How a gluten-free cake transported me to my Austrian grandparents’ apartment.

Barb and I were enjoying a lovely evening at our good friends Lee and Debbie’s Evanston home. We were served delicious dish after dish, with Lee assuring me that each one was gluten-free. Dessert was a loaf cake, made exclusively with almond flour. Not a hint of wheat in sight.

I took one bite, and like Proust with his madeleines, I was immediately transported to my past. The cake had the taste, texture, and raisins of Gugelhupf, the Austrian bundt cake that was the specialty of Mama, my maternal grandmother.

Just like that, I felt myself sitting in my grandparents’ Sherwin Avenue apartment in Rogers Park, sandwiched between the lake and the El. I spent many afternoons there as a young boy in the early 1960s. Mama and Papa’s cat Bobby would lounge in the sun, while Papa sat quietly painting watercolors. Mama bustled about the kitchen preparing for Jause, the afternoon snack time embedded in Austrian culture.

And always there was a freshly baked Gugelhupf, perfectly unmolded from its bundt-shaped pan. A cup of tea followed by slices of the wonderful yellow cake with its golden brown crust and juicy raisins made the perfect 3 o’clock treat.

Mama’s baking days ended when my grandparents moved to an “old-age home” in 1963. My mother inherited the Gugelhupf pan, and though she was a good cook, she couldn’t quite replicate Mama’s technique. Her cakes were good, but not quite perfect. I believe my sister tried her hand at making the cake, too, but also fell short of our grandmother’s specialty. The same can be said for the occasional bakery-bought versions I have tried.

It’s been a long time since I thought about my grandparents. I’m glad Lee’s baking got me thinking about them again. I’ll be sure to reminisce about them every time I enjoy the leftover cake Lee sent home with me.

Maybe I’ll have a piece now. After all, it’s Jause time somewhere!

A Jeopardy memory—and the poet behind it

“In 1950, he won a Tony for best play, and 18 years after his 1965 death, he would go on to win 2 Tonys for a musical.”

That Final Jeopardy answer today brought a big, bright smile to my face. My grin grew even broader when none of the three contestants on this Jeopardy! Invitational episode provided the correct question. None of their guesses were even close.

Why did that particular Jeopardy! Q and A, and the contestants’ failure, bring me so much pleasure? My schadenfreude was well earned. You see, in the late 1980s, I was faced with virtually the same Final Jeopardy answer when I stood across the podium from Alex Trebek on my 1988 Jeopardy! appearance. And I got it right.

Despite that final success, I finished in second place in my Jeopardy! game.

So much has changed since then. Instead of being a young dad, just beginning to find my way in the world of pathology and family life, I am now a happily retired grandfather of four. Alex Trebek has passed away; his duties are now assumed by Jeopardy!’s G.O.A.T, Ken Jennings. We stream the show, rather than watch it live.

And in those long-ago days, Jeopardy! didn’t have Invitational Tournaments or second-chance games. Like the NCAA College Basketball Tournament, contestants were one-and-done. If you lost a game, you were banished from the Kingdom of Jeopardy, forever. That game was my only appearance on national television.

Oh, the right question to that Final Jeopardy answer? It was a lot easier in 1988 than it is in 2026 to remember that the biggest musical of the 1980s, the Hamilton of its era, was Cats. Andrew Lloyd Webber gets most of the accolades for the felonious show, but few people then, and even fewer now, know the lyrics are based on a book of poetry, Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, by T.S. Eliot.

And T.S. Eliot is who those two Tonys went to. Even Trebek was surprised I got it right. But that one came easily—Eliot has always been my favorite poet. I just never knew he would come in so handy.

But you can’t make him dink.

“She’s gotten more aggressive since I last saw her play,” I said to my daughter-in-law, Becca, as we watched my granddaughter take command at her 6th-grade basketball game.

“The extra coaching she’s gotten has really helped her,” Becca said, before continuing, “She’s very coachable.”

“Coachable,” I said. “That is one thing that I am not.”

It’s true. “Coachable” is not a word anyone has ever used to describe me. I don’t take well to that kind of instruction!

