Barbara Samuel O'Neal is the author of more than thirty award-winning novels, including THE LOST RECIPE FOR HAPPINESS and

The Secret of Everything
The Secret of Everything

A native of Colorado, Barbara loves teaching, travel, reading, writing, yoga, walking, food, cooking, photography and...okay, reality television.

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The Deconstruction of Fish & Chips

At CR’s urging, I decided to give the deconstruction of fish & chips a try.  (For background on the Top Chef deconstruction challenge, read about it here.)

My challenge was to create a dish that would deconstruct fish & chips and end up tasting like the original.  Since the only ingredients in the traditional offering are white [...]

Deconstruction Challenge, via Top Chef

Tonight, the chefs were asked to deconstruct a classic dish.   One of them was fish and chips, which happens to be one of Christopher Robin’s favorites, so I found myself trying to imagine how to do it.  As we watched, I kept tossing out ideas, and CR finally said, “Try it!”  (Subtext: please please please!)

So,  [...]

10 little stories about Michigan

10 little stories about Michigan over 4th of July, including fireworks, foodie visit to Zingerman’s, [...]

Meeting bears up close

Anyone who has read here for any length of time knows that I have bear worries when I hike.  I even have dreams about them sometimes, but I’m not willing to give up hiking. 

Today, to celebrate my birthday, Christopher Robin arranged a surprise: he took me to the zoo for a “Grizzly Bear Encounter.”   We went [...]

Snippets from the naturalization ceremony

Christopher Robin gained his US citizenship on Wednesday.  It’s a fairly long process, involving interviews and tests and proof of travel dates outside of the country (try figuring out exactly when you traveled for the past decade).  We went up to Denver in the morning for the naturalization ceremony. 

It was remarkably moving.  The ceremony was [...]

Cell phone pics banished forever more

Last week over dinner one night, Christopher Robin said, “I think you need to take me out to get bacon for breakfast on Saturday morning.”   I said, “Sure, okay. Why?”  He said, “No reason,” in that sing-songy little voice that says there is a reason.  But I’m patient.

Well.  Turned out that he landed a bonus [...]

In pursuit of the best raisin bread ever

(Photos from a cell phone camera.)

Last weekend, CR offered Saturday breakfast out in the world, and I sleepily pulled myself together, thinking we were going to the usual spot, The Egg and I, which is not far away.   Instead, he steered toward the highway and when I asked where we were [...]

Local pleasures

Yesterday, CR and I went to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo to see the new Rocky Mountain Wild exhibit. This is a zoo worth visiting, truly–not large, but built along the mountain overlooking Colorado Springs, and the exhibits are more and more animal friendly.   We were anxious to see the baby tiger that was partly nutured [...]

Christopher Robin's (bloody) Adventure in Orienteering

CR ran the US Orienteering Champs in Wyoming this past weekend.   He prefaced this photo in email by saying, “remember, I lived.”   In the interest of those who might be having breakfast, I won’t post the photo here, but if you want to see him in his post-race gore and glory, check it out [...]

Avon Walk…at last!

This is me, starting out this morning in Dillon, Colorado on the second leg of the Avon Breast Cancer Walk in the Rocky Mountains. As you can see, the scenery was well worth every single step, all by itself.

Far more worthwhile were the stories I heard along the way, and the tags I [...]