So, you’ve been taking a break from sweets after the indulgence of the holiday season. But aren’t you about done with your Whole 30, your liver detox, your Master Cleanse? Isn’t it about time you had some chocolate? Because Valentine’s Day, and besides, chocolate. Selection from Robitaille’s, Carpenteria, Ca. And if you’re not eating chocolate on Valentine’s Day, you’re not showing yourself enough love. I’ll do my detox, okay, never. (Although some day I will post about my ex

So much coordination was required for my move from Los Angeles to Washington state — organizing years of belongings into piles for sale, donation, and three households — that I didn’t have much time to plan the itineraries for my road trips north and south. And while preparation is the cornerstone of an uneventful trip, where’s the fun in that? Besides ensuring my car was safe and the roads ahead were passable, my sojourns were an exercise in improvisation. I stopped to eat w

Ahhh, February – when a woman’s fancy turns towards…chocolate – same as it does the other 11 months of the year. Some people’s passion for chocolate is so intense and consuming that they (we) call themselves “chocoholics,” as though they had a disease best treated with a twelve-step program, as opposed to just a nice 12 oz. bar of 83% Ecuadorian cacao. A friend of mine pointed out that practically no other gustatory delight inspires such a universal passion as does chocolate.

ECUADOR, 2012 We interrupt this trip to India to bring you a brief from the diametric hemisphere (that’s something like the Twilight Zone, but in color and with better food). I’ve started this entry as I lounge on a  tiny couch perched in front of a crackling fireplace, the only source of heat in my room at the magical La Mirage Garden Hotel, a Shangri-La high the Andes in the small “leather” village of Cotacachi, Ecuador. Cotacachi is about two hours north of the capital of