Rebecca Crichton

The past year had a variety of big and little events that created shifts in how I see the world. On the surface they covered the range from surprising and hopeful, to difficult to scary. On the plus side: I gained increasing comfort with my new role as Executive Director of an organization whose mission […]

Last year I wrote about my go-to Chanukah main dish for the annual party I used to throw. It’s a version of the Greek Spanakopita without Phyllo on the top and bottom. It’s what I’m taking to my daughter’s party this year. She has taken on the role of Chanukah Party Provider and I get […]

I grew up in the Northeast where we followed the “R” rule for eating oysters: You must only consume oysters in months with an ‘R’ in them. From May thru August, fresh shucked oysters were not an option. Not so in the Northwest where oysters are available year round – many varieties in many preparations. […]

You ever know when a good quote will come in handy. I was asked to appear on the local Fox News channel last week to respond to a newly published study showing that loneliness can be fatal to seniors. The study confirms what many people in the aging field know: loneliness is bad for your […]

I ask you:  don’t you sometimes want a vegetable that you can do almost anything with? Use it raw, roast, sauté, fry, shave, slice, chop, puree or freeze? And be assured it plays well with others? Fennel would be your choice. And although the white, bulbous plant topped with stalks ending in frilly fronds looks […]

There may be some of you out there who don’t want one more healthy idea from me, but honestly, you’ll thank me for this! I assume you have had quinoa – pronounced ‘keen-wa’ – sometime in the past or recent past. It seems to be turning up everywhere Foodies congregate: salad bars, delis, restaurants. It […]

I asked the members of my food class called A Matter of Taste-Food and its Many Attractions – what they loved to eat and what they hated. It’s amazing how much energy people have for the foods they don’t like! At the top of the list was liver. A few people came to its defense, […]

Now that the New Year is over a month old I am finally getting myself grounded enough to share what’s happening in my life again. I have started what some call an ‘Encore Career.’ Check out the website that supports the concept. I am the Executive Director of the Northwest Center for Creative Aging (NWCCA).  As […]

I’m sitting at my desk in Seattle, cat on my lap, watching the snow pile up outside and feeling the old childlike pleasure of a ‘Snow Day.’ We don’t get this kind of weather very often – every few years to be honest – so it feels good to have a day when I can […]

Growing up Jewish I never had a Christmas tree and did my share of  begging for the beautiful ornaments and sparkly lights. My parents rigorously opposed the ‘Chanukah Bush’ concept, countering my insistence that I would have one of my own when I left home with smug assurance that I wouldn’t do that.  They were […]

It’s hard to avoid punning when describing the new Dead Celebrity Cookbook – A Resurrection of Recipes from More than 145 Stars of Stage and Screen by Frank DeCaro. DeCaro is a celebrity in his own right: he was the flamboyant movie critic on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and now hosts his own […]

You know how you can do something for a long time- we’re talking decades here – and never really look at the behavior and recognize it for what it is? I finally realized I am Food Transporter. I’ve been packing up food and driving it to other places where I prepare it or share it […]

Remember back to the days when we took photographs with a single-function device? Perhaps you still have one from before we all went digital and you still produce actual photographs to hold and look at. Over the years I accumulated hundreds of photos and fully intended to put them into albums. I had been a […]

Many years ago, during what might be called my ‘Hippy Phase,’ I took a lentil salad to a potluck. A young, intense man approached me, declaring it the best lentil salad he had ever had. That started a brief but pleasant affair. He was a vegetarian who ended the relationship by declaring that meat-eaters smell […]

The Jewish High Holidays kicked off with Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, on Wednesday, September 28 and continues until Yom Kippur – the Day of Atonement – on October 8.  The ten day span between those two events is often called the Days of Awe. It is time when we are asked to reflect […]

It’s pickle time! Pickling cucumbers, those knarly, hard little cucumbers that always seem dirtier than their large glossy cousins are in my local co-op and at the farmers markets, right next to the large stocks of flowering dill. I’m assembling the ingredients to do my own pickles and have the dill in a bucket by […]

I heard a local radio foodie declare that this time of year is the very best for just about everything worth harvesting from our gardens. For me, this is the time when the fruit on my Italian plum tree ripens and I start salivating just thinking about my favorite ways to enjoy them. I love […]

Here are a few weird ingredients I always have on hand and you should too… Okay, maybe you don’t need to have them, once you know what they are, but at least let me try to convince you. If you have read my food blogs these past 6 months, you probably know that I don’t […]

We just passed the six month mark for our wonderful All the Single Girlfriends website and we now know that our Foodie Friday feature is a big hit with our readers. I started to think about what, exactly, defines a ‘Foodie.’ I did a quick Google search and found: “A person who has an ardent […]

I often write about my wonderful daughter Erika.  She is a Hospice Social Worker in Bellingham, Washington, and has been happily married for 3 years to a man she met on Match.com. She is beautiful, smart and funny and absolutely dotty about her two Chihuahuas, Ginger and Lulu.  They make her laugh and she admits […]

