Kathleen Stack journeys from bustling Bangkok to remote Thai villages, encountering elephants, rivers, and hill tribes, and later returns twelve weeks pregnant to discover her child’s first heartbeat and a vision for empowering women. Kathi Hickey braves Nepal’s chaotic buses, wild elephants, and near rhino encounters, finding danger, humor, and the thrill of the unexpected.
Jim Purdy takes us on a flavorful journey through Central Texas barbecue, from his first taste of smoky Austin brisket to a lifelong quest to recapture that perfect bite. David Blake turns a summer evening in Normandy into a fiery, hilarious Tex-Mex adventure, complete with hot sauce mishaps and a family-inspired country ballad. And Ann Russell immerses us in the final summer at Fish Camp, capturing leaping salmon, tireless net hauling, and the bittersweet rhythms of a life spent on the river.
On a precarious journey to reinvent an anti-poverty program in rural Thailand, a newly pregnant evaluator and a legendary microcredit expert uncover a model that can finance women’s dreams—just as she first hears her own baby’s heartbeat.
Around a Normandy fire pit, a hot-sauce-obsessed “patriarch” is dared to write the first country song about hot sauce, birthing a tongue-scorching cowboy ballad that outshines the family’s real condiments.
