Classic Archives – Lisa Scottoline

Classic Column: Itchy and Scratchy, The Sequel

July 12, 2026

By Lisa Scottoline

You may remember that I used to write about Mother Mary’s love of backscratchers.

Yes, I made fun of my mother for profit.

You know what?

She approved.

She loved that I wrote about her. In fact, sometimes when I would call her, she would begin the conversation with, “I did something you should write about.”

And thanks to all of you, who gave me the chance to give her the spotlight that she deserved, and frankly that all of us deserve.

We all do things that we should write about.

So here I am, writing about them, so you don’t have to.

Don’t worry, I’m a professional.

I got this.

Today I’m remembering that Mother Mary had six backscratchers in her house. She even traveled with one when she came to see me, because I didn’t have any.

Let me tell you, a backscratcher looks strange in a suitcase.

Actually a backscratcher looks strange anywhere.

A stick with a hand on the end is the stuff of nightmares.

My mother had a backscratcher that was black enamel bamboo and at one end was a realistic hand with long fake fingernails.

Eew.

Still I wish I had that now, but I suspect my brother does. That would be a Scottoline-style family heirloom.

A backscratcher and maybe a pack of matches.

In any event, I got to thinking about my mother and her backscratchers because all of a sudden, my back is super itchy.

I have a backscratcher, but I have to buy about 300 more. My one is always upstairs, because I keep it under my pillow at night.

How sexy is that?

You know you’re in trouble when the adult toy you use the most in the bedroom is a backscratcher.

Or maybe you’re not in trouble.

Maybe you’re doing just fine.

Maybe you’re living your life exactly as God intended, in purity.

But when I’m downstairs without the backscratcher, I find myself rubbing my back on door jambs like a deer.

I improvise with serving forks, carving forks, and chef’s knives.

There isn’t a sharp object in the tri-state area that I haven’t used to scratch my back.

One time I was with Francesca, I asked her to scratch my back, and she did, but the relief was only temporary.

Asking someone to scratch your back never works out the way you hoped.

It takes too long for them to find the itch, since you can’t properly direct them.

Saying “there, not there,” and “here, not here,” isn’t very helpful.

And before long, the guilt feels worse than the itching.

And even if they find the itch, they never scratch it long enough.

They get bored, probably because it took so long to find the itch in the first place.

I, however, am just warming up.

Scratching my back all day would do just fine.

But I get it, you have a life.

My back started itching when I turned sixty, and I wondered if it was related to aging, like if my skin is getting drying up in general.

But if that’s true, why don’t my legs itch?

Or my arms?

Or my breasts?

I can’t tell you the last time I had any feelings whatsoever in my breast.

So I don’t think it’s aging.

And so here I am, in dire need of more of backscratchers, and on my last book tour, you know what I packed in my suitcase.

Yes, I did.

So it’s come full circle, Mother Mary and me, front to back, and back again.

And every time I reach for a backscratcher, I know Mother Mary is laughing her ass off, in heaven.

I’ve become my mother, but without the smoking.

Profanity included.

You remember at the end of the movie Carrie, when the hand reaches up out of the grave?

Well, in the movie Lisa, it’s Mother Mary who’s making my back itch from beyond the grave, and the thing that’s sticking up out of the soil is a backscratcher.

It’s payback, since I made fun of her all those times.

Or her saying, “I did something you should write about.”

And so I am.

Thanks, Mom.

Lisa’s new book THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING will be on sale Tuesday, July 14^th.

Francesca’s novel FULL BLOOM will be out in paperback on Tuesday, July 21^st.

Classic Column: Game of Thrones

June 28, 2026

By Lisa Scottoline

If you read me, you know that I get jazzed about certain products.

And then I spread the word, herein.

I’d like to do that right now, with a short preface before I get to the point.

This, instead of my usual endless preface before I get to the point.

Getting to the point isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

So here we go.

First, my favorite product in the world is my books. If you enjoy these Sunday stories, they’re all collected in books I write with Daughter Francesca, and you should buy some and read them right away.

What you waiting for? You know you already like me, and the books are cheap.

And thank you for your support.

Second, any one of my books would go very nicely with the product I am about to recommend, but this is where we come to another preface. The following is for mature audiences only.

Also my readers.

