i'm spending part of this valentine's day interviewing my 93 year old grandmother for a project my sisters and i started about five years ago. you see, we have this pipe dream to document our family history and write a book, chronicling the part-autobiographical, part-word-of-mouth people's history of macedonia... full of stories backed by historical facts, photos (of then and now), traditions, customs, recipes and anecdotes.

step one in preserving this heritage of ours is videotaped interviews with our "baba" and spending good quality time with her while she's with us.