Seventeenth in a series on the teas of China.
The Chinese scent green, oolong and even black teas sometimes, often with flowers unknown to the rest of us with exotic names like: bailan (magnolia), chulan (chloranthus), daidai, youtze, milan and—my favorite—osmanthus, a rare flower used in some of certain famous perfumes.  Osmanthus tea is black but [...]

Concerned, even cynical friends deemed us crazy to accompany our eldest daughter, her Tamil-born Hindu husband, and their 10-month-old twin daughters on a trip to introduce the girls to their Indian roots and relatives in Bangalore and Mumbai.  What about germs?  What if they got sick?  Had we considered the myriad problems with not one, [...]

In recent years, Taiwan seems to have become an island of museums.  During my five-month stay, in addition to the renowned National Palace Museum and National Museum of History, I visited many others, including the Taipei 228 Memorial Museum, the JuMing Museum with a spectacular outdoor sculpture exhibit space, the Strawberry Culture Museum, the Yingge [...]

Aunts can be very wise.
They are frequently maligned, but they can provide great wisdom, encouragement, and stuff your parents could never let you have, like a cotton candy sandwich.
Ten years ago, I’d just bought a house on my own, was working fourteen-hour days on a high-profile project, and a good friend was dying of incurable [...]

More and more, I continue to see the old Mother Nature versus human reductionism controversy rear its ugly head. Tea certainly hasn’t escaped the scrutiny of the reductionists. It is no different than what has been happening with medicinal herbs since the onset of the pharmaceutical industry in the late 1920’s. I’ll give you my [...]

Sixteenth in a series on the teas of China.
Few periods in history have equaled the Ming in their obsession with flowers: most floral porcelain patterns trace their descent to this time, for instance, and flower paintings, embroidery, and even epics written on a single blossom illustrate the fascination.  It is not surprising that the Ming [...]

Some years ago, I introduced a co-worker to Earl Grey tea; she was so delighted with this addition to her bag of culinary knowledge, that she began referring to me as her “guru of gastronomy”. Via a friend of hers, who worked at a newly opened office park, she garnered an invitation for herself and [...]

For small business owners, it’s difficult to avoid thinking about the economy right now, no matter how fed up we all may be with news about unemployment, government bailouts, and the stock market.
For those in the retail business, this preoccupation with the economy might lately have turned into an obsession over sales. Many are worrying [...]

I’m drinking Darjeeling tea, and thinking about the cookies I baked this past week - not quite the cookie factory my mom and sister used to have going, but close.  It was fun, but it kind of made me sad, too, because I was thinking how much nicer it would have been if my dad [...]

My freezer is never without a bottle or two of chilling vodka.  I’m not a regular drinker, and it may take me a year or two to get through it, but being of Russian descent, it’s something (along with pickles and herring) I feel compelled to have around for whenever a celebration might arise. Since [...]