If you like what I write about, and the way I write about it, you should feel free to keep reading. I say this with confidence because if you meet all of the above criteria, then you have endured stories about bunions, gray chin hairs, and adult diaper rash. And through my misadventures, I’ve recommended products I love, like Boudreaux’s Butt Paste, ThermaCare, and Bradley Cooper.

In other words, you know way too much about me and you don’t mind. Maybe you can relate.

Or you have a strong stomach.

And a great sense of humor.

Even if your breasts sag.

So what?

Unsaggy breasts aren’t all they’re cracked up to be, either.

I mean, we get it, girls.

Soon you’ll be us.

Anyway, to inch closer to my point, there’s an ick factor to the discussion of my second-favorite product, so if I haven’t cured you of your prissiness so far, check out now.

Because we’re entering the throne room with my favorite new throne.

The Squatty Potty.

I don’t know if you’ve heard about it, but it’s my new love.

I heard about the Squatty Potty on the radio, and I thought it sounded like an interesting idea. Bottom line, and no pun, it’s basically a stool that fits around the base of your toilet, and so when you sit on the toilet, it raises your legs into a squatting position.

Still with me?

Good. Either way. You can’t please everybody, and the people who continue to read will have their life changed.

Or at least their colon.

By the way, I have no problem in the bathroom.

Only in the bedroom.

In that I sleep with five dogs and a remote control.

Plus I’m no doctor, but I believe the Squatty Potty website, which says that squatting relaxes the puborectalis muscle, or basically, a kink in your colon. When you use your Squatty Potty, your colon gets unkinked.

Again, not a medical term.

I have a J.D., not an M.D.

But I like the idea that a squatting position is more natural for your anatomy. It may be a sign of the times that I’ve fallen in love with a toilet, but I don’t view it as being about elimination. I view it as being about my health, and by my health I mean me living as long as humanly possible and then some.

I want you to live as long that long, too, especially if you’re buying my books.

I always used to think about death, but after I turned sixty, it became more than academic. I truly wonder what will kill me, but unfortunately as soon as I find out, I’ll be dead.

Everything has a catch.

But I do find myself being more conscientious about eating healthy foods and exercising even when I don’t want to.

Let’s pretend golf is exercise.

Everybody else does.

But my favorite exercise of all is sitting down, and now I can sit down and know that I’m getting healthier, every time I’m in the throne room.

Look at it this way.

If you don’t want to do squats, you can just, well, squat.

Lisa’s new novel THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING will be out on July 14, 2026.

Francesca’s novel FULL BLOOM will be available in paperback on July 21, 2026.

Classic Column: The Great Makeup Organization

June 21, 2026

By Francesca Serritella

My bathroom is covered in makeup.

Lipsticks and lip balms live on every ledge and sometimes end up in the dog’s mouth. The closed toilet seat cover is a staging area for foundation and blushes. Brushes peek out of a coffee mug that barely fits on the counter. Eye-shadow compacts litter the sink’s edge, daring to be knocked off and shatter on the floor.

In my defense, my bathroom is so small, three things out of place make it look like a disaster zone.

And I never have only three things out of place.

Click to read the full column on Francesca’s Website

Francesa’s novel FULL BLOOM will be out in paperback on July 21, 2026.

Lisa’s new thriller THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING is on sale July 14, 2026

Classic Column: Gangrene Thumb

June 14, 2026

By Lisa Scottoline

You may recall I mentioned earlier that I water my garden too much.

That problem is now solved.

Because I’m out of water.

Our story begins when I noticed that the water pressure in my house is low.

Hmm.

By the way, I have well water. We live like pioneers in our township, which has no police, fire, or garbage removal, though I don’t have to sew the American flag.

Thanks, township!

Anyway, the water level in my well generally goes down when there’s no rain, but it was getting worse and worse until I realized that something must be wrong in the springhouse.

If you don’t know what a springhouse is, welcome to the club.

All I know is that it’s a picturesque little shed that houses where the water comes up from the well. More than that I can’t explain, because I have no understanding of how my springhouse works. I never go in there because it’s damp, dark, and scary, like a basement on steroids.

I called the plumbers who specialize in wells and they wanted me to show them the springhouse, so I was shamed into going in. Inside were strange black gauges, weird blue tanks, and two body-size open trays of water, which is the water I drink, evidently laying around all day and night, so that bugs, snakes, paramecium, and God-knows-what-else can swim around in it before it finds its way into the glass that I put to my parched lips.

