The first time my baby girl said Mama, I looked over my shoulder, wondering if my own mother—the real one—had entered the room. Oh, honey, I wondered. Are you sure we’re ready for that? Like an intern promoted to CEO, I hadn’t yet earned the title. I…

I was in my 30s before it dawned on me to order soft shell crabs in a restaurant. In the summers of my childhood, soft shells came from the York River, where we’d anchor a slatted wooden peeler pot a few oar strokes from the beach. A peeler pot is an…

When I took a job with a newspaper company a few years ago, I noticed an odd perk listed among the benefits. “You’ll get an employee discount on obituaries,” the hiring manager explained, as if this was a normal thing. But, as benefits go, this one…

In another life, I’d like to be Jeffrey, the husband of Ina Garten. His only job, it appears, is to turn up for lunch, raise a glass to his Barefoot Contessa, then tuck into her perfect roast chicken followed by a slice of lemon ricotta torte. If…

The guests were due in minutes. I’d pulled a whole beef tenderloin from the oven, sliced it, and arranged it on a platter before running upstairs to zip into a dress for the Christmas formal. My college housemates had pooled our pennies to host…

As a magazine staff writer, I never honed my pitching chops. Now that I'm an editor, I've learned a few things from my writers...