Maxwell House -- but the French Roast. Our go-to morning brew (although neither of us drinks it black). Surprisingly good. And the empty plastic containers are terrific if you need to repaint a room -- nice handle, snap closure. 

I highly recommend edibles and CBD oil for those ladies of a certain age out there whose hormonal changes have robbed us of the ability to sleep. I didn’t like getting stoned as a kid, but I’m happy to sleep stoned as an oldster. 

Oh no. He didn’t make it. But it wasn’t the McDonalds that did him in. (Cancer treatment in the early 70s was pretty ineffective.) He was a darling baby ...

1972. My youngest brother had cancer. He wasn’t quite 2, and my mom had been cooking and cooking and cooking. Chemo is a bitch, and he wouldn’t eat. One night she’s wrecked, my other brother and I are hungry, she throws us all in the car to go to McD’s -- a huge treat. The baby ate most of a cheeseburger, everyone’s…

Happened to my brother when he was in high school. Had to wake our mom up in the middle of the night. SHITSHOW ensued. Afterwards, he said a half dozen or so of the dads/older brothers in town showed up in his hospital room to commiserate. It is VERY painful, and a real emergency. 

My grandmother was very open about her dismay at being pregnant for a 4th time, and how she tried to find someone to do an abortion. She was Catholic, fairly wealthy, and found what she thought was an actual doctor who would do it, but she said when she got to the apartment she’d been sent to “it was so filthy, I was…

Yeah, I got accidentally knocked up at 47. (We didn’t go through with it for many reasons, including being old ...)

Yes to this. Only thing I bake from a box is brownies. Now if only my heathen sweetheart could be converted to liking walnuts in his brownies ... 

With botanical keys! Also, if you want to hang out with Arora and other totally fun mushroom experts -- the Telluride Mushroom festival is big fun. 

This is why I don’t name my chickens. Three years and out when they stop laying (and become *delicious* stock). It’s not fun, but its’ the way it is. Also NO CHICKENS IN THE HOUSE YOU DISGUSTING PEOPLE! (Probably the same people who put their gross bare feet up on the plane.) 

I just throw tomatoes in ziploc baggies and stuff them in my freezer. I do can pickles and jam, and I’m about to go put up some peaches because we only get decent peaches for a couple of weeks a year. 

(It’s a long drive Kate, but if you want to come to Livingston, I’m happy to give you a tutorial.)

I remember being OUTRAGED at 10 that the bank wouldn’t let my mother open her own checking account after the divorce without a man co-signing for her. 1974. She got her (distant) cousin George to do it. 

I’m so sorry that all happened to you. Our dad was the financial abuser in our house (bad divorce, stole my brother’s identity for decades, took financial advantage of our stepmother), so I grew up pretty gimlet-eyed about it all. 

I’m an auntie now, and I tell my girls all the time that they need to have their own money, and keep it separate. You always need getaway money ...

Yeah, its why I won’t forage gilled white mushrooms at all -- I pretty much know the agaricus, and I’d love to know the matsuke, but I’m afraid of mistaking them for immature amanitas that don’t have spots yet. I stick to morels, oysters, porcini and chanterelles. I know them all well, and even though there is a false…

Yeah, this was small-town KFC from the next town over (rural Illinois). It wasn’t great, but its what she wanted. I remember when it opened and yes, the food was WAY better, and also it was a HUGE deal to have a national chain fast food nearby. There are still a DQs and small burger drive ins out that way ...

For my grandmother’s 100th, we had KFC and ice cream. (Takeout though, she thought getting her hip replaced at 95 would be a waste of taxpayer $$, and by 100 it wasn’t doing so great). 

Despite wanting to tell everyone that hunting mushrooms is VERY DANGEROUS (so there will be more for me), it’s a fun hobby to learn. BUT you need someone to show you the actual mushrooms the first few times, and you should invest in a real guide, with scientific keys like David Arora’s “Mushrooms Demystified.” And if…

You can also take your slightly aging blue cheese, throw it in the Cuisinart with other cheese ends, a thwack of booze (white wine, cognac, bourbon), and whiz it all up into a lovely cheese spread that will keep a while. And is delicious on crackers when you come home from work starving.