Fruit for the spirit!

This morning I awakened to the call of wild turkeys.  Sometimes the predawn alarm is sung by a pack of coyotes on the hill.  I don't live in the wilderness, but I am fortunate to share this area on the Bay with creatures great and small.  Songbirds, sea birds, skunks, even mountain lions live in close proximity.  A fresh rosy apricot fell from the tree and nestled in the lawn like tissue in a gift box.  Pots of white roses are blooming lushly on my deck. All of this beauty in fruit and flowers would not exist without the primal dance of bees.  In daily human routine we often pay no attention to the essential balance of this extraordinary ecosystem.  Today, especially, I am breathing easier for the awareness of it.  

Like most, I have a " to do" for the day.  Send out another résumé, check inventory for a potential client, plan a change to my medical insurance, buy dog treats, put another load of laundry in before I leave.  Find a way to earn more, do more, be more.  A few minutes in my yard puts life back in perspective.  Really, we control so little.  It can be reassuring that there is an amazing natural world out there, teeming with abundant life, well ordered and functioning by brilliant innate intelligence.  

Discovery of the perfect natural laws through science is given accolades.  Those who bear witness as researchers and scientists, mathematicians, and academics often are the proponents of random evolutionary process.   Imagine how terrifying it must be to acknowledge that there is a creative intelligence so brilliant, dynamic and powerful as to set universes in motion with such precision and balance.  From black holes to butterflies, no detail left to chance. Are we accountable to that intelligence?  Most definitely, by making a conscious choice to do no harm.  

 Personally, I am filled with gratitude to think I am part of something so much larger and grander than humanity can even imagine.  I really appreciate earnest efforts of scientists and the curiosity of adventurers whose evidence reassures me of the majesty of divine design right down to nano particles, and the cells that regenerate in my body.  My faith is restored each day in the cathedral of trees, surge of the tides, sparkle of stars and a delicious, ripe apricot that has fallen at my feet.

The first stretch, final stretch, home stretch.

Big lessons can come from little beings.  This happened recently in an aha sort of way.  Having a back problem since a car accident some thirty years ago, I have a lot of chronic pain.  Movement helps and I have belonged to a gym for over twenty years.  One of the first things you learn is to warm up muscles before exertion, work out with weights and cardio to strengthen and increase endurance, then stretch your muscles.  

To the aha moment, I have an infant grandson.  I watched him awaken when he was a few weeks old with great fascination.  First he shrugged his shoulders way up, rolled his head right and left, raised his arms over his head, arched his back, stuck out his bottom, lowered his arms and pushed them down as his straightened and stretched his legs.  He performed a gentle and complete body stretch after being still for a few hours.  This innate genius, less I get too excited as a proud grandmother, exists in our cocker spaniel too.  As adults, we often skip this simple yet vital step when we wake up. It's feet to the floor and hit the ground running, or limping for many. 

 Let's flash back to the 50's, baby boomers.  Remember Romper Room?  " Bend and stretch, reach for the stars.  There goes Jupiter, here comes Mars".  If you recall, back then, Pluto was still a planet, the ninth.  It has now been reclassified as a dwarf.  But, hey, a rose by any other other name....right?  It is still in orbit, dwarf or not.   Back to the stretch, it is good for you!  You are born knowing how to do it.  Keep it up.  Like swallowing, we are born knowing how to do it and most of us exercise that skill frequently with great delight every day.

Stretching ourselves keeps us young and vital.  This applies to other areas of life as well.  Stretching our mental skills with reading, math, word quizzes, and puzzles keeps our brains sharp and wards off senility.  Learn something new, stretch your mind and force your brain and your body to perform in a new way.  It increases the  brain activity and the pleasure releases endorphins that make you happy.  It is a win win situation.  

To stay current in the work place, you must stretch yourself professionally.  Keep on track with the technology, marketing, demographics that keep your company growing and let people know you are in the know.  With so much downsizing going on, your experience may be overlooked in favor of younger career  seekers with fresh skills and fearless ambition.

Stretching yourself creatively may lead to discovery of talents you never knew you had.  I've met artists who never painted until over the age of fifty.  In a creative writing class I took, half the students were members of AARP and their gift of expression was astounding.  Origami, haiku, Argentine tango, watercolors, photography,    Feldenkrais, Italian for beginners, Chinese cooking, organic gardening, are all classes offered in adult education.  Stretch your imagination and your social circle while you are at it.  Try something new. You will be glad you did.  

