World Piece: Aachen, Germany
Two months ago today I was in Aachen, Germany. Two months ago today was the six-year anniversary of Marcus’s death. I was in the town of his cousin, Claudia, staying in her home with her husband Edgar and 2 of their 3 kids. I borrowed Claudia’s bicycle and spent August 19 alone, riding on the […]
World Piece: Germany’s Black Forest
I had had talks with several friends over the course of my travels about Marcus, about how I was going to teach a pie class in the Black Forest village of Alpirsbach where we got married (in 2003). I was going to stay at the same hotel where we had our reception and spent our […]
World Piece: Two Weeks in Switzerland
I left off with my blogging (and again, my apologies for not keeping up with it!) in Switzerland, where I arrived on July 29. I landed in the country’s capital of Bern, depleted from a debilitating stomach bug I picked up somewhere between Lebanon and Greece, and stayed with my lifelong friend Uschi Kamer for […]
World Piece Recap — 2/3 of the way through
I’m two-thirds of the way through my 3-month World Piece journey and I finally have a moment to update my blog. I had every intention of posting here regularly but the trip got away from me and there was never enough time, energy or Internet connections. I have, however, managed to post on my Facebook […]
The Start of Leg 2: Surreal Times in Sydney, Australia
What the earth looks like betweenAuckland and Sydney. I flew into Sydney, Australia from Auckland on my birthday, June 14. When I got off the plane and came out of customs there was a camera crew waiting with my friend Kate standing behind them. When Kate told me she was going to try to get […]
First Pie Class of the World Piece Journey: New Zealand
My first pie class of the World Piece tour was in Napier, New Zealand. Brett Zimmerman (aka Mr. Z), a friend of Louise Watts (my host Grace’s daughter), is a cooking teacher at a local college. (College in NZ is high school in US terms.) Mr. Z offered use of his classroom — 6 large […]
Mad Apples at The Yummy Fruit Company
Here’s a lesson in trust. For most of my stops on the World Piece tour I have quite a few things planned, scheduled and confirmed on the calendar. For New Zealand, however, my first stop of my three-month journey, I left things a bit, shall we say, loose. I knew I wanted to teach a […]
A Few New Zealand Pie Recipes
New Zealand gas stations don’t just sell fuel for cars. The pie display the BP gas station — or petrol station as they say in NZ. If there is one thing I’ve learned on my World Piece journey so far, it’s that New Zealand loves pie. Kiwis (as New Zealanders are affectionately called) love pie […]
World Piece: Day One, Arriving in New Zealand
In all my years of traveling internationally, I have never had such a hard time saying goodbye to my parents. They have been driving me to the airport since my first trip overseas 30 years ago. I have always traveled solo and regardless of where I was traveling to — Europe, Thailand, Kenya — I […]
World Piece Planning: Answers to Your FAQs
It’s 6AM and I am sitting in the guest bed at my parents’ apartment in Redondo Beach, California. They are still asleep but I am wide awake. I still have a lot to do before I leave U.S. soil tomorrow. One of the things I wanted to do before jetting off (for my first stop […]