Mama had relatives in St. Louis. Family rumor was they had moved there with the invention of beer.

That year 1919, when Gramp and Mania and myself were crossing America the hard way, via a Model T, was a year of sun and dust in the Middle West.

GRAMP used to say he'd done everything in life twice. But even he wasn't a cordon bleu. He didn't come right out and say it, but if you cornered him and asked, he'd have to admit it....

Gramp held the steering wheel like death's other brother and pulled the gas lever down until we hit a neck-breaking thirty miles an hour.

The romantic land of Armagnac, Roquefort, and the nimble-footed mountain goat is bountifully truffled with good country hotels.

It was spring all the time. Spring when it was summer and spring when it was autumn; because I was very young and Gramp was very old.

Mighty like a rose and it is rose, a rose-petal honey made by a recipe taken from the famous Martha Washington cookbook, the original copy now owned by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

Volcanic hills, Romanesque churches and fortified towns overshadow the elemental, pork scented cookery of this noble and dramatic province.