The photo featured is of Charlotte, a cherished friend.  She is a dancer, runner, fashion stylist, free spirit who inspires me with her joie de Vivre.  Curious, full of adventure she makes the most of each day.  Charlotte is savvy, globally conscious, and spiritually perceptive.  Seeing her on Facebook delights me to no end as she struts her fashion stuff creatively and confidently. She raises stretching to a fine art!

For richer or poorer, for better or worse

In times of trouble, our whole sense of being is colored by dilemma.  We pause to rethink every decision, choice and past circumstance leading up to an unmanageable situation with regret and judgement.  A mugging takes place every time we beat ourselves up. We may recognize patterns when we ask "why does this keep happening to me?"   Actually, there is often a compulsion to recreate situations and bad relationships until we learn the lesson from them.  

We often feel that we must give due attention to the disasters befalling other people by following the daily news accounts detailing the tolls of loss and grief.  Ignoring tragedy indicates a shallow personality, narcissism or lack of compassion, right?  Perhaps the opposite is true.  People who rubberneck on highways to view a gory accident aren't always more compassionate.  Watching replays of searing grief and devastation may provoke gratitude for our happiness and safety or it may feed an addiction to sensationalism as we avoid dealing with our comparatively minor but pervasive discontent or personal challenges.

To lead a richer, fuller life, we need to lighten up.  Drama and continual focus on what is wrong with the country, our relatives, our hair, our income, our love life will rarely help us create a peaceful, vibrant, successful sense of being.  Each day the news that is being reported focuses on what has gone wrong in the world.  Crime, violence, dispute and disaster hit us in sixty second assaults to the senses with surreal commercial breaks for yogurt, wrinkle cream and treatment for erectile dysfunction.   Constant negativity takes its toll on our physical and mental health.  One of our local news programs features a regular segment called "People Behaving Badly".  Wouldn't the audience benefit from a feature on "People Behaving Bravely"?

It benefits us to share news of encouragement, accolades for achievement, creative solutions to problems, and take pleasure in what is going right without guilt.  Counting our blessings allows better sleep, loving interactions with family and friends and energizes us with anticipation for a pleasant and productive day.  Imagine less antacid and more apple pie!   Limiting our exposure to misery is the first step to a richer life. If there is a community problem or crisis, lets propose a solution with the story. Then everyone feels empowered and not universally victimized by proxy.

We can choose to create the shift to richer living without needing an increase in the paycheck.  Beauty and bounty surround us, lets enjoy what we can and share it.  Listen to more music and fewer complaints. Notice and celebrate one good thing every day, better yet, every hour!  Take some advice from a bumper sticker and practice random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty.  We will all be richer for it.

When you're down and troubled, and you need a helping hand...

There are days when we all wish our worries would be swept away.  Unpaid bills due, a  teen with poor final grades, the air conditioner that needs repair, maybe the car is making a strange noise and nothing seems to come easily.  Then the winds of change come roaring through.  We watch in horror as communities in Oklahoma are shattered.  Families have been torn apart losing what is most precious.  The fortunate ones rush to the rescue and we feel a wave of gratitude to be living anywhere else with families intact.  We realize that success and security are illusory.  Forces much more powerful can shatter those illusions with random selection.  If we are most fortunate, we receive those lessons by observing the tragedy of others.

  Is complacency a luxury we can really afford?  What would you remedy today if you knew tomorrow would be tragic?  Could you drop a grudge, leave an unkind word unsaid, remember to hug someone who leaves laundry on the floor?  Could you stop worrying about what really isn't important?  Can you revel in happiness for having enough instead of having it all?   Today, most of us can be grateful and count our blessings.  We can restore peaceful relationships because it is not too late.  We can shift our priories and wake up with joy.  We can build community by reaching out to neighbors, knowing the little kids on the block and their pet's names and pray that they never need rescue from a gunman or a collapsed school.  We can contribute something to a rescue organization that rushes to emergencies.  Maybe even take a course in first aid that we have put off for years.  

Let's not forget the power of prayer.  Whether you have a faith in God, or put your faith in man, there is tremendous power and energy in unified thoughts of gratitude, peace, compassion and consolation.  The collective wisdom and intentional wave of focus on solutions, strength and courage benefit us by fostering human connection without prejudice.

May today bring you peace, perspective and inspiration to create the changes you want to see in your world.  May the people of Oklahoma feel our support in a real and powerful way.

Comfort food!

