Years ago – OK, many years ago, my father and I were at a country fair in Cleburne, Texas. We walked around, ate fried things, and I remember enjoying the evening for the way it let him tell stories of his life growing up that I had not heard before. One of the things they…

Thanks to a link from a friend, I sat down to these words after watching my NCAA Men’s Basketball Bracket go bust, thanks to the upsets of the day: The world is a confusing place. Correlation looks like causation; the signal sounds like the noise; randomness is everywhere. This raises the obvious question: How does…

Today was the first day of the week that I have not had to go from school to the Duke restaurant. Instead, I came home to cook dinner. OK, first I took a basketball nap, meaning I dozed off watching first round games of the NCAA Men’s Tournament, and then I went grocery shopping, and…

On my way from school to kitchen this afternoon, I had the misfortune of being on I-40 when they decided to block it because the Vice President was visiting somewhere nearby. He never came anywhere near the gang of terrorists parked around me. And I was thirty minutes late to work. I am puzzled once…

I started rereading A Passage to India today. One of the people I work with at the Durham restaurant was asking for books to read and I suggested my favorite of E. M. Forster’s novels. When she said she was going to read it, I decided I would go along for the ride. The flyleaf…

In the shadow of the chapel steeplewe’ve simmered and sautéed all evening, following the familiar patterns we know,trying a few new things, marking time bymaking dinners, passing plates, and,finally, taking out the trash. This morning, time was moved alongby turning pages, the clicking of keyboards,and restroom requests; the tools of thetrade are stored in backpacks…

I gave my notice to my chef who hired me for both the Duke and Durham restaurants. Though my exit will be somewhat gradual over the next five or six weeks, I am leaving my job as a professional chef to return to teaching, and specifically teaching English in a small private school made up…

A certain man had two sons. It’s the way Jesus started a lot of the parables, including the one we call the Prodigal Son, which, I might add, is named for the younger sibling. It’s one of those stories I’ve heard so many times I can picture it without even having to think to hard,…

I continued my reading of Nora Gallagher’s Practicing Resurrection and only got about five pages in when I a quote that brought the rest of the day rushing back to me. A spiritual director told me once that God is found on the edge of things, in the margins. About a drunk who sleeps on…

Abel spent the afternoon prepping the vegetable plate: slicing shiitakes and scallions, reducing the risotto, and spreading the mixture onsheet pans to let it cool. Then he enlisted me to make the rice balls and roll them in Japanese breadcrumbs.He cut sweet potatoes, blanched greens, and roasted garlic to make the cream sauce. The thirty-seven…