Edie Jarolim

(published in National Geographic Traveler)

Don’t be put off by the bees. Yes, there’s definitely a buzz at Morelia’s candy market, but not of the Hollywood celebrity sort. The bees are visiting the Mercado de Dulces for the same reason you are: to sample sesame bars, glazed papaya slices, bread pudding, and other Mexican sweets.  Unless you’ve dabbed on eau de caramel, you’re not going to enter their radar.

I’m on my second visit to Morelia, the bustling capital of central Mexico’s state of Michoacan. On a quick stopover a few months earlier, I’d been intrigued by my glimpses of the soaring cathedral, serpentine aqueduct, and other architectural treasures that earned downtown Morelia its UNESCO World Heritage Site status.  But all the museums were shuttered that late Sunday afternoon and — I admit it — I was afraid to venture into the candy market because of the bees.

This time, I’ve set aside a day and a half for exploring. After a quick sweet roll and coffee at my hotel, I cross the sprawling Plaza de Armas to the cathedral, a Mexican baroque confection made of cantera, the local pink limestone that lends downtown its rosy glow. I amble past pews of black shawled and business-suited parishioners in the airy main chapel, pausing to gape at devotional items like the gleaming silver baptismal font. I’m particularly riveted by a gargantuan pipe organ -  made in 18th-century Germany of 6,400 pipes, according to the leader of the British tour group I sidle over to with fake nonchalance. Organmaster Alfonso Vega has been presiding for more than 40 years over the internationally famed organ festival held here every May. (more…)

(Published in the Compass Guide to Arizona)

It’s a clear, sunny afternoon in the San Pedro National Conservation Area in southern Arizona, weepy cottonwoods barely stirring, just a few wispy clouds in the sky. Gazing toward trees and clouds is generally a major activity at this popular bird-watching spot just east of Sierra Vista, but the group gathered around a shaded picnic table is staring raptly downward. “That’s a big guy,” declares Sheri Williamson, the genial co-founder of the Southeastern Arizona Bird Observatory (SABO). She is sitting next to a miniature set of scales. “We don’t see many male rufouses his size.”

“Big,” of course, is a relative term: The bird’s weight—carefully recorded by volunteer Rachael Brantley, along with characteristics such as beak length and coloration of throat and tail feathers—is 4.5 grams. We’re talking a creature about the size of a thumb, being held aloft in a sling no longer than a Band-Aid.

But in the hummingbird world, this fella’s a pig. (more…)

(published in More magazine)

It’s a balmy day in mid-September, par for the meteorological course in Palm Springs, where my friend Nikki and I are vacationing. We’re sitting near a dazzlingly blue resort pool, reading magazines, making conversation, applying sunscreen. Lots of sunscreen. No, Nikki and I aren’t particularly light-skinned, nor do we hail from sun-free cities: She lives in Phoenix, I in Tucson. But exposure is definitely an issue.

We’re nude, you see, lounging around a pool at Desert Shadows, an upscale nudist resort.

Mind you, Nikki and I aren’t nudists. Far from it. An occasional bout of youthful skinny dipping aside, we’re not prone to disrobing in public – and we’ve definitely never paid for the privilege.  And until a few hours ago, the two of us had not been on textile-free terms.  Nikki and I had gotten acquainted about five years earlier because we both write about food, among other topics. After a year or so of consulting with each other about restaurants in our respective Arizona culinary territories, we’d started dining together whenever one of us visited the other’s city. Eventually, we began gabbing on the phone about other shared interests: We’re both divorcees – she with a teenage son, I without children – who have a tendency to look for love in all the wrong places. (more…)

(Published in America West airlines magazine)

As this summer of our discontent dragged slowly to a close, swamp coolers whirring uselessly against endless days of record heat, time was, I thought, to reconsider why I moved to Tucson. I recently appalled an East Coast friend by telling him that little lizards often crawl up through my kitchen drain. Pressed for details and wanting to shock further, I regaled him with creepy tales of rattlesnakes, spiders, and scorpions among the saguaros.

So, he wondered, after a stunned pause, what’s a nice Jewish girl from Brooklyn doing in a desert like this? What on earth had possessed me to leave behind my co-op apartment on Fifth Avenue for such a hostile place?

There’s no hostility shortage in New York, needless to say, but I wasn’t just looking to trade in one unwelcoming environment for another. The quick answer to my friend’s questions was that I wanted to try my luck as a freelance writer – a luxury I couldn’t afford while paying a king’s ransom of mortgage and maintenance on my tiny piece of the Manhattan rock. So, I said, I wanted to buy some time and space in a less expensive city.

That’s the superficial story. The truth, as usual, is more complex. Another friend came closer when she suggested that 40 years of wandering by my ancestors in the Sinai might still be lingering in my soul. I’m not greatly given to mysticism, but the green cramped history of New England never did feel much like my own. (more…)