Comfort foods

Okay, I admit it, I am an emotional eater.  Emotion gives me reason to eat and eating brings me happiness.  Growing up with four generations of Italian Mamas and Nanas created the perfect storm for food obsession.  Being a skinny kid of such heritage gave them concern and I would get shipped off to my great grandmother's house to get fattened up for a week or two each summer.  That meant unlimited access to sweets!  Nana always had a box of Cella chocolate covered cherries in the refrigerator just for me.  Grapefruit was served with a tablespoon of sugar and three maraschino cherries with extra juice dribbled on to make it nice and pink.

Every Sunday meant walking to church, Our Lady of Sorrows, or Our Lady of Victory and a stop at the bakery on the way home.  Now there is a business opportunity.  Open a bakery within walking distance of a Catholic Church.  The place would be mobbed, you would take a number and make sure you knew what you wanted to order when your turn came.  Half a dozen hard rolls, crisp on the outside and soft and flaky in the center loaded with poppy seeds, half a dozen crumb buns ( only made on New Jersey, I have never found them in any other state), cream filled donuts glazed with chocolate and jelly donuts with fine sugar.  Oh, and don't forget the sugar French twisted cruller for Mom.  My sister loved Charlotte Russe, a whipped cream confection and special treat.  I also loved the seven layer chocolate loaf cake.   We rarely ordered the Italian pastries in the morning.  We would go to a special bakery, Vargas, for those in the afternoon.   Ah, the anticipation of cutting the red striped string from the boxes to find our favorites within.  Yes, we baked at home, but Sundays at Church became Sinday at the bakery.  The following Saturday would require confessing gluttony so you could receive Holy Communion the next morning and repeat the trip to the bakery.  

Now, it was interesting that despite stuffing myself with sweets, Italian bread, salami, mozzarella, pasta and potatoes, I remained a skinny kid.  It wasn't until I was pregnant with my first daughter that the scales shifted never to return.  My Nana would finally rest in peace if she knew I gained weight.  I was fortunate that as a child, we had five generations of Italian women alive. I do have some memory of my great, great grandmother Maria, as a child.  I also have a treasured photo of us as five generations.  My daughters also had five generations alive.  My great grandmother lived to know both of my children. I also had another great grandmother of Irish ancestry who gave me great joy and didn't pass away until I was in high school.  Named Meem instead of Nana, she always had Milky Way candy bars stashed in the small china closet and a bag of Starlight mints.  I still have that china closet.  I can't recall her ever cooking big meals for us, maybe because the kitchens were tiny and the Nanas dominated.  

At age 35 I was a confirmed carbohydrate addict.  At age 45 I had a hypnotherapy session to deal with stress over my divorce.  Actually, she was a friend and I wanted to give her some business.  I said, " by the way, can you get rid of my chocolate addiction?"  Well, after a restful half hour, I left feeling relaxed but maybe a little skeptical.  I began the process of selling my house and planning a move to the West coast.  It took me about two weeks to realize that I had not eaten a single bite of chocolate.  I went from mainlining the stuff to complete disinterest.  Wow!  I still enjoy chocolate as a favorite flavor, but am no longer compelled to have it on hand like band aids for an aching heart. 

  Unbeknownst to me at the time, my friend added a subliminal hypnotic suggestion that I would feel happy whenever I saw the color red.  Her thought was that I would have a mini flash of joy when stopped at traffic lights. Now, red was never a favorite color of mine.  I preferred pink roses, purple crayons, yellow walls ands turquoise sweaters.  Suddenly I found myself buying a red wallet, red leather jacket, red boots, and dark red Ralph Lauren bedding ensemble for my new home.  I have a red leather computer case, , a red spatula, and a red taffeta raincoat.  It has been eleven years since the hypnosis.  Now, red is NOT an obsession, but it does bring me delight as an accessory.  

Segue back to food and the color red.  I love TOMATOES!  It is time to plant and I have four varieties growing in pots on the sunny side of the yard.  Since leaving New Jersey, nothing rivals the Jersey Beefsteak tomato.  I have eaten different varieties of heirlooms that were delicious, but the Beefsteak tomato still rules.  Nonetheless, the local tomato season is soon to arrive with great anticipation.  We always have access to fresh tomatoes from Mexico and Chile, but they are picked green and never ripen to best flavor.  I usually stick with cherry or mini heirlooms in our off season. 

