Off the job

Off the job, daily life is shared with my husband, Johannes, and our cat, Goldie. Johannes is a visual artist and Goldie is the mistress of the household.

In 2003 we moved from our long-time home in New Hampshire, exchanging the rugged stability of the White Mountains for temperate and sun-filled winters by the Mediterranean on Spain's southeast coast. Our apartment in Roquetas de Mar (Almería) is in the center of town, within walking distance of the mercado de abastos and up-to-date supermarkets for daily shopping, a modern shopping and entertainment mall, a new performing arts center, and an old (built in 1500) Andalusían fortress turned art gallery. The Mediterranean is just a ten-minute walk down the paseo, and 12 miles of palm-lined promenade connect us to the resort area of Roquetas and the next town over. Relying on public transportation, bikes, and our own feet to move about restores a deliberate pace to life, and helps to counteract the effects of abundant Spanish wine, fresh-baked bread, and tempting tapas.

Two trips home to the U.S. shape the year, but we still enjoy other travel, whether it is offered through visits to family in Denmark and Argentina, work-related trips, or just curiosity about our new country and the wider world around us.

Cooking in many styles is a favored activity of mine, and wherever I go I make long visits to markets, collect recipe postcards, joyously and energetically try others' culinary creations, and treasure the availability of facilities to try out my own.

Books--reading and browsing--are my other indulgence, and though too often I find myself in one place without just the book I want, with the Internet there is always sufficient reading material. The physical artifact still holds power but I try to restrain a tendency toward acquisition, limiting my collections now to works of and about the imaginative author for adults as well as children, Hans Christian Andersen--and to the cookbooks that satisfy me almost as much as cooking.

Services