A Trifle of Great Importance

I first ate rhubarb at the tender age of 5. It came in a Mason jar and was called rhubarb sauce, the rhubarb equivalent of applesauce. It wasn’t my mother who made it — that simply wasn’t in her repertoire — but our neighbor Gaga. She and her husband, whom we called More Gaga, were…

Garlicky, Grilled and Always Sublime

Grilling season sneaked up on me. Usually, if I haven’t uncovered the grill by April, I’m counting down to the first sunny day, fantasizing about the all the rare burgers, bronzed chickens and charred eggplants my near future will hold. But this spring has been so bleak and damp that I was still making lentil…

Five Places to Visit in Portland, Ore.

For decades, the once sleepy Sellwood-Moreland neighborhood in Portland, Ore., was defined by its dusty antique shops and the old-school Oaks Amusement Park, established in 1905. But the blue-collar neighborhood is moving into the spotlight. Its cool factor got a big jump-start in 2015 when the Orange Line of the city’s light rail system opened,…

New York to Tahiti (or Laos or Nairobi) Without Spending a Fortune

In searching for flights, leisure travelers value affordability above all other variables, including schedules, routes and airline seat comfort, according to the trade group Airlines for America. Search engines like Skyscanner, Kayak and Google Flights are great starters for finding those low fares. But many mainstream sites don’t list low-cost carriers or link transoceanic flights…

Confirm or Deny: Ron Howard

Maureen Dowd: Those fishing poles you and Andy Griffith carried in the great opening credits scene of “The Andy Griffith Show” never caught a fish. Ron Howard: No, unless you count all of the fishing scenes where the prop man had to wade in and put a catfish on the line. That was Franklin Canyon…