By Barbara Simmons I December 06, 2019 Does this arm sling make me look fat? I wasn’t planning on spending four weeks in a sling this...

As I write this column, back-to-school madness is in full swing. I’ve been retired from Vernon High School for a little more than a year,...

Why would a recipe for crumb cake make me remember my 7 years of music lessons? Maybe it was the Sunday performances I had to give for...

So, you may be wondering nice German girl like me has such a fascination for Italian food. It is because of a love affair with Italy and...

Were your Christmas traditions carved in stone or did they vary from year to year? I loved that our Christmases were always the same when...

My husband, Aaron, gets annoyed when he sees meatloaf or macaroni and cheese on a restaurant menu. Irked, he will ask, “Why would you...

By Barbara Simmons I December 06, 2019 Last fall, just before Thanksgiving, I lost my brother, Harry. It was a terrible loss for me; he...

By Barbara Simmons I December 06, 2019 OK, I admit it. I am a cookbook junkie. I have a boundless curiosity about cooking and thumbing my...

By Barbara Simmons I December 06, 2019 My father, Horst Kertscher, had a knack for growing things. He, his four brothers and three...

By Barbara Simmons I March 19, 2015 Looking back at 2014, it is easy to remember the top stories, mostly because they were tragic,...

By Barbara Simmons I October 30, 2014 Three women were very influential in my development as an accomplished baker: my mother (Gertrude...

By Barbara Simmons I September 05, 2014 Goldenrod, jewelweed, bee balm, black-eyed Susans, purple loosestrife—the back-to-school flowers...

By Barbara Simmons I September 05, 2014 Oh how I miss holding a photograph in my hands.I’ve searched through my parent’s albums looking...

By Barbara Simmons I June 09, 2014 What combination says summer more than strawberries and rhubarb? Here is a dessert that everyone will...

By Barbara Simmons I April 17, 2014 Gemütlichkeit, the German word for coziness, is what you felt when came to our house on Castle Rock...

By Barbara Simmons I February 28, 2014 We moved to the lake “for good” in January of 1965. My parents bought our house on Castle Rock...

By Barbara Simmons I August 30, 2013 Our German relatives came in droves every summer. They would stay three to six weeks at a stretch....

By Barbara Simmons I August 02, 2013 It was the summer of 1974. I had just come back to Tante Lucie’s house in Sonnenberg, Wiesbaden...

This was the only kind of potato salad Gertrude ever made.

By Barbara Simmons I May 23, 2013 To me there is nothing more “German” than Obsttorte mit frischem Obst. Translated, it means “fruit tart...