Lunch at the dream house

More from author

Reluctant farewell to a trusted companion

I visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim, the Museum of Natural History, basically anywhere that allowed strollers. I spent a lot of time in Barnes & Noble on 86th (which is now, depressingly, a Target). There was even special stroller parking on the kids’ level.

In fact, I didn’t really go anywhere that I couldn’t get to with the stroller. The children and I only left Manhattan a total of nine times the entire year (three times to go to the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx, twice to go to a Greek restaurant in Astoria that had an extremely high Zagat rating and was very good, once to go to the Bronx Zoo, once to go to Brooklyn to see what all the fuss was about, once on the train to Boston and once we hired a car to drive to Washington, DC to spend Easter with friends). That was it.

Here was the thing – the red double stroller gave me the freedom and security of knowing that I could go outside with both children, be completely prepared with all my accessories and baby/toddler supplies and everything would be okay. If I could make a plan to leave the apartment and walk there with the stroller, I would do it.

More from this edition

Recipe for success

EssayFans used to approach my grandmother, Margaret, at events or book signings, professing their adoration and proudly presenting their 1969 yellow-bound original of The Margaret Fulton Cookbook. They’d tell stories about the book’s place in their hearts – it had been given to them when they moved out of home, or when they’d married, or it had been passed through two generations. Margaret would smile sweetly and flick through the pages as though looking for something. Then, often, she would close the book firmly and look mock-crossly up at them (I say ‘up’ because she was usually seated, but was also only just over five-foot-tall). ‘You’ve never cooked from this book. Where are the splatters, the markings of the kitchen, the stuck-together pages?’

Easter cakes

MemoirI find I cannot cry on the day of the funeral or for many nights after the news of Ellen’s death and it is as if I am stunned by this loss, as if I am too close to this absence for it to mean anything yet, until two weeks later when I take the handle of the mould in my hands and lay the flat back of it against my cheek, and I cry and I cry.

Strong food

EssayThe principal reason Ju/’hoansi didn’t seek to accumulate wealth or surpluses was because they were confident first in the inherent providence of their environment and second in their ability to exploit it – so they were content to focus their energies on meeting only their immediate material needs rather than on creating or controlling surpluses.

Featured in

Share article

Subscribe to great writing