Clever in Kind

Does not a friend make,

To spite.

The pouring of fresh brewed tea.

Coffee...Merely

a-front.

Detail from Nabi Gallery Exhibition.  July, 2009.

Best Friends

The fork and knife were best friends at breakfast Sunday,

as light fluffy pancakes arrived with an egg over easy and

basil pesto sausage.

Flue Cleared , Fire Forgotten

A simple menu of seven cheeses, 30 chocolates, and fresh grapes with kumquats. Almonds, biscotti, matzoh, and cookies... favored incidentals accompanied by water, wine, and hot spiced cider. The flue cleared, but fire forgotten; we were fortunate for warm, gracious guests who brought with them, ambiance.

Macaroons

Passion Fruit, Truffle Oil, Mint Mocha, Cassis...keys to perfect tea.

Image credit Tiffany & Co.

Observers Incognito

It was an exotic sprawl of luxury hotel corridors, restaurants and beaches in Old Lahaina and Kapalua.  A week of multiple rendezvous with family and friends...each meetings took some effort to get to...in an old fashioned corner convenience store, were two familiar faces in different ethnic skins observe my running about. 

Stone Levitation Ales

"In love, there often must be forgiveness..."     ~Greg Koch

It took all the beauty and IBU's in a pint of Levitation and an aggressive inquiry in Winter's rain to gain admission.

With demons at play and many in dismay...there is love.

Familiar Smiles Never Change

It was wine and water with tapas, sans tea...even before a well liquored dessert, 30 years seemed almost like yesterday.

A Friday Afternoon Tea Party

      Simply all that it should be...

                                                     

Thoughtful Gesture

The day far from done,

A neighbor's thoughtful gesture,

Touches.

Kindred Souls

When waterfalls serve as a kismet point in understanding... a meeting place for strangers who experience similar lives, on a staggered timeline, in the same lifetime...Is this where kindred souls who defer despair come from?

Sonnet CXX

CXX

That you were once unkind befriends me now,
And for that sorrow which I then did feel
Needs must I under my transgression bow,
Unless my nerves were brass or hammer'd steel.
For if you were by my unkindness shaken
As I by yours, you've pass'd a hell of time,
And I, a tyrant, have no leisure taken
To weigh how once I suffered in your crime.
O, that our night of woe might have remember'd
My deepest sense, how hard true sorrow hits,
And soon to you, as you to me, then tender'd
The humble slave which wounded bosoms fits!
But that your trespass now becomes a fee;
Mine ransoms yours, and yours must ransom me.

William Shakespeare

One of three essential B's.

Assam Hazelbank from a non-grouchy purveyor loves the company of  little brown boxes 

from Bouley...

Now repeat after me.

Newby's Indian Breakfast served at Afternoon Tea, only after visiting with guests.

An Ecclectic New York, New Year

Deep steamed Sencha to welcome the new year,

Delicate, Japanese, Green.

Handmade Pierogis to welcome the coming decade,

Hearty, Polish, White.

Gingerbread to welcome back tradition,

Rich, Moist, Dark. 

Hues to accent the auspicious in nature,

Orange, Red, Black.