The Red Clog Blog may have debuted just last week, but the concept and ideas had been nascent for quite some time. And so it was fitting that the launch coincided with my mom’s birthday. This was the first year that mom was no longer with us on her special day and I won’t sugarcoat things – it was a tough one. For years, my mom implored me, “Leesee, you really should do something with Food” (aside from eating it – which was never my issue) and now, on the occasion of what would have been her 81st birthday, I honor and remember her with this post. Good news, there will be something decadent in it for all of us, because Mom was born in Vienna, capital of Austria and ATSAD. All Things Sweet And Delicious. (Images of Vienna have been added to Gallery) My mother didn’t live in Vienna…
Inspired by Life! Beginning – or ending – can be exhilarating. And a bit off-putting as well. I say that as someone who just chucked over thirty years in both Corporate America and Academia (plus a whole host of other fascinating and unrelated career stints, which will be making occasional appearances on these pages). I once delivered a robust commencement speech on the irony of how we interchange the words “Commencement” and “Graduation”; they certainly mean very different things. So, why the change? Why now? More to come on that, but for now, let’s say that a different strain of music kept playing louder and louder in my head. My go-to classical soundtrack was still “Ma Vlast” or “My Homeland” – an incredibly moving and patriotic work by the Czech composer Bedrich Smetana. But new and discordant tunes kept surfacing. At first, I didn’t understand. And then I travelled to…

