by Joel Denker “I love Jewish food, but when you eat it,seventy-two hours later, you’re hungry again.” This line, from the late New York Times writer Richard Shepard, mirthfully conveys the Jewish food experience, which I recount in my book, The World on a Plate: A Tour Through the History of America’s Ethnic Cuisine. This tradition is steeped in the “heartburn of nostalgia.” For me, learning about Jewish cooking gave me an insight into my father’s past. My father, reared in Brownsville and the first in his family to go to college, was enthralled with the culinary monuments in mid-town … Continue reading Behind the Food

by Willis Goth Regier Book of the Sphinx is the product of an obsession.  The more I learned about Sphinxes, the more I wanted to know, and there was always more.  Imagine a curious cat the size of the Sphinx of Giza. My curiosity began with that enormous Sphinx, known through the centuries as Horemakhet.  I wondered what it had to do with Phix, the man-eating Sphinx of Thebes, the one that posed deadly riddles.  These are the two most famous Sphinxes, and there are many more, a vast number.  I set out to find all I could, sort them, … Continue reading Regier’s Obsession · Book of the Sphinx

by Mary Ridder Comparing business activity in the heart of Manhattan, New York, to the Sandhills, Nebraska was fascinating last week. As I walked down 5th Avenue I couldn’t help but see why rural communities and businesses have such unique challenges. While every business must address marketing, the ultimate concern, not all have to   face it where sheer numbers are challenging. I met a manager of a gallery on 7th Avenue and W. 55th Street. The monthly rent is $20,000. And in the first 7 to 8 days of each month, the rent bill is paid. The businesses in … Continue reading Rural Marketing

Kathleen Flenniken, author of Famous, the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry in 2005, will be at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln City Campus tomorrow, Wednesday, October 10, 2007 at 7:30PM.  She will read from Famous and signing books at Bailey Library, 228 Andrews Hall. Continue reading Flenniken in Nebraska