Pay It Forward

April 20, 2018
About four months ago, I received an email from my daughter Alex:
The son of a friend of a friend is a third-year medical student who has a one month rotation at our local Los Alamitos Hospital. Do you know of a place where he could rent a room for a month?
As I pondered the email, I thought to myself—I live by myself in a multi-bedroom home. I’ve had interns stay with me before. Should I open up my home to a complete stranger? After all, if my child were a third-year medical student and needed a place to stay, I would think it was awesome if a friendly family offered a rent-free home to stay in. It took me just a few minutes to decide to offer that Nathan stay at my house. We texted a couple Continue Reading →

Stress can be good for you.

September 20, 2013

A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog post about how resilient my 90-year-old mom is. After thinking about the way my mom handles stressful situations, I decided I wanted to be more like her and not let things stress me out. Soon after, I happened to listen to a TED talk by Dr. Kelly McGonigal entitled “How to make stress your friend.” The title definitely got my attention. Just in case you’re not familiar, TED is a nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading, focusing on Technology, Entertainment, and Design. … Continue reading →

L.A. Kitchen

September 16, 2013

“Neither food nor people should ever go to waste.” That is the quote on a “nice to meet you” postcard I received from Robert Egger. I met Robert last week at a symposium held at the Milken Institute in Santa Monica. He was on a panel, entitled “Hungry and Obese: Food and America’s Well-Being,” with six other food pioneers, including my friend Nona Evans of the Whole Kids Foundation. Each panelist could have spoken for an hour about their passion for ending obesity and feeding the hungry, but it was … Continue reading →

What’s not to love about Pomegranates?

September 6, 2013

It’s Pomegranate season! Last week, I wrote about the new fruits to enjoy in the Jewish New Year, but I wanted to save the best, and most special, fruit for its own feature. I have a long, personal history with Pomegranates. When my parents moved into our home in 1958, they planted many fruit trees in our huge backyard, alternating between Pomegranates and Feijoas. As young girls, Jackie and I found interesting ways to use Pomegranates. Our Pomegranates would ripen in mid-October, so we would bag them for door-to-door selling … Continue reading →