Girlfriends Helping Girlfriends is an ongoing series that shines a virtual spotlight on girlfriends who have been helping girls and women. Ellen Dorsch and I go back more than 50 years.  We were high school friends, staying in touch via the ‘two degrees of separation’ principle:  mutual friends filling in the broad brushstrokes of each […]

Last week I visited friends I have known since high school at their beautiful house on the shores of Lake Champlain in Vermont.  The lake is 125 miles long and goes from New York to Canada.  It’s not one of the Great Lakes, but it is a very good lake indeed. To manage the super-hot […]

Word has it that the rest of the country has topped 80 degrees while here in the Northwest we are still hoping for more than one day of sun and warmth.  I don’t long for sweltering temperatures but a bit more sun would be welcome. With all the fresh vegetables available at famers’ markets, it’s […]

Forgive the pun, but I finally found a cluster concept that is helping me navigate this new landscape of retirement. They all start with the letter ‘C’.  I call it my ‘Three C’s.’ They are Contribute, Collaborate and Create. I know that if keep them in good harmony with each other, I will feel satisfied and […]

My father, Sol Radam, died at the age of 90, right after celebrating his ‘second’ 90th birthday. It seemed fitting that my bigger- than- life father would wind up with two birthdays. We always believed his birth date was December 17, 1913, the date on his passport and Army papers. But at the age of […]

Five years ago I went with two friends on a fabulous trip to Israel and Turkey. We have a long entwined history and consider ourselves ‘family’ since I introduced them and eventually officiated at their wedding. We have an abiding love for each other, for adventure, and a matching obsession for all things food-related. In […]

I hope I have just implanted the word Avocado as a worm in your brain with the Hallelujah chorus playing beneath it. And I hope you already know that avocados are among the most versatile of fruits which we tend to relegate to only a few recipes.  As in Guacamole, which I won’t bother revisiting. […]

I’m a buttermilk devotee. Especially in the summertime, this old-fashioned ingredient becomes an essential staple in my refrigerator.  And unlike some of the more exotic ingredients I have to search for on the internet or in specialty stores, you will always find buttermilk on the shelves of most grocery stores. I like drinking it straight, […]

My mother always cared about her appearance. In the Hospice facility where she spent her last two weeks, the staff knew her as the woman who greeted her visitors wearing a stylish scarf and earrings. She jokingly recited a ditty she had learned from her 90-year old neighbor: “A little powder, a little paint, Makes […]

I love reading about the pets whose presence in our lives combined companionship with guidance, silliness with responsibility. And when they die, we miss them, mourn them and tell stories about them. My dog Newhart came into our lives as a Guide Dog Puppy which my teenage daughter raised as her 4H project.  He quickly […]

It’s that time of year again for Jews. The challenge of confronting what Passover means to each of us. For observant people, and in this case I am thinking about the women in particular, it entails engaging with the many requirements related to purifying our environment and freeing it from ‘chametz,’ which for most people […]

Most people know Pasta Putanesca – the spicy Italian sauce referring to the women who practice the oldest profession of all. There are a cluster of stories for the origin of the name and general agreement about the basic ingredients. And since you know I can’t resist garlicky, intensely flavored food, I developed a recipe […]

I got my first Cuisinart when they first came out in the 1970’s. At first I followed the suggested recipes slavishly, fearing mistakes and still tentative about how it would fit into my own cooking life. But conversion happened easily and I have had various versions of the machine throughout the years. While I use […]

Can we start to talk about getting older with each other? I love that this blog is for single women over 40. I love reading about the realities of dating over 40 and about the challenges of approaching 60.  I especially appreciate the fact that the women on this blog represent different generations. Before retiring […]

As you already know, I share my love of food and cooking with many of the girlfriends on the site. I assume I am not the only one who takes cookbooks to bed or who thinks about the next meal as I am eating the present one. Since childhood, I’ve had a passion for intense […]

I think I admitted my Foodie status in another blog but can’t remember. (I blame it on LBS – Leaky Brain Syndrome, first cousin to CRS – Can’t Remember Shit). So if I didn’t, I am now. I used to be a caterer, a recipe developer and a food writer and even had a cooking […]

That’s how I start my spiel about my single status.  It qualifies as a kind of default statement until another theory replaces it. But it has worked as an explanation for some years and I share it with you in the hopes it provides an explanation as opposed to an excuse for your unpaired situation. […]

So here is an admission I assume I am not alone in making: I have way too much. Way too many things I don’t use, clothes I don’t wear, objects that I don’t really see anymore – I’m talking about the ones in plain sight, forget the ones tucked away.  And I know, having watched […]

I’ve been officially single since 1974. Separate from several ‘long-term’ relationships never lasting longer than 5 years, and only one that included a live-in partner for less than a year, I have managed my life as a single woman with serious attention to the elements that make it work. ‘Variety in Balance’ is a mantra […]

Okay, I’ll admit it. Valentine ’s Day is one of those times when not being a part of a couple can be challenging. Sure, there are endless cards- from syrupy to snappy – honoring the other relationships in our lives – dear friends, special relatives, dependent pets, you name it, the marketers have it all […]