Fire Drill
During my first and only summer in Providence, while I attended culinary school, I lived on the second floor of a three-unit house a block off busy Atwells...
Girls Just Want To Have Fun
Makes 1 drink Every Monday evening, my dad left the house and walked to his barbershop chorus rehearsal a few blocks away (more on THAT another time). I...
Snap Into It!
Once a month, my dad hauled his empty case of Genny Cream Ale pounders into the car to exchange it for a full one at The Beer Barn. It was a drive-through...
The Maynard
Grandpa Tarpy loved sweets. Ice cream bars coated in waxy chocolate; grape and orange soda; Russell Stover butter mints, the creamy pastel candies separated...
Snow Squall
The template for a sour-style cocktail like this one – booze, sour, sweet – can take you many places. Adding an egg white smooths the journey. But getting...
An Ode to the AMC Hornet
The first time my dad took me driving in an empty church parking lot, it ended in tears (mine). There were 3 pedals in his car, but I only had 2 feet! It...
Pine Point
The first time I tried to quit smoking did not go as planned. I raged through 3 days, alternating between crying and screaming, wishing death on anyone who...
Dog Days of Summer
It always seemed to happen on the hottest night of the summer: the Tarpy family slide show. We’d all be visiting my grandparents at the lake (parents,...
Nellie's Gift
My grandmother baked an angel food cake every summer for my birthday. I loved the sticky, tacky feeling of the cake from the late August heat. She served...
Sunken Dreams
My grandparents lived on a lake in New Hampshire. Every summer as a kid, I’d be in that lake daily until my chattering teeth and pruney fingers finally...
All Dressed Up
The first cocktail I ever had was a “gin pomp” (at least that’s the name I remember) at a disco in Quimper, France. I had no business being there because I...
Under the Moon in Mexico
Because of one (ok, maybe a few) bad experiences with tequila in college, I turned my back on it for years. It wasn’t until much later that I dared try it...
Stone's Throw
I never would have drunk mirto with my friend Laura at a restaurant on the island of Sardinia 7 years ago if I hadn’t met her while working on the coast of...
Bits and Bobs from the Veg Bin
Sometimes when I make a drink with cucumber, Steve takes a sip and declares it “salad in a glass.” He isn’t wrong. I love cocktails that belly up to the...
We've Got Time
I love small things – pinch bowls, notebooks, those room service ketchup bottles. Some I use, some I hoard. In the early weeks of the pandemic, when many of...
Phantom Rhubarb
I looked forward to the summer trips we took as kids to my cousins' house in Bucks County, PA for a couple of reasons. One: Aunt Elsie stocked her pantry...