Delicious.

The plumbers inspect the well and say that it’s fine, so we all leave the springhouse and troop around the lawn to solve the mystery of why I have no water. You don’t have to be Nancy Drew to notice that the grass in my front yard, near the garden, is surprisingly soggy.

Uh oh.

So we go find the faucet for the garden hose, which is in the garage, and the plumbers guess that the pipe must be leaking under the garage, since it was never used until I put in this stupid garden. They say it must have been corroding, but the corrosion was holding it together.

Like me.

Anyway, we trace the leak backwards to the basement under the garage, which is another place I never go because it’s damp, dark, and scary, like a springhouse on steroids.

As soon as we open the door, we see that the basement brims with water. Pieces of wood, broken glass, and kreplach float by.

Long story short, we call in the plumbers who specialize in flood damage and they use three pumps to pump the water out of the basement. They figure out where the leak is in the pipe, but also surmise it can’t possibly be causing the soggy grass. In other words, I have two leaks in two pipes, caused by watering the garden!

Yay!

We call in a third set of plumbers who specialize in second leaks, and these are the guys who put on their booties before going to work.

For a middle-aged woman, a plumber is a booty call.

They find the leak under the soggy lawn but are not sure exactly where. They explain that they will need to dig trenches and lay new water lines, and that an estimator will come out on Saturday to tell me how much my gardening hobby is going to cost me.

Obviously, I have a green thumb.

Dollar-green.

So by Sunday night, as I write, my entire front lawn is a swamp.

The only dry spot is the garden, where the flowers left by the deer are dying of thirst.

Classic Column: Just Desserts

June 7, 2026

By Lisa Scottoline

It can be a problem when your kid comes home to visit. You’re not used to living together, and even the littlest thing can cause a fuss.

For Daughter Francesca and me, it was dessert.

We’re finally on the same page, food-wise, which is a nice way of saying that we’re both trying to lose weight, so we’re eating healthy foods. She’s home this weekend, so for dinner I made politically-correct pasta. By which I mean, I sautéed a few tomatoes in olive oil with whole cloves of garlic, and when the mixture got soft, I took it out of the pan and dumped it on top of whole wheat spaghetti.

By the way, the best thing about this recipe, which I invented, is that it uses garlic without having to chop it up. I hate it when my fingers smell like garlic, and I don’t buy garlic already chopped, because that’s cheating. But this way, if you toss whole cloves in the pan, they get mushy, and you can mash them with a fork. Mashing is more fun than chopping, and doesn’t involve your fingers.

You pay nothing extra for these culinary tips.

Go with God.

And before I tell you about the fight, let me mention also that I’m working on portion control. I know that’s my main problem. This should have been a reasonable-calorie dinner, even though it’s pasta, but I always up the ante by getting a second and a third helping. You might ask, why do you make so much food in the first place, Lisa? The answer is simple.

I’m Italian.

Actually the truth is, I like to make extra of everything, like scrambled eggs, so I can give some to the dogs. Every morning, I make six eggs, knowing that I’ll eat two and give them the rest. They wait patiently during my breakfast, knowing that their eggs will come. It’s all very easy.

But I was doing the same thing with whole wheat pasta, making extra for the dogs, until I realized I was using them as my portion control beard.

I busted myself and stopped.

To stay on point, I made a delightful spaghetti meal, and Francesca made a side salad. We had a fun dinner, yapping away and trying not to eat more helpings of pasta, even though I was calling to us from the colander. When we finished our meal, I wanted dessert.

This, I can’t help.

I love to eat dessert right after dinner. And when I say right, I mean immediately. Timing is everything. It doesn’t have to be a lot of something, just a taste. It’s not my fault, and I figured out why this is so:

It’s because dessert sounds so much like deserve. Also, we say that people get their just desserts, which means they get what they deserve. So, ipso fatso, I feel as if I deserve dessert.

Right now.

But Francesca doesn’t like dessert right after dinner. She can wait, which I consider a four-letter word.

This is a long-standing battle we have, because I like us to eat together, and the conversation usually goes like this: I ask her, “Want some dessert?”

She answers, “No, thanks. We just ate.”

“But don’t you want something sweet? I’m having mine now.”

“No, I’m not hungry for dessert yet.”

