I’d been waiting for months when I finally got the call from Alaska last March: Wild ice was on. A roughly two-week high-pressure window of cold and clear weather had frozen Portage Lake, the terminus of Portage Glacier, some 50 miles southeast of Anchorage, and it was solid enough to skate on its wild —…
Nestled in the dense, residential Los Angeles neighborhood of Victor Heights, a tightly packed plot of Craftsman and Victorian homes has stood the test of time, serving as single-family residences in one of the city’s oldest neighborhoods. Yet these bungalows will soon serve a new purpose — micro restaurants offering Taiwanese pineapple cake and freshly…
Carla Hall’s tarot card reading was running long. Astrology, numerology, psychics, the Chinese zodiac — she’s open to all manner of metaphysical messaging. I slipped off my shoes in the foyer of her century-old house in the Takoma neighborhood of Washington, D.C., out of respect for a recent million-dollar gut renovation. Then I went to…
Cold February nights call for slowly simmered stews and braises; heady, savory aromas; and bowls of succulent, fall-off-the-bone meats. But what if you’re pressed for time? I’d prescribe Yasmin Fahr’s spicy, speedy recipe for skillet ginger chicken with apricots. The genius thing here is that although the meal comes together in less than an hour,…
Jes’ka Washington lives in a six-bedroom house on a hill with avocado trees and a spectacular view, not far from the rabbit farm she runs. For less than $50,000, Shoshana Kirya-Ziraba and her husband built a four-bedroom, two-bathroom house on family farmland with goats, turkeys and about a thousand chickens. Mark and Marlene Bradley now…
In 1958, when Mary Pat Laffey Inman became a stewardess — as they were then called — for Northwest Airlines, she was 20 years old and the clock was already ticking. At 32, she would be forced to retire. That is, if she didn’t marry, get pregnant or even gain too much weight before that:…
Q: In May 2019, I purchased a condominium from the sponsor in a brand-new building in Brooklyn. From the beginning there were issues with the heating, ventilation and air-conditioning system. The problems persist and affect the whole building. The repair cost is now $90,000. The company that installed the HVAC system filed for bankruptcy. The…
There are a few essentials for any child’s birthday party: a theme, a cake, some balloons, a piñata created in the image of a convicted killer. At least that was the checklist for Alana Elizondo of Eagle Pass, Texas, when her daughter Raelynn requested a Selena Quintanilla theme for her eighth-birthday party. Ms. Elizondo and…
After Joseph Lelyveld, a former executive editor of The New York Times, died last month, his brother Michael Lelyveld went online to see how he was being remembered. He found obituaries in major news outlets, as expected. But he also found other, unexpected portraits of his brother. At least half a dozen biographies were published…
Good morning. Saltimbocca — the name translates from the Italian as “jump in the mouth” — is a dish traditionally made with veal cutlets wrapped with prosciutto and sage, quickly cooked in butter and oil, and occasionally topped with cheese for a run beneath the broiler. Saltimbocca is, our David Tanis has written, largely a…
