My toddler has a blue fabric banner that hangs on the wall at home. On the banner is a little bear with a blank face. Below him are little pockets, containing all the different faces you can stick on the blank one: the sad face, the happy face, the silly face, the sick face, the angry face. This is supposed to teach my son about emotions (as if life doesn’t do that already). However, one face is missing: the movie-sad face. 

Photo: Armstrong Pitts Studios

You tuck them in your lunch box or stash them in the freezer (like O's creative director Adam Glassman), but there's another delicious way to enjoy grapes, aside from in a glass at the end of a long day: roast them.

A little sweet, a little sour, roasted grapes are an easy addition to many foods and dishes you're probably already making. Holly Smith, the chef at Cafe Juanita outside Seattle, folds them into risotto with hazelnuts and cheese. Brad Farmerie, of the restaurant Public in New York, spreads creme fraiche on a toasted scone and drizzles it with roasted grapes for a sweet-savory breakfast. Farmerie also spoons the grapes over ice cream, uses them as a finish to grilled chicken or pork, or tosses them with baby spinach, olive oil and crispy pancetta.

And the recipe could not be simpler...

Photo: Thinkstock

One of the friends I like to go for walks with has a problem "down there," and I don’t really want to get into it, but I will tell you that her kids have started asking her why she crosses her legs when she sneezes. Another friend has a different issue that affects the same general area, and it involves a practically-unpronounceable medical diagnosis that translates as "it feels like someone has taken a Brillo pad to my crotch and then poured rubbing alcohol all over it." And then there's that dear friend who gave birth a few weeks ago, and is still dealing with discomfort in the baby-making vicinity, as well as a mysterious case of post-partum leg numbness.

When I first heard these personal stories about private parts, the most I could offer my friends was a sympathetic ear (and I know they appreciated that). But after researching a burgeoning area of physical therapy, I now know where to refer these women--and others like them.

Read more about physical therapy for issues like incontinence, pelvic pain and post-partum complications, and find out the two exercises every woman should think about doing to help with problems like these.

 

Every Monday, we're rounding up things—small and big—that made us stop and think. Today, we were captivated by a paean to postcards, a consciousness-raising moment on Broadway, and more...

"It just might be that the greatest threat to monogamy is the uncritical acceptance of it."
Tracy Clark-Flory, Salon.com sex and relationships writer, on what she learned from Salon's series about monogamy.

"...unlike letters, [post]cards require a verbal concision that can rise to high level of eloquence: brief and heart-breaking glimpses into someone’s existence, in addition to countless amusing and well-told anecdotes."
Poet Charles Simic on the lost art of postcard writing.

"I read Proust first, before Freud...And I think I simply realized that there was nothing, absolutely nothing, more fascinating than human nature. And human relations."
From a 2008 Guardian article about Hanna Segal, psychoanalyst who popularized play therapy for children, who died last week at age 92.

"People generally laud you for raising a well-rounded girl who knows how to wield a baseball bat as well as a princess wand...Watching [Billy Elliott], I started to think about all the useful things I've taught my daughter over the years ...I began to wonder what it might have been like had I had a boy instead. Would I have let him enroll in ballet if he wanted? I like to think so. I hope so.”
Mike Adamick, Jezebel's “Daddy Issues” columnist, on raising a well-rounded boy.

"Most foodies sneer at the word 'fusion'...but in fact, the fusion impulse is the human impulse--to cross over, to integrate two different, sometimes warring worlds, to create a new meaning.”
Todd Kliman, food and wine editor of The Washingtonian, writing about the "authenticity of food" in Lucky Peach.