I get cranky. “When do you think you’ll want dessert?”

“I don’t know. Later.”

“Sooner later or later later?”

Okay, so usually I don’t eat my dessert then, and we retire to the family room, where we watch TV and work, and I spend the rest of the night asking her, “Is it later yet?”

Just like she used to ask me, “Are we there yet?”

Payback, no?

So last night, I figured I’d solve this problem. All I wanted was a small helping of vanilla ice cream, with a banana. And because I wanted it right after dinner, I decided to have it then. If I had to eat alone, so be it. Plus, this way I’d have more time to burn off the calories, by reaching for the remote throughout the evening.

So I had my ice cream and banana.

Delicious.

But then what happened is that sometime around nine o’clock, Francesca sauntered into the kitchen and returned with a small plate of vanilla ice cream. She strolled over to the couch, sat down, and started eating.

I stared at her, along with the dogs.

It looked so delicious. I could almost taste it on my tongue. In fact, I could taste it on my tongue, because I had it two hours ago.

Two whole hours ago.

So you know where this is going.

I had to have a second dessert.

I told her it was her fault, and we had a fight.

In the end, I apologized, because she was right.

And I got what I deserved.

Classic Column: Bizarro Birthdays

May 31, 2026

By Lisa Scottoline

I just got off the phone with Mother Mary, who’s lost her mind. Or maybe it’s Scottoline birthday madness.

Let me explain.

She told me a story that happened to her that day, when she was going outside to do the laundry.

Yes, you read that right.

She lives in Miami with brother Frank and she goes outside to do the laundry because they keep their washer and dryer in the backyard.

This makes no sense to me, but she swears that it’s common in Florida to keep major appliances in the backyard, like shrubs with twenty-year warranties.

Still, it’s hard for me to believe. I suspect that my mother and brother are redneck Italians.

But never mind, that’s not the point of the story.

So Mother Mary is going outside to put in a load of laundry and she sees one of her neighbors, a nice young woman, walking her two-year-old son by the hand. My mother stops to say hello, and the little boy looks up at her with big blue eyes and says:

“I love you, Mary.”

So of course my mother melts, because she loves kids, and she even gets choked up telling me on the phone. The whole story is sounding really sweet until she gets to the next part, which is when she asks the mother of the toddler when is his birthday, and the woman answers:

November 23.

Okay, means nothing to you, but that’s brother Frank’s birthday.

And on the phone, my mother tells me: “I looked at that little boy, and I thought he was like Frank. Like he has your brother’s soul.”

I thought I heard her wrong. “Pardon?”

“When he said he loved me, I looked into his eyes and I could see his soul, and it was Frank’s soul.”

“You mean they’re alike?”

“No, I mean they’re the same.”

I tried to deal. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No. I’m telling you, he has the same exact blue eyes as Frank and he was born on the same day. He has Frank’s soul.”

“Ma, Frank still has his soul. He’s not dead yet.”

“I know that,” she said, irritably. “They share the same soul.”

“Ma, that’s crazy.”

“Sorry, but I know, I can tell. Remember the earthquake?”

This shuts me up, temporarily. It’s matter of public record that Mother Mary was the only person in Miami to feel an earthquake that took place in Tampa, and the South Florida newspapers even dubbed her Earthquake Mary. Ever since then, she thinks she’s Al Roker, but supernatural.

She said, “It’s the same soul. Absolutely.”

“Ma, just because they have the same birthday doesn’t mean they have the same soul.”

“Hmph. What do you know, about birthdays?”

She was referring to something I’ll never live down, which happened to me over thirty years ago, when daughter Francesca was three years old. I had taken her in a stroller into an optician’s shop in town, and a man walked through the door, pointed directly at Francesca, and said: “Her birthday is February 6.”

I was astounded. “How do you know?”

“I just do.”

I went home that day and called my mother. “Ma, some guy just guessed that Francesca’s birthday is February 6! Isn’t that amazing?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because her birthday is February 7.”

I blinked. “It is?”

“Yes, dummy.”

Look, I have no idea how it happened, but for the first three years of Francesca’s life, I celebrated her birthday on the wrong day.

Sue me.

Maybe it’s because I was in labor for 349,484 hours, so the exact day she was born seemed like a technicality. And since then, it was just she and I celebrating a day earlier, with nobody around to know better.

