoot Contessa while looking like Giada; resisting Instagram Envy when our travel pics aren’t from the Great Barrier Reef or Bali; missing realtime conversation because we’re distracted checking in at cool concerts, restaurants, and social events which, in turn, makes someone else feel “How Sad My Life Is” because he/she wasn’t invited; feeling pressured to book the next Richard Avedon for engagement/wedding/firstborn’s first birthday party pics before even dating anyone. But I’ve decided I can say life is good, and simultaneously wish someone special was sharing this meal with me.

I knew the day would come when my kids would leave home, so I tried Match as an insurance policy against an empty table. After a not-fun first date several years ago, the angry guy who drove me home sneered, “Oh yeah, all you women are soooooo happy with your lives. But you know what? You aren’t all that happy or you wouldn’t be on Match.” His bitterness scared me. The truth is I have much to be grateful for. Once a coworker compared me to Ally McBeal: “You have to love her. You are both the ‘Queens of Angst.’” I remember mentally depositing him, Ally-like, into a curbside dumpster. Probably because he was right. I’m happy to say I’m no longer as full of angst as I once was, but as I discussed with friends, Kim and Cheryl yesterday, life is about seasons. As for Ally, I love that she was honest. Though good at her career, though independent, she wasn’t afraid to want more. Wanting a life partner didn’t make her weak. It doesn’t make me weak either. Admitting it makes me real. When he joins me for Coq au Riesling one day, I’m sure Frank and Nigel, though not Ella, will gladly scoot over.

Fall Weather Back Home

November 14, 2013October 25, 2016Cindy McCain

This week in Nashville we had our first snow flurries. It was even colder than a month ago when I stepped off the plane in The Netherlands to a twenty degree temperature drop. On my fall break trip to Europe I was forced for the first time since May to exchange flip flops for close-toed shoes. I also broke out the scarves, a fleece and my oversized Blarney Woolen Mills sweater.

I bought the classic, the color and comfort of oatmeal, in Dublin in 2000. It was the first trip of several where I would learn to depend on the kindness of strangers. I’d met eleven church members once at a meeting before we left; two years later my roomie, Amy, would ask me to be in her wedding. We stayed in an inn— four-to-a-room in bunk beds—where the showers were icy but the egg salad sandwiches with salt and vinegar chips divine.

In that Greystones fishing village I met each morning with God, prayer journal in hand, on a cliff over the Irish sea. Each night I saw the sunset at 10 as we walked home to the inn from the pub. During my stay I saw U2’s studio, sang in beautiful churches, and hiked by the lake in the greenest of parks. On our free day I left the group and hopped on a bus alone to explore the next town down the road. Traveling with locals, anonymous, felt strangely exciting –something I’d do on future trips every chance I’d get like in London in October when I went to the British Library and finally saw the oldest transcript of Beowulf. Looking out the bus window I believed for the first time I could by happy teaching in a foreign land because it didn’t seem foreign at all. I could see my kids playing in the rural, rolling hills of Ireland, much like I had in the small Kentucky town where I was raised. The Emerald Isle also reminded me of Lexington where I was a college bride on a horse farm.

Since returning to my life I’ve been self-soothing with comfort food– Irish beef stew. I’ve missed that balmy June of 2000…felt restless with the change of seasons… simply wanted more …and savored the simple pleasures of enough. I’ve made three visits to McNamara’s– one with friends, one with my son, one alone. I might not be a Galway Girl, but in cold weather it feels like Ireland…and like home.

Irish Beef Stew recipe–I roast in the oven potatoes, carrots, onion, garlic and herbs, then add to the stock. I also use 1/2 can of fire-roasted tomatoes rather than tomato paste and red pepper for heat.

Dancing on Grapes

September 17, 2011October 25, 2016Cindy McCain

April

Kim

Kim and Mayuresh

Last Saturday was as good as it gets. A year ago my friend, April, invited me to Italian Lights, calling me back to my first love affair with a culture. Check it out here: http://southerngirlgoneglobal.com/2010/09/18/finding-an-old-love-in-new-venue-italian-lights/. This year, I invited a gang and I was back in Italy again. I spent hours at table exchanging stories, laughs and food with friends I’d met through my salsa world, Kim K, Dorothy, Jose, April, Jason, Emila, Tricia, and Mayuresh; my sister, Penny, and brother-in-law, Jeff (It was his birthday!); and Kim R.

