Some people feel if you clean out their crap you’re somehow below them. That attitude became more and more prevalent with the tech boom and the rising affluence. Folks were less kind, less sensitive to the people that they hired. And it was kind of like saying, “You’re cleaning our dirt, so you’re dirt.”
Can we travel back in time through a crumb of chocolate cake? Let the tongue open up the imagination, then sit in wonder as a piece of history unfolds — as it did for Proust who conjured up the Belle Epoque while savoring a madeleine? This is a story about a recipe handed down through several generations and about the memories we can recover through the medium of taste.
My mother lived in the past, and when her ideal of the Currier and Ives Christmas didn’t measure up, she was angry and hurt and made our home life miserable. Now I have my own version of a Currier and Ives Christmas—one both satisfying and attainable.
My interest in R & R (restoring and repurposing) along with my prior experience as an executive coach, led me to volunteer at the Restoration Project, a retail shop and vocational rehabilitation program for adolescents and adults with emotional and neurological challenges.
The paintings in Leo Tadek’s home are a memoir of his marriage, his life in Belgium and in Moscow — and they also double as a tour of European history.