Of course, it is most noticeable in athletics and body mechanics. I lack the capacity to hear the instructions from a coach, a pro, or a trainer, and turn those instructions into actionable items for my body.

Those golf lessons our kids gave me as a retirement present? I dutifully signed up with the lead instructor at the local driving range, practiced with him for hours, and then went out onto the course and ignored nearly everything he had tried to teach me. Instead, I have to do things my way, the way that feels most natural, even if it is completely wrong. Of course, the results have been predictable—lost balls and frustration.

My friend Marty has given himself the mission of coaching up my bowling scores. “Follow through,” is his mantra, and I hear it in my head every time I take my approach. Occasionally, I will follow through, but it’s more accidental than anything I consciously control. My muscle memory, like my general 70-year-old memory, is too intermittent and spotty to permanently instill Marty’s instructions.

Later in my courtside conversation with Becca, she told me how much she was enjoying pickleball lessons and how much she was learning from them. Becca, who had been a star high school athlete, is a very coachable person. I, on the other hand, have resisted taking pickleball lessons. And I have a hard time incorporating whispered on-court tips from my partners into actionable items. The neural pathway from my ears to my brain to the rest of my body just short-circuits when it should be firing on all cylinders.

I admit that my inability to benefit from all those lessons is probably a combination of a whole lot of stubbornness mixed with a tinge of laziness.

I’m just a mule lying down for my afternoon nap. That’s one thing I don’t need coaching for!

My friends help me learn a lesson.

Earlier this week, I texted my baseball buddies to wish them a happy new year and to offer condolences to the Cub fans among us on the reported death of Billy Williams, the Hall of Fame, sweet-swinging outfielder from the 1960s.

The replies arrived almost immediately.

“I just looked him up. Wikipedia says he’s alive.”
“Are you sure you don’t mean Billy Dee Williams? Or Billy Wilder?”

Soon the conversation wandered, as our conversations often do, but the message behind the teasing was unmistakable: I had probably gotten this one wrong.

So I went back to the source, a Facebook post I had taken at face value. There was no satire label, no obvious punchline, no reason to doubt it. And yet, there it was: false, simple as that. The mistake was not in the story. The mistake was in my response to it.

“Trust, but verify” has long been one of my guiding principles. When something sounds implausible or a little too dramatic, I normally check it against a reputable source before sharing the story or writing about it. Most of the time, that habit serves me well.

But this time I did not pause. I did not verify. I passed the story along. Not out of carelessness, exactly, but out of familiarity. A known name, a nostalgic figure, a post that felt believable. Sometimes the things that feel the most plausible are the ones we question the least.

That is what unsettled me.

This was not satire or parody, and it was not a scam angling for clicks or money. It was a small, needless distortion of reality, the kind that drifts quietly across social feeds, gathering momentum simply because no one stops it soon enough.

And in that moment, I helped it along.

We live in a world where truth has become something we negotiate rather than assume. AI-generated voices, fabricated images, convincing imitations, all of these blur the line between what appears real and what is real. The challenge is not that we cannot know the truth, but that knowing now requires effort, patience, and a willingness to slow down.

In that sense, the lesson for me was not about technology or deception. It was about discipline.

Verification is not a slogan. It is a habit we have to practice, even, and perhaps especially, when the story feels harmless, familiar, or emotionally resonant. I did not meet that standard this time, and I owe my friends, and myself, better judgment than that.

I write because I want to tell stories grounded in honesty and respect for the people who read them. When I fall short of that, I am reminded how easy it is to be swept along by the currents of everything we see, hear, and forward without thinking.

So I will keep the motto, but with a quieter, deeper awareness behind it.

Trust, verify, and when in doubt, take one more breath before pressing “send.”

What Bruce, Seurat, and Barb Taught Me About the Pursuit of Perfection

What do Bruce Springsteen, Georges Seurat, and my wife Barb have in common? A restless pursuit of perfection, the constant question “Is this the best I can do?” that pushes them to refine, rethink, and ultimately create something extraordinary.

I’ve been listening to the audiobook Tonight in Jungleland by Peter Ames Carlin. It recounts, in painstaking detail, the intensity, discipline, and obsession behind the making of Springsteen’s 1975 album Born to Run.

