To love is one thing…to be loved is something…to love and be loved is everything. – Anonymous

Back when I was in high school, a million years ago, nothing was more exciting than getting a note passed to you in class!  From a guy you liked.  From your boyfriend.  It didn’t matter what it said, how long it was, how legible the writing.  It was the thought of it.  The anticipation of reading what it said.  The Bobby Brady fireworks!

And the love letters that came after high school…I’ve kept them all, in a tote under my bed.   Shhhhhh…..

I am not so certain that you get the same effect when you email, facebook, tweet or text your love note.  There is no sense of permanence to these methods.  (Although, this is the fallacy. People think they can write & send whatever they like via cyberspace and that deleting it will get rid of the “evidence”, forever.  Not so much.  It’s etched into the archives.  Don’t be fooled!)  It’s not as personal as a handwritten message. There’s nothing tangible.

When was the last time I printed out a text or email thread of a meaningful conversation?  Ummmm, never?  You?

Sad to think that all kinds of beautiful love stories could be lost to future generations because there will be no handwritten word passed along.

Leave a love letter.  Or at least a love note once in a while.  To keep the spark alive!

Let your loved one know how special he is. How much he means to you.  How he makes your heart go pitter-patter, even when he’s not there and you’re just thinking about him.

Handwrite it.  Stick it in his lunch bag.  Write it on a post-it and leave it on the dash of his truck.  Leave it on the coffee machine for him to find on his way out the door.

You’re so lucky to have him in your life and you think it all the time and may not always verbalize it.  But I’ll tell you what…these little tokens of affection speak volumes of your love!

and ham. I do not like them, Sam-I-am.  – Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss

Does anybody out there like green eggs?  Is it appetizing when you see a hard-boiled egg with a greenish hue around the yolk? A plate of deviled eggs or an egg salad sandwich that have more green in them than yellow?

Yuck!

The dark green color around the yolk and the “off” taste occur when the egg is overcooked.

This is a step-by-step tutorial on how to boil the perfect egg, with a beautiful yellow-orange yolk, an easy to peel shell and minimal cracking.

• Start with room temperature eggs.  If they were refrigerated, let sit on counter 1 hour before cooking them.
• Place desired amount of eggs in a pot that allows them all to be in a single layer in the bottom of it.
• Top with one to two inches of cold water; at least an inch more when the pot is crowded.
• Add 1 teaspoon vinegar (helps keep whites from running if shell cracks during cooking).
• Add 1/2 teaspoon salt (helps prevent cracking & makes eggs easier to peel).
• Place on stove and bring to a boil over high heat.
• Shut off the burner.
• Place a lid on the pot and let the eggs sit on the burner for 12 minutes.
• Place eggs in cold water/ice bath in another bowl to stop the cooking process.
• All done!

A soft-boiled egg, where the white is fully set and the yolk is mostly set, but still a bit runny in the middle, would be prepared the same way, but would only stay in the covered pot for 6 minutes.

We have chickens and there are times where I had to steal an egg from right under one of my hens as she finished laying it in order to have enough for my deviled egg platter!  I can tell you from experience that these are the toughest eggs to peel, even with the salt added to the water. There are a lot of “tricks” out there to aid in the removal of the shells, but I have found that patience is best.  Crack the shell all the way around the boiled egg and let it sit in a bowl of water for 30 minutes.  And then peel it in the water!

I was recently at a County Fair and saw someone wearing a t-shirt that read, Support local farms or watch the houses grow.

It gave me anxiety.  I started worrying that local farms might be an endangered species.  That one day I would be talking to my grandkids and trying to explain to them what it was like back in my day when the now extinct farms were providing us with their glorious bounty.  It made me want to shout out to anyone that might listen, “Farms=food! Buy fresh! Buy local! Support your local farmer! Know your farmer, trust your food!”

And thus the reason for this stream of consciousness…

I hope to pass on to my beach rose the importance of helping local farms and farmers.  The U.S worries more about lowly paid workers in Asia than how we treat and pay our country’s farmers! And our farms and farmers are hurting.

There are many ways to help them:

• Grocery stores are starting to carry in season produce from local farmstands.
• Visit a farmer’s market (According to NPR, “There were 8,268 farmers’ markets operating in 2014, up 180 percent since 2006.”).
• Consider signing up for a CSA, community supported agriculture, where a farmer offers a certain number of “shares” to the public.  Interested consumers purchase a share (aka a “membership” or a “subscription”) and in return receive a box (bag, basket) of seasonal produce each week throughout the farming season.

http://www.localharvest.org/csa/

The above link will help you find your local farms that are participating in the CSA program.

CSA’s are awesome!  I have my own little garden at home & frequent the farmer’s markets often to buy my meats and veggies/fruits I am not ambitious enough to grow. But a friend of mine was going on vacation for 3 weeks and asked if I would like to partake in her “share” at a local CSA.  Here’s part of the email that came to me from the farm…

The farm was pristine and the food was picturesque (see photos above).  I was allowed to take home a little carton of potatoes (about 6), a head of lettuce, a little carton of sunchokes (never had in my life, was so excited to try and found that they were lovely veggies that taste like water chestnuts), some bok choy, a red & yellow onion, carrots, a gorgeous head of lettuce, cabbage, beets, turnips, kohlrabi ( something else I’d never had which tastes amazing sliced thinly and sauteed in butter, like a much milder broccoli trunk) & a dozen eggs.

