My first real introduction to books came in the fourth grade, in the very small library of the private Christian school I attended. I don’t remember how many shelves there were, but in my memory there weren’t many. It hardly mattered. To me, that little room was enormous. There was nothing particularly illicit hiding on those shelves. This was, after all, a Christian school. The Chronicles of Narnia became one of my first go-to choices and, without my knowing it at the time,

I am finally going to let these go—after 31 years, brought back from a trip to Israel in 1995. I never used them. I kept saving them because once they were gone, they were gone. Somehow, using them felt like I was letting go of the memories they represented. And I was always waiting for the "perfect" meal... the "right" occasion. Instead, time did what time does. The spices lost their aroma and flavor, and I missed the chance to enjoy them. It made me realize how often we do

A Beginner's Story About 20 years ago, I discovered wine—real wine, not Boone’s Farm or the ever-popular White Zinfandel from Sutter Home and Beringer. And so began a new passion. Back in the day, we all started with White Zinfandel and thought we were sophisticated—of course, we were! We had graduated from Boone’s Farm. But venturing beyond that was tricky: reds either tasted terrible or left me with a pounding headache. Wine tastings? I didn’t even know they existed. My re