After two earlier albums that failed to meet expectations, Bruce knew this record might be his last chance with Columbia Records. His band was evolving, producers were multiplying, and the endless retakes he demanded strained nerves across the studio.

Still, he pushed forward, convinced that if he could capture the sound he heard in his head, he might help redefine rock and roll. The vision kept shifting, but his commitment never did. And even though he remained unsure of what he had achieved, the release of Born to Run became, for many listeners, as close to perfection as music gets.

I have spent many hours standing in front of Georges Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte at the Art Institute of Chicago, studying its stillness, its order, and its quiet intensity. The painting appears serene, a peaceful summer scene along the Seine, yet behind that calm surface lies an extraordinary act of discipline and doubt.

Seurat worked on the painting for more than two years, developing a painstaking new technique built from thousands of tiny dots of color, applied with scientific precision and unwavering patience. He produced study after study, revising forms, recalibrating light, and questioning every decision. What looks effortless on the wall is, in truth, the product of continual uncertainty and relentless refinement, the same inner voice asking, “Is this the best I can do?”

We are often told that perfection is the enemy of good. I once worked with a surgeon who would frequently say “good enough,” as if stopping there were a virtue. But for some creators, whether in a recording studio, a Parisian workshop, or at a needlepoint frame, the refusal to stop at “good enough” is exactly what makes the work extraordinary.

I have written before about Barb’s marvelous needlepoint work, the canvases that fill our walls, and the beautiful gifts she has created for friends and family. With her latest project, she too is engaged in that pursuit of perfection.

Every choice matters to her: the materials, the colors, the number of plies in each thread, the selection of stitches for every section of the canvas, and the willingness to pull out hours of work and begin again if something does not feel exactly right. Even when teachers offer guidance, she weighs their suggestions against her own vision, determined to realize the piece as she imagines it.

Like Bruce and Seurat, Barb understands that perfection is never easily reached, but when this work is finished, another masterpiece will join the ones already hanging in our home.

Demagoguery Makes Anti-Semitic Violence Possible

A friend of mine is spending several months in Australia, navigating a new phase in his life. When I heard about the shootings at a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach in Sydney earlier this week, I messaged him to say that I was sad and angry, and that I hoped he was safe.

The one thing I did not say to him was that I was surprised.

The night before, Barb and I had sat in an almost empty movie theater watching Nuremberg, the new film about the 1945 to 1946 trials that held Nazi leaders accountable for war crimes, including the murder of six million Jews. Watching it now, nearly eighty years later, felt less like a history lesson and more like a warning that we keep needing and keep failing to heed.

Antisemitism does not sleep. Whether it is called the Final Solution or Globalizing the Intifada, whether it erupts at the Nova Music Festival, Bondi Beach, or the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, it is the same unbroken chain of centuries of hatred, cruelty, and inhumanity directed at my religion and my people.

I have lived long enough to recognize the rhythm. As a child, I experienced a few anti-Semitic incidents firsthand, brief but unmistakable. As an adult, it has become increasingly prevalent in our world, first at the margins, then more closely, and now spoken openly with a confidence that would once have been shocking. That confidence is not accidental. It is cultivated.

Demagogues understand how this works. They rarely call for violence directly. Instead, they lower the threshold. They normalize suspicion, repeat accusations, and offer explanations for why anger is justified and blame is obvious. They speak in insinuations and slogans, and then they wait. When violence follows, they deny responsibility. They did not pull the trigger. They simply made it easier to aim.

What unsettles me most is how ordinary this has become. Antisemitism no longer appears only in history books or headline tragedies. It seeps into conversations, into social media, and into the background noise of daily life. That is how dangerous ideas survive and expand, not just by shocking us, but by wearing us down.

As I watched Nuremberg, I thought about the play I am writing, which examines art as a way to confront and resist hatred. It is not about offering easy answers or comfort. It is about bearing witness and insisting on memory, using creativity to push back against the forces that depend on forgetting and distortion.

I think about that as I text a friend half a world away to make sure he is safe. I think about it as I watch my grandchildren grow up in a world where armed guards outside synagogues are routine and Jewish fear may be dismissed as oversensitivity. I am sensitive because I have been paying attention.

