Published Works








From National Geographic Traveler, October, 2010  -  NOW AND THEN, in Buenos Aires, I have the urge to rub against a man I’ve never met. When that occurs, I usually go to La Boca, the barrio that throbs with afterglow of Italian immigrants who poured brilliantly colored paints over their drab tenements in the early 20th century. This afternoon, I find my guy near El Caminito, a pedestrian way where the polychromatic hues are even louder than my pink high heels.READ MORE

From Texas Journey, New Mexico Journey, Alabama Journey, and Westways, Jul/Aug, 2010 No clocks grace the belle epoque walls of Niño Bien, a salon in Buenos Aires where I have danced tango for the past three years. I can’t be late for my next date this Saturday night—across town at another old dance hall—but not to worry. I’ve learned to track time in Argentina by the tanda, a series of three or four like-themed tangos that you dance with the same person, lasting about 15 minutes altogether. READ MORE.

From New York Times, July 12, 2009 – ON Saturday nights in Buenos Aires, the Miramar cafe crackles with the energy of local families, famished tango dancers and gregarious waiters delivering plates of crisp-skinned sardines, shrimp and fresh oysters. Miramar is in San Cristóbal, a barrio known for its tango dance halls but otherwise off the tourist beat. READ MORE.

From Mariner Magazine, October, 2011 – MY friend Patricia and I were singing shamelessly at the top of our lungs, waving our arms to suitably dramatize the already dramatic lyrics. We sat in the front row of the tango show at the Dandi Royal in Buenos Aires. We had behaved demurely as we made our way through the cobbled streets in a barrio steeped in the lingering touches of a long-ago bourgeoisie—courtyards and art nouveau refinements on Spanish Colonial buildings. But seated in an elegant dance salon, we morphed into schoolgirl groupies. READ:EatDanceLoveBuenosAires

From Perceptive Travel, 2008 - “Ronan did not board his bus home and did not collect his luggage in El Calafate. Since then, there has been no activity on Ronan’s bank accounts and he has missed his internal and international flights. The family and friends are extremely worried.”I was at my worktable in my Buenos Aires apartment, making revisions to my book on tango, when the incoming email caught my attention.  READ MORE.

From VIA Magazine, November, 2003  – Consider a mollusk such as the escargot. It would be nothing but a garden pest without a megadose of garlic and butter. On the other hand, Dungeness, the crustacean indigenous to the West Coast, needs absolutely nothing—not even a pretty French name—to elevate it. The sweet, briny meat can actually improve your garlic and butter. I have found no evidence that you could say the same for other types of crabs—blue, for instance. READ MORE.

From San Francisco Chronicle, April 6, 2003 – Lamoille, Nev. — He told me his name was Johnny and he’d lived his whole life here, except for “the two years I gave to Uncle Sam.” I didn’t ask which two years. It was the lifetime in a place like Lamoille that brought my imagination to the brink. READ MORE.

From Los Angeles Times, 2002 – Anchorage — Last December I stood on the deck of a lodge in Talkeetna, Alaska, and watched sunrise bleed down the snowy crown of 20,320-foot Mt. McKinley. I had seen our nation’s loftiest peak before, rising dramatically from the flat tundra but always shrouded in cloud. This view was rare and awesome, as the sunrise was in concert with the full moon. I snapped away, joined by a man who exclaimed, “I live here, and I never get to see McKinley like that.” READ MORE.

From Via Magazine – Heirloom Tomatoes, 2000 - One tomato supplies 35 calories and almost half of your daily vitamin C requirement. Tomatoes are a source of vitamin A and the minerals iron and potassium. In 1995, Harvard researchers found a tomato-rich diet to be associated with decreased risk of prostate cancer-due, they believe, to lycopene, the substance that lends the fruit its color. The American Institute for Cancer Research says antioxidants like lycopene protect the body’s cells from aging damage. READ MORE.

From Islands Magazine, 2001 – I have connected deeply with my Sicilian roots through many visits to the old country over the past 24 years and it remains one of my abiding spiritual quests. For one trip to the island, I considered the novelty of sleeping in monasteries and convents—Italy’s monastic bed-and-board tradition harking back to medieval times. As a devoutly lapsed Catholic, I still relish pealing bells, glowing candles, and incense. In fact, perverse as it sounds, I was, for the year, living in a monastery—the San Francisco Zen Center. READ MORE.

From Skirt! Magazine, 2009 – My Personal Peace Movement – In late 2006, I arrived in Buenos Aires with hair under my fingernails and blood in my eye. I was down and out after a long relationship ended. I had done the unspeakable—pulled the other woman’s hair. Along with three suitcases, I had brought my chagrin, broken heart and adequate skills in dancing tango. I intended to stay two months and chill (and give her peace of mind). But after two days of dancing tango in the place of its birth, I canceled my return ticket. I stayed a year and a half. READ MORE.

From Open Salon.com, an Editors’ Pick, October 4, 2011 – A Lesson in Botanicals -  I lived in San Francisco throughout the 1970s, stalking the last of the Beats and other literati, trying hard to be a writer. In 1980, in order to take a real job, I moved to Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley, best known as the birthplace of Bethlehem Steel. I had followed the road to Emmaus, Bethlehem’s neighbor, to write for Rodale Press, publishers of organic and healthy living books and magazines since the 1940s. I didn’t expect to find a kindred spirit there or much to fuel my muse. Sitting long hours in North Beach’s smoky cafes to philosophize with the poets had primed me to filter out the aesthetic merits of Pennsylvania Dutch country. Sleepy towns with biblical names, the need to plan ahead if I wanted wine on Sundays, and the janitor who asked me if he could “outten the lights” only fed my sense of alienation from the pulse of true art. READ MORE.