So now I can never say anything about birthdays, ever.

But at least I know where everybody’s soul should be.

And their washer-dryers, too.

Classic Column: Mother Mary Had Priorities

May 10, 2026

By Lisa Scottoline

Mother Mary was a great mother.

But she was not a great housekeeper.

Guess which mattered more.

I remember her hugging me.

I remember her looking over her newspaper to laugh at something I said.

I remember her telling me I was great.

I remember her lifting an eyebrow when I was out of line.

She never yelled at me.

Her eyebrows did.

She loved me so much she had to bite me.

This might be an Italian thing.

She would just grab my arm and bite it.

She called it a love bite.

You know what?

I liked it.

I remember it.

Do you know what I don’t remember?

That the house was kind of messy.

Mother Mary worked, and I was one of the few kids who had a working mom in my class, so I know she was busy.

But her other priority was carbohydrates.

Every Sunday, she made homemade pasta and homemade tomato sauce.

You can’t even imagine how great this was, growing up.

As I’ve written before, we had pasta every night. I didn’t even think that was weird. And I had cold spaghetti for breakfast the next day, and even had spaghetti sandwiches for lunch, which I brought into school.

How do you make a spaghetti sandwich?

Just take spaghetti and put it between two loaves of Italian bread.

This would be Italian, squared.

If people laugh at you, offer them a bite.

The kids at my lunch table started out laughing and ended up begging.

Looking back, we had our ups and downs, but what I remember most about my mother is that she loved to laugh.

She really was the funniest person. I can’t remember any of her jokes now, but the substance of her jokes don’t matter.

What I remember is she was the beating heart of our family, and there was always a laugh.

So I learned humor can get you through almost anything.

And we find ourselves in a really difficult time in our country.

Joking around may look insensitive, but it helps.

The great Mel Brooks had a birthday was this week, and he said, “Humor is a defense against the universe.”

I think that’s kind of brilliant.

There are days when it seems like the universe is conspiring to break us down.

I know there are a lot of women hurting these days, and ladies, I’m with you.

And it’s hard to find the humor in politics, or a pandemic.

But humor isn’t heartless.

It’s a way to take heart.

This too shall pass.

And not because we’ll sit by idly, but because we’ll make sure it passes.

Mother Mary taught me determination, and action.

But most importantly she taught me to laugh.

So forgive me, but here’s a method to my madness, and next week, I’ll write something funny for you.

In the meantime, I’ll look around for the things that make me laugh.

Like the dogs.

This morning Boone woke me up by sitting on my head.

It’s a dog thing.

The dogs make me laugh every day.

My cat makes me laugh once a year.

But it’s a good laugh.

I also have a barn cat who likes to sit on a horse.

Now that’s funny.

He also likes to ride around in the mower.

Too bad he can’t drive.

I have a horse who’s so lazy he lies down while I groom him.

He thinks it’s funny.

Actually it is.

And I do it.

So the joke’s on me.

And here’s something that’s always funny:

The cable company.

The cable company’s always good for a laugh.

My Internet has gone out three times this week, which of course is the week my next novel is due, and I have gone through four different cable visits, three different modems, and two pounds of pasta, not homemade.

Humor and carbs.

Every time.

We will get through this, together.

Classic Column: Mother Mary and the Terrorists

April 26, 2026

By Lisa Scottoline

They say that the past isn’t even past, and that’s always true when Mother Mary is around.

It all begins with a call from Brother Frank.

“I got bad news,“ he says. “We’re bastards.”

“Wha?” asks I.

“Well, we went to get mom’s driver’s license renewed.”

So far, I’m following. Mother Mary doesn’t drive, but she carries an ID card that the Florida DMV issues. Her last card expired, which I found out on her last visit after I tried to put her on a plane back to Miami. They wouldn’t let her fly until they patted her down, which she enjoyed way too much.

“The DMV says we can’t renew her ID card without her marriage certificate.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s a woman who’s using her married name.”

“So what?” I’m trying to understand. I don’t see what a driver’s license has to do with a marriage certificate, especially at this point in my mother’s life. My father passed in 2002, and my parents have been divorced for ever. They were married in 1950, a time when people balanced spinning plates on TV. Now that’s entertainment.

“It’s a new law, since September 11^th.”

In the background, I hear my mother yelling, “Those terrorists, they should be ashamed of themselves!”