I didn’t even know what to do with my generous bounty!  So I made a mouth watering root vegetable soup. With bacon.

…more on that recipe later…

That’s the question I asked myself at the end of this book.  Who is Someone?

And my next question was, who cares?!

I wanted to like this book.  I had many reasons to…

A) My husband gave it to me for Christmas (Awww…).
B) It was a finalist for the National Book Award (should be a good story).
C) This author receives so many accolades, awards and is so well reputed in the literary world (even though I didn’t much like another of McDermott’s books, Charming Billy, I’m certain this one will be different).

But, I felt nothing for the book…neither liked it nor disliked it. It was forgettable;  just like the title, just like the book’s cover. Nothing stood out. I didn’t hate any characters or love them. I didn’t care either which way.

And at the end, I just kind of sat there, disappointed.  I tried to reflect on what I’d just read and the plot and the protagonist and it all kind of seemed blurry to me; as though I had read the entire thing while distracted and couldn’t bring to mind its significance. And then I decided to ponder the title to see if it may tie everything together or present a great reveal that I had somehow missed while reading the 232 pages.

Nope, I didn’t miss anything that I know of.

More importantly, if I did miss a clue as to who “Someone” is, it just doesn’t really matter to me!

and tastes really yummy?

Here’s a hint…

It starts with these 2 tools, a bowl and this ultra- yummy fruit ( tempting to call it a veggie because it’s green & savory, but it is technically a fruit and specifically a single-seeded berry)…

Any guesses?

Well, this is my interpretation on the greatest guacamole you’ll ever taste. Although, I cannot take the credit for its deliciousness.  My time spent in Laredo, Texas with my Mexican friends has taught me a thing or two about their delightful cuisine…

#1 Lesson learned about making guacamole: The avocado is the star of the show.  Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine!  Don’t mask it’s flavor with too much of any other ingredient: salt, lime, tomato, onion, whatever else you decide to mix with it.

#2 Lesson learned about making guacamole: Don’t mix it with too much else! Simple is best.  The ingredients below make the perfect one; the one I relished during my visits “across” the border when I lived in Southern Texas. Plus salt!

Ok, here it is…my secret recipe…

Take 1-2 avocados, tear into them with this absolutely necessary avocado knife. It removes the pit, and scoops out all the meat.  Then you start “chopping/mashing” with it.  See, you need it!

Once you’ve reached your desired consistency, I like mine a bit chunky, you add about a tablespoon of milk.  The lactic acid in the milk helps delay the oxidation of the avocado, the process of the mouth-watering green guacamole you can’t get enough of turning an unappetizing brown.

Then chop up about a tablespoonful and a half of red or white onion.  Important step: Rinse chopped onion under cold water to remove some of the sting & smell associated with eating a raw onion.  Your guests will thank you for it & your husband will too when you go to kiss him goodnight!

Then blot the onions dry.  Add about a tablespoon and a half of chopped fresh cilantro (Yum!).  Reservedly squeeze in about 1/2 of a slice of lime. (Don’t add more than this because the lime juice will overpower the avocado.)  Add salt to taste; again, not too much because the tortilla chips will be plenty salty.

And serve!  Pronto!

Note:  The milk will retard the browning process for only so long, so if you see that there may be some guacamole left over (doubt it!), push plastic wrap right down onto its surface in the tupperware, seal it up and put it in the fridge to enjoy later!

I go days without walking to my mailbox and getting the mail.  Isn’t that odd?  But I’m sure that I’m not the only one….there are probably hundreds of thousands of mailboxes in the United States that feel abandoned and lonely multiple times throughout the week!

I only get bills in the mail, and since they all also come to me first via text alerts and emails, what is the rush?

I blame the forlorn American mailbox on the lost art of letter writing.  It is so rare to see a handwritten version of your name on an envelope nowadays.  And I’ve been fooled with a rush of excitement by those crafty marketing ploys that stamp a “handwritten” name & address on their advertisement stuffed parcels.  Nice try!

Write a note.  Start with a note, at least.  Slide it into an envelope, stick a stamp on it and make someone’s day.  It feels as though someone really appreciates you when you receive a handwritten message from them through the mail!

Thank you notes are the perfect way to express thoughtfulness.  Don’t send a thank you text or email.  This is not as personal as praise communicated by post!  Thank the hostess who had you over for the weekend, for a party, for dinner.  Thank the gift giver.  Take the time to do this by hand.  It is so much more respectful and your gratitude will be properly presented and recognized.