 Now, I will make some of our summer favorites!  For breakfast, whole wheat toast sandwiches of tomato, bacon and American cheese with mayo. For a cool supper on a hot day,  I take a whole crisp French baguette sliced lengthwise, then layer on thick slices of ripe tomato, sharp Locatelli cheese that I shave with a vegetable peeler, slender rings of red onion, whole fresh leaves of basil.  Then I drizzle ( or sometimes drench)  the top half with a vinaigrette of white balsamic, and olive oil.  Pure bliss!

If you are looking for a "wish you were at the beach"  read, I just finished FULL OF GRACE by Dorothea Benton Frank.  Light, easy, laugh out loud, and loaded with family dynamics, food feast porn, faith, ethics, travel, romance and just maybe,a real miracle to lift your spirits, it is s delightful distraction. An extended Italian family, the Russos, retire to South Carolina from Bloomfield, New Jersey with bag and baggage of tradition, criticism, witticism, love and devotion and a whole lotta antipasto!

For me, it was a day at the beach and a trip down family memory lane.

Enjoy! 

Three Ways To A More Fulfilling Life?

Have you ever noticed how often magazine articles capture the attention by making lists?  10 Ways To Change Your World,  15 Foods Never To Eat, 3 Easy Steps to Financial Wealth,  5 ways to Find True Love and 50 Ways To Leave Him.

These days, busy lifestyles create short attention spans.  We live life with bullet points and priority to do lists.  We want results without due process.  Multi tasking has become routine.  We wonder why children can't focus? Adults, by example, never do.  Television commercials appear to be successful in thirty second bursts with eight or ten shown in rapid succession.  Relationships are featured in sound bites, texts and video clips.  I still haven't figured out the Cialis ad. A middle aged couple end up in separate old bathtubs out in the backyard?  Is this what kids going off to college think their parents do for intimacy?  Life has become one of constant brief distractions digitally enhanced and scored with someone else's music. Posting on Pinterest is a substitution for creativity.  Perhaps these seem like sweeping generalizations.  But when we need to read 22 Ways to Improve Life and Slow Down Aging and first on the list is BREATHE, perhaps it is time to pause and think.

There is magic in watching a seedling grow, dough rise, the tide change, the stars come out at night.  Touch the fabric of life, feel the air on your skin, whisper a prayer in your heart, listen to the music of nature, experience the sensation of being alive.  Hold someone's hand and really feel the human connection.  Have a meaningful conversation in person. Value your thoughts enough to write them down for remembrance.  Avoid post it notes and ease into perception for there, wisdom is born.  See, I've just created a list of 13 Ways to Enhance Life.

  There is only one May 16, 2013. Enjoy your day!

She sells sea shells down by the sea shore

I am a home decor addict.  There is no cure. Actually, I don't want to be cured.  It all began with moving into my own apartment one block from the ocean in Belmar, NJ..  It was part of an interesting older home that had been subdivided to create income property.  It had ten foot ceilings and very tall windows.  Being on a budget with a capital B, I began sewing draperies and reupholstering second hand furniture.  Eventually, it lead to a full time career as an interior designer. Since then, I have created charming interiors in mansions, cottages and beach bungalows on the Gulf coast of Florida, the New England sea coast from Boston to Kennebunkport, and here in the San Francisco Bay Area.  

I have been blessed to live along the coastal waters all of my life.  Our family had a home at the Jersey shore and a charter fishing boat business.  I was actually born there while my mother was on vacation.  That set the tone for the rest of my life.  I arrive early, prefer being on vacation, and feel best in hot weather. I believe humidity is good for the skin ( although it doesn't do much for my hair).  With salt water in my veins, I love a rousing thunder storm and watching boats navigate the Inlet to safe harbors.  And I collect seashells.

When not at the beach summers and weekends, I would walk along the shore of Newark Bay.  Maybe being born under the sign of Cancer, a moon child pulled by the tides, caused my affinity for the sea. Perhaps the long swim in the icy Atlantic that my mother took the day before my birth had a subliminal effect.  Now I walk along the bay on the West coast and the feeling is the same, a deep connection to something so much larger than myself, expansive and eternal.  The clanging of rigging against mast in the breeze and a choir of gulls sing hosanna to the highest.