I nod in approval. That someone should be ashamed of themselves is the worst thing she says about anyone. And when she’s really mad, she’ll shout, “Out of my sight!” I fear for the terrorists if they ever meet Mother Mary. She’ll order them out of her sight, take off her shoe, and throw it at them. She always hits her target. There are missile-launchers with less accuracy.

But to say on point, I can’t believe what I’m hearing. “Frank, can this be true?”

“Yes. We were in line behind a 92 year old woman whose husband had been dead for fifty years, and they wouldn’t give her an ID card. She had taken two buses to get there, so we gave her a ride home. She said it was a mikveh.”

I wince. “You mean a mitzvah, which is a good deed.”

“What’s a mikveh?”

“Forget it. Tell the story.”

“So we called the hall of records back home, and they can’t find her marriage certificate anywhere.”

“Do the records go back that far?”

“Yes, but the certificate is lost. Or it never existed.”

I blink. “It has to exist. They got married.”

“Yeah, but they’re’s no proof.”

Behind him, my mother’s yelling, “It’s all because of the terrorists!”

I let it go. “So what now?”

“She can’t visit you until we straighten this out.”

Which would be the good news.

Just kidding.

I ask, “What about a passport?”

“She needs the ID card. She’s gonna show a passport to write a check? And we’re illegitimate.”

“Does it matter?” I wonder aloud. In the olden days, they used to call it being born out of wedlock, but I never liked the word wedlock. It has a faintly incarcerated air, which fits my marital history to a T.

“I don’t know if it matters. It seems like everybody’s illegitimate, these days. I feel kind of cool.”

I laugh. “I know, right? We’re Brad and Angelina’s twins.”

“I’ll be the boy.”

“I’ll be the girl.”

Mother Mary shouts, “Bastards!”

But I don’t ask which ones she means.

Classic Column: Which Spices Would You Take To a Kitchen Island?

April 19, 2026

By Lisa Scottoline

There’s nothing like home improvement to improve your life.

At least, not in theory.

I say this because I’m adding a garden room to my house, even though I don’t even know if that’s a thing, because I have a garden and I want a room in front of it so I can see it through the window.

Like TV, only without Andy Cohen.

The garden room is attached to the kitchen and since it needed a door, the oven and cabinets had to be moved, and in any event, you see where this is going. Adding a garden room meant that the kitchen got remodeled. Because the thighbone is connected to the leg bone and the leg bone is connected to the wallet.

Anybody who’s ever started home improvement knows that as soon as you improve one thing, you have to improve other things, so that everything is New and Improved, like detergent, only much more costly.

But I’m not complaining.

I feel lucky to be able to make these changes, and since I work at home, I’m spending 24/7 on the premises, I want to premises to suit me. And while we’re turning that frown upside down, let me add that since I’m still terribly single, it’s great to have everything exactly the way I want.

Finally.

And then I’ll die.

My epitaph will read:

HERE LIES LISA SCOTTOLINE

DID SHE IMPROVE ENOUGH?

To stay on point, remodeling the kitchen means that I’m starting to look hard at my priorities, namely, spices. Please tell me that I’m not on the only woman who owns approximately 75,932 spices, accumulated over decades, and that the spices are dusted off every decade, which is the only time they’re even touched.

I’m looking at you, cardamom.

How this came about is that when I moved the oven, I lost the shelf above it, which is where I kept the aforementioned spices, and that meant that I had to find the spices a new home or concede the obvious and throw them out.

So I began to cast a skeptical eye at my spice rack.

And it took me on a tour of my own life.

Let’s begin with Marriage Rookie Enthusiasm.

In that time period of my life, I had just married Thing Two, my daughter Francesca was young and I had two stepdaughters living at home. I wanted to be not only the best mother of all time, but also the best stepmother, so I instantly bought American Mom spices, which you use when you bake apple pie. You know the autumnal array of allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.

To make a long story short, I made exactly one apple pie.

Divorce ensued, but I got custody of the spices.

Then it was just Francesca and me, and being Italian-American, I decided that I was going to make homemade tomato sauce, or gravy. Mother Mary made the best gravy ever, but she refused to give me the recipe because I was a lawyer.

Don’t ask.

I watched her do it and she always used onion salt, garlic salt, salt salt, and extra salt.

No fresh spices were involved.

