I’m not usually the most pleasant person during my commute — not that I’m particularly unpleasant, but I typically don’t go out of my way to socialize with other people on the bus. In fact, I find it really annoying when I’m sitting near people who won’tjustshutupfortheloveofgodandlettherestofustakeanaporread, so I try to do unto others, etc. But one evening, I happened to sit next to a woman who, like me, was reading and dog-earing a cooking magazine; well, one thing led to another and before I knew it we were trading recipes and sharing stories.

Gawd, I can be SO annoying.

I’ve thought about her often in the months since — how she doesn’t bake bread anymore since a sudden onset of psoriatic arthritis left her in near-constant pain, about her love of Italian food, and of her passion for finding healthy recipes her brother can test, given his own health woes. One of the recipes she shared with me was for salmon with an orange marinade and smoked paprika that sounded divine, even though, she warned me sotto voce, “It’s a McCormick’s recipe.” It slipped my mind until I saw that very same recipe in an […]