  Each month I receive numerous shelter magazines in the mail.  Veranda, Traditional Home, Elle Decor, are a few.  But my very favorite is Coastal Living. Whenever I seek a mini mental vacation, especially in winter, I flip thru an issue of that magazine.  Sea, sky, sand, sunsets, sails and sandpipers, shells like jewels on the shore take me away.  On my coffee table is a large shallow bowl, aqua and iridescent like the Gulf of Mexico.  There is a collection of sea shells in jars gathered with my children through the years.  On the hearth is a large clear glass bowl filled with white powdered sugar sand from Siesta Key. A tiny Japanese rake allows me to trace patterns in the sand, easily shifted by the tides of my mood and imagination.  

My children have moved far from the sea but vacations call them home to sand between the toes.  Swimming, fishing, sailing and snorkeling, sunsets over the water sipping frosty drinks lure them back each year.  My son in law has bought a small sailboat.  Generations of seafaring tradition will continue when he teaches my grandson, Liam to sail first on a lake, then on the sea. My daughter will teach him about herons and urchins, sand dollars and sea turtles, jelly fish and dolphins.  I can't wait to explore tide pools of treasure, starfish, and tiny crab. Together we will begin his collection of seashells.  I will share some that his mommy brought me when, as a toddler, she too  learned to love the sea.

Women want more...

Women want more in life
To express something bigger
To live genuinely
To be of service to self without shame
And others without constraint
To sing
Dance
Move in concert with the music
And rhythms of life.
To think clearly
Feel deeply
Live passionately
To mirror beauty in our world
And each other.

Marcella

The international stay at home cook!

She shops, she SCORES! With the exhilaration and thrill of being at a hockey game, I navigate the delights of my local markets. I get excited about glistening produce and delicate scaloppine the way my daughters swoon over shoes.

In possession of a list as a reminder to restock essentials like Locatelli cheese for grating, spontaneity rules the adventure. My weekly menus are inspired by what looks irresistible at the market. Often a clerk will ask " can I help you?" thinking I can't find what I want. Little does he know I am lost in fantasy about roasting those red peppers on the grill or baking them with feta and olives, garnished with snips of fresh basil.

This weekend I was in deep water! I found fresh mussels from the icy waters of the Pacific Northwest and giant tiger prawns caught off the coast of Vietnam. On Saturday, those succulent west coast mussels met my east coast meaty marinara. Back in Jersey City on Friday nights, we would send out for pizza with a side order of steaming mussels marinara. No forks allowed, they taste best slurped from the shell. This time though, I served them up spicy with crushed red pepper, and loaded with garlic marinara. A bunch of chopped fresh parsley, and a little coarse salt stirred into olive oil and drizzled over the whole platter balanced the copious amount of garlic. Warm, crusty Italian bread and a crisp Caesar salad to finish. Skip the napkins and use dish towels because this is one messy feast when enjoyed properly!
Lemon sorbet topped it off later that night as dessert.

Sunday dinner was fast and easy. I prepared the prawns scampi style. Fresh lemons are a staple in my kitchen. I remember my great grandmother would drink a cup of hot water with lemon in the morning. I'm glad Dr. Oz agrees with the benefit of the practice. One of my favorite kitchen gadgets is a microplane for zesting. The lemon zest is so fine that the flavor infuses completely. Another plus is it saves scraped knuckles. A few swipes and the entire lemon is zested, then I juice half of it. With butter melting in the pan, I add chopped garlic and the prawns. In about two minutes they turn pink and in goes the lemon zest, juice, chicken broth, a splash of white wine and a handful of fresh parsley. It simmers for just a few minutes while I drain the pasta, a nice imported gemelli which I toss with a little butter and grated Locatelli cheese. I serve the scampi over the pasta being sure to spoon on the broth. Campari tomatoes, quartered drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with sea salt and fresh basil, a loaf of garlic bread and voila, a fast Sunday supper. The colorful contrast between the tomatoes, shrimp and the parsley creates a presentation that is a feast for the eyes and the soul!

Never were more words true than " Bless us, Lord, for these thy gifts, which we are about to receive from thy bounty. ". Amen and Grazie!

Angels among us...

INSPIRED AND UNSTOPPABLE: Wildly Succeeding In Your Life's Work by Tama Kieves.
I stumbled upon this book via the guardian angel of Amazon. It was one of those situations where they say " if you enjoyed this book, then other readers have also read THIS book." How could I possibly go wrong with a personal recommendation like that?