That is why I was not surprised by what happened at Bondi Beach. I am angry. I am grieving. And I am writing because silence, too, has a history.

A musical detour from rock anthems to orchestral surprises — and why I’m loving it

Classical music was never part of my childhood soundtrack. I never watched Leonard Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts. My family visited the Art Institute of Chicago often, but we never once stepped inside Orchestra Hall. The LPs in my parents’ cabinet were all show tunes, Allan Sherman parodies, and Sing Along With Mitch. Everything I know about opera I learned from the World Book Encyclopedia while preparing for Jeopardy! But for the last month, I’ve taken a deep dive into classical music. Here’s why.

Recently, I revived my morning workout routine: climbing a never-ending flight of stairs on the elliptical in the basement. My constant companion for these cardio-crushing challenges has always been classic rock, whether it comes from my CDs or from satellite radio. I fit my headphones over my ears, close my eyes, and push through as the minutes roll by. But lately, I’ve been bored with all that Pink Floyd, Bruce Springsteen, and Steely Dan. It was time for a change.

Scrolling through the stations on SiriusXM, I decided to try Classical Pops. I didn’t expect much, just something mellow to fill the background. But within minutes, I was hooked.

To be honest, I’m not even sure what I’m listening to. I don’t know who the composers are, where the orchestras are from, or who the conductors might be. Am I hearing a symphony movement, a fugue, an étude? I can’t tell, and it doesn’t matter. It sounds good, it’s got a good beat, and I don’t even care if I can’t dance to it.

And I’m amazed at how much of it sounds familiar. I’ll hear a melody, and suddenly “A Whiter Shade of Pale” or an Emerson, Lake & Palmer riff pops into my head. Sometimes it’s more subtle, just a fragment that stirs up some half-forgotten tune from years ago.

The experience has been fun, and surprisingly mind- and ear-opening. I may conduct some research and learn more about this old genre I’ve newly discovered. And who knows? Next summer, I might even enjoy a symphony concert at Ravinia or the Petrillo Bandshell.

And as for my usual music? It’ll still be there when I want it. As Bob Seger told us, rock and roll never forgets.

A quiet Chicago night in a hotel lobby while my girls sing “Sweet Caroline” next door

I’m sitting by myself in the entry lounge of a downtown Chicago hotel. The atmosphere is restrained, with only a valet behind his desk sharing the space with me. I’m not sure if he can see me; in any case, he pays me no mind.

Music from the bar one flight up filters down—disco, soul, a bit of ’80s pop. The music is blotted out whenever the sliding front door opens and the wind, followed by overcoated, chattering guests, howls its way into the foyer.

Tonight I am a designated driver. Barb and our two oldest granddaughters are at the theater next door, enjoying A Beautiful Noise, a musical that I have seen twice before and have no desire to see a third time. Barb has been eager to see it again and to experience it through the girl’s eyes.

Earlier this evening, traffic flowed well on our drive into the city. We arrived downtown with time to spare, parked at a garage near the theater, and walked to JoJo’s Shake Bar, a fun and funky diner across the river. Burgers, sandwiches, salads, and milkshakes—big, creative milkshakes— left us all sated and sugar-buzzed for our trek back to the theater district.

So now the girls are enjoying the show while I watch the minutes pass by in the hotel lobby. I begin to read the novel I have brought with me, the newest Dan Brown thriller. I can already picture Tom Hanks playing Robert Langdon once again in the inevitable Netflix adaptation.

I’d been resourceful enough to grab my earpods when we left the house earlier. So after a while, I use my phone to access our home network and watch today’s episode of Jeopardy! The sound is a bit out of sync, the contestants’ responses a bit delayed, but the current champ continues his streak, crushing two more victims and moving over $300,000 in winnings.

Barb texts me at intermission. She tells me everyone is enjoying the show, though the audience is subdued. Unusual for this show—usually the musical numbers have people dancing in the aisles. I guess Tuesday nights don’t bring out the Neil Diamond party animals.

I’ve got about an hour before the show is over, so I stroll a bit through the hotel. No one questions me as I walk through several lounges in search of a Diet Coke. I finally find a counter selling soda and snacks at minibar prices. But $5 for the three hours of shelter while I wait for the girls is a pretty low price to pay.

