Guest Contributor

Savor All Things Gold

a Guest Post by A-Lotus French fries—the crispy deep gold covered with a lightly scattered dusting of salt. Their warmth as they spill out of the box—all dipped in a Rorschach pool of ketchup. Waffle shaped, tightly curled and sprinkled with a bit of pepper. Or just like pocky sticks—straight and tall with a soft crunch…

Obsession. Duty. Love.

A Guest Post by Angela Chenus Food is a lot like love in our house, really. There are dual forces butting up against each other with a surround sound of other voices chiming in with votes no one gave them. That would be the five children. Giving my child PB & J sandwiches after an…

The First Recipe

A BIG QUESTION Guest Post by Krista Richards Mann — I love cooking. Starting in grade school, my mother let me make dinner for the family once a week. The first recipe I remember learning was something she called salmon patties. We removed small vertebras from a can of salmon with our fingers, mixed the…

Farmer in the Kitchen

Guest Post by Jennifer Lee I watch my farmer-husband cut the onion,  in the same methodical way that he carves rows into fields each spring. Outside, shadows stretch long across the yard. My man’s stalk-stubbled fields hibernate under snow. His hands crave work, even when acres sleep. He had announced it to the whole car on…

Confessions of a Fat Kid

Here’s a kickin’ “What is Eating You?” guest post by M.A. Brotherton — I have an unhealthy relationship with food. I do, it’s true. It’s a by-product of growing up in suburban United States with parents that were both fairly poor themselves in their youths. I never really had a chance to even learn what it really…

A Great Christmas Memory

(This is a guest post from Paul Merrill, part of the If Only in My Dreams: Big Question Series.) Christmas means different things to different people. After 22 years of marriage, Heather and I are finally understanding how much our families influenced how we enjoy holidays. How many presents are under the tree? Do you…

An Alternative Christmas

Guest Post by Writer-Runner-Teacher Tricia Dowcett Whenever my mother asks me what we would like for Christmas, I always reply that I would prefer to do rather than to have.  A show, a day in Boston, a trip to a museum.  She will usually frown and insist that at Christmas, the kids should be able to…

America Wants… Support

This is a Guest Post by Matt Brotherton, part of the BIG QUESTION series: “What does America Want?“ — I don’t know that I can speak for everyone out there. I’m not sure anyone can define what an entire nation of people really want. The differences between people can be like night and day. Everything…

Someone Else’s Problem

The following is a guest post by Canadian IT developer Colin Phillips for the September BIG QUESTION series. Thanks Colin! — If you polled folks on the street and asked them “What does America Want?”, in the same way that Elizabeth has asked her guest bloggers, Affordable Healthcare would probably be at or near the…

My List of Things I Want (For America)

Guest Post by Amanda Quraishi tweet @ImtheQ As an Official American Citizen, here’s what I want: 1.      I’d want to see the respect employed among opposing parties in our national political discourse. 2.      I want American Tax Dollars invested back into AMERICA so that We The People, and our children can benefit from…

Don’t go there

I find myself slipping. I know I shouldn’t look down on that other person, but it’s all too easy to do it. I see a man sitting in his car in a parking lot with his engine running for several minutes at a time. I think of wasted fuel, money and burned petroleum added to…

Make some memories

This is a guest post from Paul Merrill. Saturday. For those of us who work Monday through Friday, Saturday is a precious day. It’s the only day we can knock a few things off that everlasting to-do list. So a few weeks ago, my son asked me to spend a Saturday with him at the…

On Making a Difference

We went to Africa. We wanted to make a difference. My wife and I spent five years in the noisy, crazy city of Nairobi, Kenya. My day job made a difference, but our “side” stuff was what really made an impact. Steve (name changed because of how small the world is now) was a gate…