Flowers and life

We're not getting any rain but we've got a lot of flowers all around. Here are three that I've seen and photographed on my recent walks with Callie the border collie.



I'm re-reading Jacques Pépin's autobiography and enjoying it again. He started working in restaurant kitchens when he was 10 years old — his parents' restaurants — and at 13 he was officially an apprentice in a kitchen in Bourg-en-Bresse. That was when he quit school.

What a different life — actually learning how to do something. The only thing I learned how to do after more than 20 years of formal education was to understand and speak French. And teach it. My apprentissage shaped my later life the way Pépin's early restaurant experiences shaped his.