The year was 1997 and I was a college junior applying for a prestigious fellowship for first generation college students.  The fellowship provided funds and a mentor to guide and prepare students for graduate work in the humanities and sciences.  The fellowship had strict academic and social-economic requirements.  On the socio-economic side, students were expected to be first generation college […]

Many personal finance gurus will tell you to head to your local food market with only certain items in mind and shop only by price.  Moreover, the penny pinching crowd would argue that the purpose of buying, and in turn consuming, food is to be as efficient and cost effective as possible.   As you probably guessed, I don’t subscribe to buying […]

At times, I think the political and cultural columnist David Brooks has a little bit of Mediterranean blood flowing through his body (regardless of his Anglo-Saxon appearance).  Time and time again Brooks puts together elegant arguments on the paradox of American living, why gun control is necessary, or, say, how most people struggle to find happiness.  While I don’t agree […]

(photo: couch’s whiting or blue whiting with red onion, peppers, and tomatoes) (UPDATE 1/31/09: Contest is closed.  The winner is Evan Lucas!  Thanks to everyone for participating.) In Elena Kostioukovitch’s preface from the book, “Why Italians Love to Talk About Food” Elena asks, “And why is that you identify particular historic moments with references to food?”  The “you” Elena is […]

I’ve often stated here and to many friends directly that recent immigrants have an intuitive personal finance philosophy that not only embraces the pillars associated with the American dream but also runs counter to the deeply entrenched, and ugly side, of modern American life: consumerism and materialism.   Some friends get the above point quickly and agree, while others look […]

Five Common Sense Tips / Hacks / Tricks For Living a Better Life Living life is joyous on occasion, rough going sporadically (hopefully), and even keel on most days.  The aforementioned goes for superstar power brokers and well endowed professional athletes – life, as a matter of fact, is ever changing and a challenge (and mundane at times).There are, however […]

Photo: Hadley, MA I’ve always had romantic notions about living in the country.  I’ve dreamed of waking up early and going for long walks and surveying the many acres on my “property” ; maybe encountering wild life and foraging for wild mushrooms (just like Mayle’s book, “A Year in Provence”).  I would certainly take refuge in the fact that I could […]

How is it that we are so eager to watch other people browning beef cubes on screen but so much less eager to brown them ourselves? For the rise of Julia Child as a figure of cultural consequence — along with Alice Waters and Mario Batali and Martha Stewart and Emeril Lagasse and whoever is crowned the next Food Network […]

At no point in one’s life do humans bare so little responsibility for their own survival as they do when they are swimming around in their mother’s amniotic fluid (Ron Currie Jr.).  Think about it: newborns need to learn how to digest liquid, take in oxygen and pump out carbon dioxide, dispose of their waste, learn how to sleep, and […]

Daniel Gross, a columnist at Newsweek and Slate, published a recent article in the NY Times Book Review that argued that today’s über rich are essentially leisure-less tycoons who need to work around the clock.  Gross goes on to argue that, “among Type-A, self-made members of the leisure class (read ultra wealthy), there’s a sort of reverse prestige associated with […]