I return to the front lounge. The valet and a custodian are discussing their NFL favorites and what prop bets to make for the coming weekend’s games. A woman in skin-tight leather pants consults her phone before heading upstairs to an assignation. And through the window of the hotel, I see the first people leaving the theater.

Just like that, my quiet little night as a chauffeur-in-waiting ends. The best part? Seeing my girls spill out of the theater, thrilled and chattering as they walk toward me for our late-night drive back home.

3 Generations of my family couldn’t disagree more.

When Erin White confessed in her New York Times essay that she “made dinner for my family because I wanted to and because the world told me I had to — and then, three years ago, I just stopped,” I nearly dropped my fork. Stopped? Dinner? The family dinner? The sacred nightly ritual that has kept generations fed, sane, and mildly annoyed but still talking to one another?

White goes on to reassure readers that “your family will remain connected and whole; your kids will still grow up to be well-adjusted humans” even if you skip the nightly sit-down. That may be true in her house, but I will defend every family dinner we have ever had.

I grew up with family dinners as a non-negotiable part of the day. Every evening, no matter what chaos life had thrown at us, we gathered around the table. The television was never on. I may have missed out on hearing about the day’s events from Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley, or David Brinkley, but it gave me time with Mom, Dad, and my sister Linda. We were our own nightly news.

When Barb and I started our own family, we didn’t even have to discuss it. Family dinner was just what we did. And I kept my rule: no television. Vanna White was turned on after we were done. Instead of Wheel of Fortune, we talked, we laughed, we argued, and we invited friends over for Taco Tuesday. No one got a free pass; no one wanted one.

In her opinion piece, White worries that the pressure to produce nightly family dinners is overblown, writing, “The messaging on family dinner is intense! Family dinner will make your children smart! It will keep your children off drugs!” Sure, that’s a lot to ask of one Chicken Kiev. But she’s missing the point. It’s not about the meal’s miracle powers. It’s about the moment.

Dinner was our family’s daily reboot before rebooting was a thing. It might not have lasted more than twenty minutes, but it was where the kids learned to tell stories, disagree politely (mostly), and learn our family history and our ethos. Sometimes it ended in laughter, sometimes in frustration. But it always ended together and resumed the next day.

Did it matter? Here’s the kicker: our grown kids now do the same thing. Both our son and daughter have carried on the tradition with their own families. Dinner together. No screens, no exceptions. I take that as proof that something about those dinners stuck, maybe even meant something.

So, with all due respect to Erin White, I’m for keeping the family dinner alive and well. It’s not a performance. It’s not a punishment. It’s just the one time of day we all show up, sit down, and actually see each other.

And if sometimes the chicken’s a little dry or the mood a little dark, that’s family. And Vanna White is still hanging around.

Jet lag, creativity, and what to do with one extra hour

Spring ahead, fall back.

“It’s great,” they say. “Get an extra hour of sleep.”

That sounds like it would be invaluable to me, my body still grappling with 17 hours of jet lag that won’t let go. I crave an extra hour of deep REM sleep.

But I know that if I stay in bed, instead of softly snoring while dreaming of sushi and samurai, I will be tossing and turning, tugging at bed covers, disturbing Barb’s sleep, and annoying the kitten sleeping at her side.

There are so many things I can do with that extra hour. I can continue the revisions to my latest play, newly inspired by the informative comments at last week’s online reading. I could complete the blog about family dinners that I started yesterday, sitting half-completed on my computer monitor.

I could use the hour relocating the patio furniture to the garage—though that would be best put off till later in the morning, just before the Bears game. On a more relaxing note, the extra time could be spent trying to move from “Expert” level to “Genius” on today’s Spelling Bee, or tackling Sports Connections, freshly inspired by last night’s Dodgers World Series victory.

And I know Cooper will be rising soon, unaware of any time change, eager to get out of his crate and have his first morning walk. I can’t keep the big fellow waiting.

The sun is rising now, and I’ve chosen to use these last few spare minutes to write this short post and wish you all a happy extra hour. Use it wisely, use it well, and be refreshed for the day ahead.