What would it be like to represent the United States in a country just emerging from behind the Iron Curtain, where Soviet occupation has long poisoned attitudes toward the West and squashed the life and color out of everyday life? Definitely challenging, and at times hilarious. That is the mission recounted in Vera and the Ambassador by Vera Blinken, who escaped communist Hungary as a child and returned in triumph 40 years later as wife of U.S. Ambassador Donald Blinken. In this delightful account, she welcomes us into the official U.S. Residency of a country enjoying its first taste of freedom. Vera’s entertaining tales of spying housemaids, official guests braving psychedelic green soup (the chef had never seen white asparagus and tried to compensate) – and her harried quest to bring a tattered household up to snuff make our everyday household issues shrivel in comparison. Vera shared some of her reflections in an interview with wOw columnist Liz Peek. Click here to read it.