My mother, Janet Finin, has just graduated this spring from The Restaurant School in Philadelphia, where she and my sibs live full time. She has spent years running her small catering business, reviewing restaurants and cookbooks, and writing food articles for a local newspaper, volunteering at the Seamen's Church Institute of Philadelphia, as well as raising the three of us full-time. She's an amazing lady, and I love her to death.

Clare is nine now, and will be turning ten on August 8th. She's finishing up fourth grade at Greenfield Elementary School in Philadelphia, and has a full summer of overnight camps and horeback riding with the Girl Scouts ahead of her. She's a great little sister, and I love her to death, too.