I’m often asked how I became part of the salsa world in Nashville, a global community who loves Latin dance. My response in short: Italy where I first learned to just BE.

I’ve written other posts on why I love Italy…how it all began one summer when I taught English there. I’d gone with students-in-tow in 2000, 2004, and 2009, each time loving sharing with them places both ancient and beautiful—Venice, Rome, Florence, Capri, Naples, Sorrento, and Pisa. But it was 2005-2007 when I met, then stayed in homes of Italian friends, Antonio, Anna, Fabio, Antonio, Vilma, and Georgio, that I learned firsthand how to live La Dolce Vita. Still framed on my daughter’s wall is a picture of her dancing with Antonio at my surprise birthday party in Torino. She says in just one visit Antonio and Vilma were like grandparents to her.

Meanwhile, Kim Roberts was spending summers with friends in Spain, sometimes doing weekend trips to Italy. We met in an Italian class, sharing a love for travel, the romance languages, and the passionate people who speak them. I liked her instantly as she burst into the first lesson, swishing a bohemian skirt with stories of dancing till dawn with some girlfriends the night before.

Kim admitted that she’s a closet expatriate, that she ached the first time she left Spain. I understood and confessed I felt the same way the first time I flew out over the Italian alps. In Spain and Italy we love the way meals last hours over good wine and interesting conversation. We’d both said, “When I’m there, I finally feel more alive. In a strange way, I feel I’m home.”

Though we’ve never been to Italy together, our simultaneous travels bonded us. In the early fall of 2007 I was on the shores of Lake Como while she was on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. Like Elizabeth Gilbert in Eat, Pray, Love, we found through travel joy, serenity, adventure, and relationship. But in 2008 when our slim bank accounts prevented our escaping by the usual flight plan, we were forced to embrace what Gilbert says is the main point of her book—that to change our lives, we don’t have to go far. We just have to shift. So our gypsy souls resolved to refocus. Like Dorothy, we would stop chasing rainbows and find contentment and happiness in our own backyard. We had to find what Kim calls, our people…those who seek joy and find it in a celebratory culture right here in Music City.

And we did…first in folks like Patti Nelson of Italian for Fun and later in the Latin dance community. More on that later… Off to make potato salad for today’s Chilean Independence Day Celebration and a trifle for the Hicks’ Copacubana party. For some serendipity, check out my tribute to Latin culture and the Hicks’ house parties, just published on Italian chef, Paulette Licitra’s award-winning food journal, Alimentum. Ciao!

http://www.alimentumjournal.com/pot-luck/

Summer Art and Play Dates

June 19, 2011January 2, 2015Cindy McCain

Summer afternoon – Summer afternoon… the two most beautiful words in the English language.
–Henry James

Art is the only way to run away without leaving home.
–Twyla Tharp

All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.
–Pablo Picasso

All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost; the old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost. From the ashes a fire shall be woken, a light from the shadows shall spring; renewed shall be blade that was broken, the crownless again shall be king.
–J.R.R. Tolkien

I love getting lost. In summer I can do what Julia Cameron calls “artist dates,” wanton wanderings to inspire creativity and cultivate sanity. I can stop racing down a linear path like the March Hare late for the Mad Hatter’s tea party, and thus, avoid going mad myself. And when folks say I’m “slow-walking,” KentuckySpeak for wasting my time, I can tell them to take a hike, preferably down a rabbit hole.

Yesterday I had lunch with the Mad Hatter and the March Hare at The Italian Market. Growing up four months and one street apart, my daughter, Taylor, and niece, Emily, were in Alice together their freshman year of high school. Many-an-audience-member said they stole the show, and I felt again like we were in Wonderland. Like childhood Sunday lunch that lasted all afternoon at Mama Sargeant’s or Torino dinner that went til near midnight at Anna and Antonio’s, we took our sweet time…Limoncello Torte and all.