Snail mail is underrated these days and yet I know that I am not alone when I admit that when I finally do drag myself to grab the mail, I am secretly hoping that there’s an envelope with my name on it in handwriting that I recognize…

It’s the end of the growing season here in New England.  I’ve pulled out the dried up snap pea stalks, the green bean plants, and the zucchini plants are struggling to send out a few final blossoms which then mold right away…

But those cherry tomato plants just keep on chuggin’.  They are so incredibly prolific!  I pop quite a few in my mouth on my daily morning trek out to water the remains of my garden with my little beach rose.  She pops one or 2 into her mouth every morning and feeds the compromised ones that lay on the ground to the “buc bucs” (chickens).  We top off our salads with them.  And the plants are still teeming with them…

What to do with the rest of these glorious orbs???

Pile them high into a colander, the ripe ones from the vine and the riper ones that have fallen beneath the tangled ropes of thickened, slightly discolored tomato stalks onto the ground below.

Wash off the beautiful soil that’s accumulated on them.

Fill up a 9 x 13 inch pan with them.  Or 2. Or 3.

Drizzle with olive oil. Add a couple, two, tree (sorry, some of the French Canadian on my Mom’s side coming out…) chopped garlic cloves. Salt and pepper generously.  Add a handful of your favorite chopped herbs from your stash (garden or vegetable drawer in your fridge). Put in 400 degree oven for about an hour and VOILA!  Roasted tomatoes!

Blend them if you want a smoother, creamier tomato sauce. Leave as is for a more rustic, chunky sauce. Mix with some pesto for added richness. Throw over some pasta with a couple of parmesan shavings and dinner’s done. Or if like me, dinner cannot be served to your husband unless it has a generous heaping of a substantial protein, add some shrimp sautéed in butter or chunks of cooked chicken or shredded rotisserie chicken from the grocery store.  Bon appétit!

When you buy jam at the grocery store, the closest thing to the amazing homemade ones my Mémé & aunts made that I grew up eating in France are Bonne Maman.

Why would you ever take the time to make your own jam, when you can buy these delicious ones?  I agree.  I was always pretty realistic about making homemade everything.  Homemade pasta, homemade tortillas, homemade jam, homemade stock, etc, etc.  This takes up a lot of valuable time and the ones you can purchase for a couple of dollars at the grocery store are usually fantastic.  We’ve come a long way with choices in the store…all natural, fresh, organic, etc.  Why bother?

Well…

There is something so satisfying in picking the fruit you are planning to put into your jam.

And, there is such an enormous difference in taste between the store-bought and the homemade; you’d be shocked!  The berries you are using are at their freshest; just picked off the bush. And due to the difference between those watered down, gigantic, homogeneous strawberries at the store which have no flavor and the sweet, tiny, misshapen ones with an ant hole in it here or there have so much sweetness packed in, the jams are night and day.

Plus, there is a whole WORLD of types of jams you can make when you make your own.  There are berries out there that you’ve probably never heard of that are amazing in jam.  For me, the more sour the berry, the better tasting the jam.  The sugar you add to it makes it perfectly sweet and mouth-watering. And you can mix and match…ever make peach/raspberry crisp?  What about trying to make a peach/raspberry jam?  Yum!

Here’s how you make about 1 1/2 cups of your own homemade jam…

same weight sugar as berries

 

If you want to can it, this is super easy to do with jams.  Did I mention it was super easy?

Below is the link to the National Center for Home Food Preservation.  It is awesome!  It clues you in to everything to do with canning.  Check it out…

http://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can_home.html

 

 

…”Wild” by Cheryl Strayed.

Been there, done that.

Another late 20s, early 30s female coming-of-age journey to self-discovery.  They’re confused, derailed, lacking direction/motivation, hitting rock bottom, financially ruined, emotionally bankrupt, the product of recent divorce (of their own doing)…

Sound familiar?

Like “Eat, Pray, Love” maybe???

Yawn, yawn, yawn.

Not many revelations for the reader.  A couple of supposed, hyped up “close calls” with Mother Nature.  But basically you can expect a lot of self-aggrandizing, narcissism, etc.  “I”m so beautiful, I’m so tough, I’m so sexually ambivalent, I am woman hear me roar.”

 

Well, this is NOT it!

Recently finished ‘The Vacationers’ by Emma Straub.  I would give it a score of 2 on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the highest.  And I am being generous with the 2!  As a matter of fact, the only reason it’s getting a score above a 0 is that the book was easy to read and the author wasn’t an idiot (although her writing style was that of a junior high schooler’s).

That being said, the book was vapid, derivative (story’s been told before) and predictable.  I didn’t care about what happened to a single character.  And whenever I read a good book I dog ear the pages with significance, that I want to go back and reread, that I learned something on.  Nada one in this book!

People magazine said that this was “delicious”.  Not even close.  I’m sorry, but if you tell me that a book is delicious I am either expecting hot sex scenes, a juicy plot that keeps you on your toes, or amazing food descriptions with recipe tips!  Nothing in it was delicious.

This book was deemed a New York Times Bestseller.  What does that even mean anymore?  The NYT Bestseller list seems to have become a bit watered down.  Apparently your book makes it on their list if it sells “the most” books in a certain category in a certain week.  As clear as mud.  Perhaps ‘The Vacationers’ sold the most books in the “beach reads” category, during the summer?  Because let’s face it, if I were looking for a good beach read, a book with a title that promises people on vacation sounds like a sure bet.

Don’t waste your time!