“Is there somewhere around here I can get a quick lunch, like a half-smoke, maybe?” The question catches the man pushing his Fayette Street door open for fresh air off-guard. “Sure, there’s a Five Guys two blocks that way.” Are you kidding me? You live three blocks from the greatest, oldest, stubbornest carryout in all [...]
Cheeky Request or Jest? Could there be another wedding at the Bush ranch in Crawford, Tex., this time between two women? During an upcoming episode of her talk show, Ellen DeGeneres asked Jenna Bush Hager and first lady Laura Bush for permission to use the spread for her planned wedding to longtime partner Portia de [...]
You made it. You’ve sold your first article to a magazine, the light of prestige at the end of a very long, SEO-lined tunnel. (With apologies to Tamara, who turned a spectacular phrase that I couldn’t resist borrowing.) You’ve been sent a three-page contract set in 4 point type, and once you sign, your check [...]
No matter how well-meaning but misguided, you’d never toss a holiday gift (not even the heinous reindeer coffee mug from the office Secret Santa). And the whole re-gifting thing can be a serious faux pas if you get caught. But that doesn’t mean you should relegate those unmentionables to catching dust in the far corner [...]
Erie Times-News Published July 7, 2007 by Rachel Kaufman The 12 wedding cakes Kevin Horton created this week are the most he has ever done solo. Once he decorated 14 cakes in a day, but that wasn’t when he had to do the baking and washing up by himself. “I have to do what I [...]
Erie Times-News Published July 6, 2007 by Rachel Kaufman Their cupboards went bare then, but not this year. Members of Assumption Greek Orthodox Church, masterminds behind the Greek Festival in Erie, are so committed to hospitality that when they ran out of food in 1989, the first year, they went home and made more. After [...]
Erie Times-News Published July 5, 2007 by Rachel Kaufman Road trip checklist: Suitcases: check. Snacks: check. Camera: check. Magic wand to prevent cries of “I’m bored!” from the back seat: Um … put a hold on that. Though there’s no easy solution to backseat boredom, a little planning goes a long way. Whether you’re a [...]
Erie Times-News Published June 29, 2007 by Rachel Kaufman Erie Art Museum’s annual Blues and Jazz Festival is pioneering three environmentally friendly initiatives that could make Erie a cleaner, greener place to live. The festival, which takes place in Frontier Park the first weekend in August, will sell “green tags” to fund the purchase of [...]
Erie Times-News Published June 25, 2007 by Rachel Kaufman The spirited 18-year-old was unsure how to pronounce “Henri Cartier-Bresson, ” one of the fathers of modern photography, but she knew she liked his work. And the work of her parents, Barb and Mike Priestap, of Photogenesis Photography on West 26th Street. And the work of [...]
Erie Times-News Published June 19, 2007 by Rachel Kaufman The English language has been destroyed. That’s what language purists would want us to believe, anyway. And for a while, I was with them. Sometimes I feel like I’m the only one left in my generation who can spell without the aid of Microsoft Word’s spell-checker. [...]