A few shiny objects later (what my son calls distractions but I call decisions when I get off the clock)… buying lavender and cilantro, book-hunting at McKay’s, snapping pictures of a church in Sylvan Park… we parked in the shade of the Parthenon. At The American Artisan Festival, our original destination, we talked to artists, patted dogs, sipped strawberry lemonade in the shade. I bought an “original” sketch from a boy with his grandmother working the crowd for camp money. He’d traced a crow, either Heckle or Jeckle. The perfect souvenir.

We’d blown off the direct route, “the way a crow flies,” to the park. Like freebirds we picked up bright and shining things along the way…good conversation, laughs, leisure. We met artists who reminded us we are all made in the image of the Great Creator. By honoring their inner children with their work, they invited ours to join and play.

My friend, Cindy David, of Cindy David Designs.

Monica Chantada, another friend modeling one of Cindy’s latest designs.

Vintage bags from Lisa Toland (California)

Beverly Hayden Art

Not much of a games girl, but always loved Monopoly and Operation…The Junk Bunk is cool.

Artwork above by Lisa Norris, the one girl.

Love these by Ynon Mabat (Florida)

http://www.jerilanders.com/

Also liked the work of Nicario Jimenez, Brent Sanders and Big World Photo (cause it is).

Farewell 2010…and a decade

December 31, 2010October 26, 2016Cindy McCain

While many may think I’m at a salsa party on NYE, I’m not. I wanted a last night by the tree, my son in the next room playing video games. He’ll graduate in 2012…too soon…and I haven’t had the chance over Christmas break to look back on the past year and thank God for all His blessings.

Many firsts in 2010…my students doing a book study with Sherry’s class in Ecuador via Skype. Classic Coup featured in Her Nashville, then my writing for the magazine. Examiner interviews with amazing people, like Alberto Fuguet and a salsera who inspired me with her story, soon to be published. Loving Middle Eastern food and eating it while watching the Super Bowl. First trip to Vegas and to Kansas City. Sharing Go-Jo with a friend before he hit the Road Less Traveled. Our bathroom restored over Thanksgiving when 8 Days of Hope came to town. The kindness of strangers.

And speaking of Tennessee Williams…my first trip to NOLA. Why had I not gone sooner considering it’s the most European-feeling city in America? There Kim did a reunion concert with her former husband/band member that loyal fans, Kim’s high school friends, and five of us from Nashville traveled to see. She sang like an angel, he played up a storm, and they bantered like June Carter and Johnny Cash. I’d met Kim post-Bill and her Rockabilly days. Seeing them slip back into something onstage so familiar and so different reminded me of the lives we all live and leave behind. Their reunion foreshadowed my own last fall when I saw girls–classmates most of whom I hadn’t seen since my high school graduation. Girls from ’77– different and yet the same.

2011 marks not only a new year. It begins a new decade. Since 2000 I’ve lost both grandmothers. Others have moved away or moved on. I look back each year to embrace the comfort of Wordsworth’s words: “We will grieve not, rather find/ Strength in what remains behind;/ In the primal sympathy / Which having been must ever be.”

In the last decade ten more senior classes graduated. My kids, pets, and I continued celebrating life with birthdays, vacations, Pokeman, American Girl, movie nights, soccer, drama, cheerleading and wrestling. I’ve seen my nieces grow up one street over, alongside my children. I became part of a salsa family that taught me to celebrate EVERY birthday–even the once-dreaded milestones. I’ve seen my sister, mother, and daughter see Italy for the first time. I’ve gone to the beach and Barcelona with friends, explored from Santa Monica to Malibu with Taylor and Cole.

New friends, new passions, new places…like Garden Brunch Cafe, Lassiz, Cantino Laredo, McNamara’s Irish Pub. And old favorites, comfort food, like clam chowder and beef stew, Radnor Lake and Mad Donna’s. A tradition, taking my sis out for her birthday, became new when Penny and I saw A Scattered, Smothered, and Covered Christmas at the new downtown dinner theater. Family and friends still here…passages as we change and move on. Welcome home from Africa, Sally, friends forever since we started Mrs. Monday’s K-5 class together. And hello friends-yet-to-be in 2011.

Once Upon a Time in Dublin in 2000…