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Minnehaha Off-leash Dog Park, Minneapolis

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"The shifting moods and colors of the Arabian Sea -- azure, blue, and black -- mirror the ebb and flow of his thoughts. The horizon rises and then dips, the salt spray is cool on his face; he has the sensation of standing still while plunging toward his future." -The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese

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Apricot, poppy seed and s'mores hamantaschen for Purim.

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New neighbor cookies

Robbinsdale, MN

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"She had heard of the genetic code that could shape an eye or hand from passing proteins. Deoxyribonucleic acid. It contained the entire set of instructions for constructing a respiratory system and a digestive one, as well as the grip of an infant's hand. Chess was like that. The geometry of a position could be read and reread and not exhausted of possibility. You saw deeply into this layer of it, but there was another layer beyond that, and another." -The Queen's Gambit by Walter Tevis

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Los Angeles to San Diego

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The Basque country, where a unique language, cuisine and radical separatist elements have long resisted Spanish assimilation. In February the gray-blue waves of La Concha Beach in Donostia-San Sebastian were bitterly cold. After dark in Bilbao, relatives of incarcerated members of the Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) terrorist group gently marched for the transfer of their loved ones to prisons closer to home. Invented here was the brilliant gilda, a pintxo (appetizer) constructed of pickled peppers, olives and anchovies.

Painting by Antonio Ortiz Echagüe.

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"With the county divided about history, identity and the basic dilemma of whether Spain is a single nation or a collection of them, further progress may take time. Yet there are still many dreams that all Spaniards share. The vast majority want, in some form, the windows to the world that Franco and others tried to shut to remain open so that Miguel de Unamuno's 'four winds' can blow in."

España: a Brief History of Spain, by Giles Tremlett

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Barcelona, where a referendum seven years ago for Catalan independence was quashed by the Spanish government. The seaside neighborhood of La Barceloneta observed Carnival one week later than the rest of the city, and young people built a memorial for the late dissident Alexei Navalny at the mouth of the La Rambla promenade. To the north, separated by an industrial wasteland, is the middle-class neighborhood of Badalona, where we caught up with an old friend and ate doner kebabs with kalimotxo (red wine and Coke).

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"Hearts stopped beating. People put guns to their chests. There was no one and nothing she could ever know well enough to make it stay."

The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier

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The retirement of Lewis Leung, Star Tribune designer and longtime Asian American Journalists Association treasurer

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"Perhaps some of us are simply born evil, and despite our best efforts we remain that way."

The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides

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My cairn terrier is a serial killer.

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Last year’s cut flowers

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"Such was the state of medical 'science' when witch-healers were persecuted for being practitioners of 'magic.' It was witches who developed an extensive understanding of bones and muscles, herbs and drugs, while physicians were still deriving their prognoses from astrology and alchemists were trying to turn lead into gold."

Witches, Midwives and Nurses by Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English

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Kimchi

Salt each leaf of a whole napa cabbage

Cook a paste of brown sugar, glutinous rice flour and water until it bubbles. Add red chili powder, fish sauce and salted shrimp

Chop the cabbage, scallions, chives, carrots and daikon. Mix it all together and jar

Leave it on the counter for a week, burp it occasionally, stick it in the fridge

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"I didn't want to look at any more pictures of his family. Every time I did, I felt an odd sensation in the pit of my stomach, the same feeling I got when I once accidentally knocked a guest's earring into the black hole of a drain."

The Maid by Nita Prose