Personally, I do believe that I have a guardian angel of literary suggestion. She may have been Sister Mary Librarian in a former life who narrowly missed out on canonization as a saint by spending too much time retreating behind stacks of books.
When looking for guidance, or plagued with dilemma, I often turn to the library, the stack of books, piled by my bed,, or journey to the cathedral of Barnes and Noble.
Pose a question, flip a page randomly and trust that what you need to know will be the paragraph you first lay eyes on. I am so guided that once at Barnes and Noble, when distressed about an impending divorce, a book literally jumped off the shelf and landed at my feet, the page open face down. It was eerie because no one else was in that aisle or the one behind. When I lifted the book, the open page was titled " How to Know When a Difficult Relationship Must End." Bingo! Just what I needed to read make sense of a painful situation. Guardian angel watching out again.

In the midst of mid life ( okay, I'm exaggerating a little here, later than mid life) career change, I have been searching job opportunities on the popular websites. Tonight, I spent several hours on Craig's List. Some ads dazzle with opportunity. Employee beware. If they are selling you on how fabulous they are and how much money they are dying to pay you, read the very, very tiny print at the bottom. It says commission only and may involve consumption of carcenigenic liquids. Other ads seem plausible until you see the last phrase " must speak Mandarin". If you didn't know, they teach that as a second language in upscale preschools here in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is also offered at summer day camp along with advance beading, sailing, tennis and Baby Zumba. Is it of some concern that the suggestion for fluency in another language is Mandarin rather than Spanish? One might have to conclude that we are more in danger of being repossessed by China than overrun by Mexican neighbors, a distinct possibility.

Two hours into my venture for the intrepid job hunter, I am boggled by " must be proficient in THAC, HVAC, MEDIVAC or Doodle Bug Manager". Are they requiring that I studied at trade school, medical school or preschool? They may even require a Class DDD license. Where do you get that? Frederick's of Hollywood School of Truck Driving in High Heels?

Like many people I know, retirement is a long way off, if ever. Friends have borrowed against their home equity to stay afloat during the economic downturn.
Several are working two or three part time positions to make ends meet. Cutting corners has become an art form like economic origami. It's a good thing that robbing Peter to pay Paul is not punishable by law. The prisons are bursting at the seems already. People like myself are talented, experienced and usually well educated, yet are having difficulty securing viable employment. I have seen some with MBAs, and even a law degree rejected in favor of younger, less experienced applicants. We are not documented statistically because we are not on unemployment. If you are caught in the gap between your COBRA medical benefits running out and being eligible for Medicare, you are SOL. Following a recent international chat room discussion online, the topic was the corporate benefits of using freelance contractors. The American Dream for many baby boomers has become a nightmare of escalating costs and shrinking income.

Back to the aforementioned book. I wish I could invite the author over for an evening of wine and conversation. She is candid, relaxed and laugh out loud funny in her approach to the topic of creating an ideal career by caving to the compulsion of inspired work. Tama Kieves writes from the heart and expresses the logic of following inner urges. It is great primer on figuring out what you want to be when you grow up for those who already have ( grown up, not figured it out already). Her companionship in written word has been a welcome distraction and enlightening encounter via guardian angel.

When temperatures soar, it's time to sizzle!

It feels like summer and a perfect day to grill out. I cleaned up the barbecue and decided on an unusual version of surf and turf. That means that I was going to wing it with what I had on hand in the kitchen, Chicken apple sausages and swordfish steak.

A no fuss dinner, the sausages grilled until they burst, nice and juicy.
Swordfish is one of our favorites and I always marinate it first for about half an hour. A generous splash of Pinot Grigio, a squeeze of half a lemon, drizzle in olive oil, sprinkle generously with chopped garlic and lemon pepper. A hot grill, then turn it only once for nice golden marking.

Fresh spring asparagus, steamed until crisp tender and then generously sprinkled with grated sharp Italian cheese made a perfect side dish. Has anyone noticed that kale has become a celebrity these days? Not a fan of bitter greens as a kid, I have avoided kale for fifty years. Recently, I caved to the marketing for superior nutrition and started experimenting with kale. It amazes me that two giant bunches of chard, spinach or kale cook down to such a small serving. Today I removed the ribs from a large bunch of organic kale. I steamed it briefly to wilt it and then drained it well. Coarsely chopped with some green onions, add some coarse salt, and iinto the refrigerator it went to chill. I blended up white balsamic vinegar, half a teaspoon of sugar and olive oil to dress it just before serving. I am now a big fan of kale. It tastes great and I feel really virtuous eating something so healthy.

Now if only I had some ice cream..... I miss the old days when the Good Humor truck, the Italian Ice man and Mister Softee made the neighborhood delivery rounds after dinner on hot summer nights. Sweet memories, literally!