Yet it was delicious.

Still I could never make gravy as good as she did, and in time I gave up, though I still have the garlic salt. I feel certain that Mother Mary approves, smiling down from heaven and hoping that the garlic salt has solidified into a sodium bullet.

The next stage of my spice life was Francesca going to college, and that was when I decided I wasn’t going to act mopey because I was an empty nester, and believe me, I got over that fast.

LOL.

But in spice terms, that was the time of my Indian Awakening, an idea I got from a Williams Sonoma catalog. I bought every Indian spice known to man, extending well beyond starter curry into garam masala, turmeric, and vadouvan. They came in round pots full of orange and yellow powders, like nightmare blusher.

These were the coolest spices ever, but I never looked at them again because as an empty nester, I stopped cooking altogether.

Which was coolest of all.

This brings us to the present day, when the only spices I use are salt and pepper.

They require neither shelf, rack, nor cabinet.

They’re sitting alone together on the kitchen island, like survivors of a suburban shipwreck.

Where they’ll stay until the next Williams Sonoma catalog comes in the mail.

Column Classic: Lost and Found

March 15, 2026

By Lisa Scottoline

Did you hear the news?

They discovered a new organ.

All this time, it was in your body.

Not even kidding.

Maybe they were looking outside?

Anyway, an Irish surgeon, Dr. J. Calvin Coffey, discovered that we have something in our stomach called a mesentery.

Before now, the mesentery was a mystery.

Dr. Coffey teaches at the University of Limerick, otherwise well-known for its limericks.

Like, “There once was a mesentery from Nantucket….”

Evidently, the mesentery connects the intestine to the abdomen, and as Dr. Coffey explained, “It keeps the intestine in a particular shape, so when you stand up, your intestine doesn’t fall into your pelvis.”

Well, hell. That’s a good thing.

It’s like Spanks for your colorectal system.

Thanks, mesentery!

Meanwhile, I might be in love with Dr. Coffey. He has a way with words. And also if he could find a mesentery, he could find my car keys.

But to stay on point, it turns out that for the past century, medical science had thought the mesentery was a group of disjointed parts, but he figured out it’s a connected organ.

Hello!

So now you have an organ you didn’t know about.

Like a present you got for the holidays.

And it’s just your size!

People don’t understand why medical science didn’t know about the mesentery before.

Not me. I get it. If I were going to lose something in my body, the most likely place to lose it would be in my stomach.

In the folds.

Above the Bermuda Triangle.

You know what I mean.

All ladies have one, and that’s what I call mine. Because any man who goes there is lost forever.

Anyway, if you have stomach folds, you know that they’re the reason God made loose sweaters.

That’s what I wear to hide my folds, or I avoid sitting altogether.

This is my new thing since my last speaking event, when I sat down and my waistband button popped off, then the zipper went town. I couldn’t keep it up. It looked good at the lectern, if you like asymmetrical pants.

Luckily I had on a jacket, which is a folds-hider for special occasions.

And I have other tips for hiding folds.

For example, if you ever see me on the beach, I am lying down. That’s the only way my stomach looks flat. Unfortunately, that’s when my breasts also look flat, but at least it’s a matching set.

Anyway, the thing about folds is that they hide things in addition to mesenteries.

Okay, let’s get real.

I happen to look down after a shower the other day, in a rare moment.

It’s winter, so the shower is rare.

Also the looking down.

I mean, why? I usually can’t see anything over my belly anyway, so who needs that reminder?

Not me.

So when I looked down, my folds smoothed out, and you know what I saw sticking out of my belly button?

Dog hair.

I recognized it because there’s dog hair all over my house, and since I have dogs that have yellow, brown, black, and white hair, in every corner is multicolored canine tumbleweed.

But in my bellybutton?

Who knew?

Yet, there was, sprouting like a little furry fountain.

I started pulling it out, and the more stuff I pulled out, the more stuff there was, like a magician starts pulling scarves out of a hat.

Not only dog hair, but lint and little shreds of tissue paper.

Who knew what was in there?

Could the Bermuda Triangle be spreading?

Are you horrified yet?

I was. I even got out a tweezers to do the job right, extracting every last foreign object like a surgeon.

In fact, like a surgeon finding a mesentery.

Dr. Coffey, call me.

We have so much in common.

Sign Up for Lisa's Newsletters!