Blog | Sylvia Thompson Blog

November 1, 2021

Hold On to Your Power!

A close friend from my college years is now, surprise surprise, also old. An architect and landscape designer, Mazie and I unexpectedly turned out to have even more in common than age: we both were blessed with finding our true…

November 16, 2021

A World of Incomparable Beans–and No Soaking!

In the Kitchen, at the Table

All those months while we were newly vegetarian, COVID-quarantined, searching out provisions online, I kept clicking on Rancho Gordo. In the Napa Valley, owner Steve Sando is a resourceful fellow who researches, grows, prospers, and offers heirloom beans from seeds…

November 21, 2021

Boxes of Memories

From the Past

When my mother, Gloria Stuart, was nominated for an Academy Award for playing Old Rose in Titanic, occasionally someone asked, What was it like, growing up with a movie star for a mother? My answer: I didn’t. She wasn’t. She…

November 28, 2021

Art Is Fleeting

What I Find Fascinating

All-time favorite greeting card from my high school days: “Time is long And art is fleeting… Happy Birthday to you Sweeting…” Speaking of “art is fleeting,” yesterday Maggie, my Yalie* granddaughter and I had a splendid excursion in San Francisco. More…

December 8, 2021

Yummy Clean-Out-the-Crisper Lentil & Vegetable Stew in Thirty-Five Minutes!

In the Kitchen, at the Table

Yesterday morning with so many holiday things to do I was frazzled. What on earth to make for supper? Looked through my stash. Ah, French Green Lentils! Yes! I thought I was making soup, but it turned out thicker, a…

December 14, 2021

Pleasures and Comforts of Ginger

In the Kitchen, at the Table

Most who know me know my fresh ginger cake. Easily made and versatile—in the oven in a trice, finished simply with powdered sugar or Laurie Colwin’s slathering of chocolate icing–ginger cake is, I think, one of the world’s great confections.…

December 22, 2021

The Annual Accounting

Taking Stock

Writing indoors as torrents of rain shush down outside our windows–no drought here in Kauai as there is in Santa Cruz… And so the end of the year draws nigh…time to take stock…where’ve I been…where’m I going?…will I be able…

January 2, 2022

Words from Ninety-one Years Ago for a Spanking New 2022…

What I Find Fascinating

A page from my mother’s 1931 journal. Living in Carmel-by-the-Sea, Gloria Stuart Newell was twenty-one and married to a gifted but penniless young sculptor. By day she was writer/editor/typesetter/printer on The Carmelite newspaper…by night she acted/stage managed at the Theater…

January 6, 2022

More Word Play

What I Find Fascinating

Home again, and driving the winding road up the Santa Cruz Sandhills to fetch Uschi from her friends in Bonny Doon, I turned a corner and ahead of us crossing the road were three huge wild turkeys! Naturally I stopped,…

January 12, 2022

Messiness As Art

Becoming My Own Best Self

I’m putting my study to rights. I’m told Albert Schweitzer and Alexander Calder also had absurdly messy studies. That comforts me. I’m in good—nay, secure—company. No one can make fun of me. Except for decades friends have been taking pictures…

January 20, 2022

What Is Love Anyway?

What I Find Fascinating

Hey, what is love anyway? I keep asking Bill, “Who loves you more than anyone was ever loved?” and of course he answers, “I’ve no idea…” And just now, asking him, it occurred to me, What is love anyway? What…

January 27, 2022

On Not Getting Rid of “Stuff”

Aging Ain’t for Sissies

There are those in our family–on both sides of the aisle–who are pressing us to “get rid of stuff.” They themselves, in their sixties, are getting rid of “stuff.” Why are they doing that? “So my kids won’t have to.”…