I stayed outside Westminster Abbey and spent my time looking up. Here is what Westminster’s carved stone shows from the pavement: Gothic towers, martyr statues, a royal charter, Big Ben and the figure of America.

On a recent visit to London, I kept stopping to look at the front doors around Regent’s Park and Chelsea. A closer look at color, architecture, and the details that make an entrance feel welcoming.

The Cotswolds had always been on my bucket list. In a single October day, I wandered through Broadway, Snowshill and Chipping Campden, saw the rare Cotswold Lion sheep, and shared a pub lunch with fellow travelers I met along the way.

My mother never wrote down her chicken stew. She made it from memory, the way her own mother had. Here it is, finally written down for my daughter.

My mother made baked beans every Saturday in the fall, with bread rising at the back of the counter, and she never wrote the recipe down. Here it is, measured for the first time: navy beans, molasses, and salt pork, baked slow in a covered pot.

The centerpiece on my summer table is a soup tureen. Not a vase, not a footed bowl bought for arranging.