By Marsha Fottler. It’s official, we’re now entering high season for holiday home entertaining. That means you need to stock up on reliable hostess gifts – those small but welcome treasures that you hand over to your hostess upon arriving for a dinner party. Three rules for selecting and giving a hostess gift: It should […]
By Marsha Fottler. A local gourmet club recently invited me to be among 40 guests who shared a six-course dinner in a fully-furnished, 6,000-square-foot model home in a luxury gated community. During the evening we wandered through the elaborately styled rooms, walked the private grounds, lingered by the moonlit pool and generally felt like we
By Herb Gardener. I squandered my mid-twenties in Bishop, California’s high desert splendor. Located on the jagged eastern escarpment of the Sierras, Bishop was then home to a modest population of indigenous Paiute Indians, rock climbers, mountain bikers, and other radical recreators. To support a trout fishing habit I tended bar. As I memorized and