Mac 'n Cheese to the Max

Today is a detox day due to the consumption of last night. The Mac n Cheese coook off took place in my kitchen and then there were molton brownie cupcakes for dessert. Oh Lordy...

1. A blue cheese based mac with toasted walnuts on top
2. Mac with gouda, tyme, sauteed onion, potato and about a pound of butter

My contrubution was a light salad with only a handful of crumbled goat cheese and the after dinner port.

Well now it is time to go to work. Another day, another dollar.

A Valentine Soup and Grandmother's Prayers

Thursday night there was a Valentine Dinner Party at my house.

Baguette with olive oil, balsamic, and roasted garlic spread
Keats
Potato Leek Soup from 'Apples for Jam'- quite satisfying
Millay
Green Salad with Feta, Avocados, Tomatos and Balsamic dressing
I Like You
Hand shaped Heart sugar cookies with lemon drizzle
More Keats
Whole Wheat Apple Pear Pie with Vanilla Ice Cream
Singing!

And now for another topic: I read through a copy of 'A Diaery of Private Prayer.'
It belonged to my Grandma Patsy and inside there are little notes and underlinings in her hand. Now it my second time through the prayers I find my hand mixed in with hers. Today the morning prayer reminds me how to love my houshold, my roomates, and my family:

"Accompany me today, O Spirit invisible, in all my goings, buy stay with me also when I am in my own home and among my kindred. Forbid that I should fail to show to those nearest to me the sympathy and consideration which Thy grace enables me to show to others with whom I have to do. Forbid that I should refuse to my own household the courtesy and politeness which I think proper to show to strangers. Let charity today begin at home."

Being Taken Out

Oh what delicious bliss! Last night Bill and Bill treated me to dinner at Lola's downtown. Here's the spread:

Grilled pita with 7 types of dips...yoghurt, fig and calamatta, garlic, gost cheese, bell pepper and roasted coliflower with anchovies

Gin Gimlet

Portabella Kabab with parsley lime rub and onions

Young Goat Tangine with roasted veg's

Beets with Rocotta

Plank girlled fish from the Mediterranian waters

Broccoli with an egg on top and chili sauce

A Very Good '94 Syrah

Brussel Sprouts with Dates and Bacon

Those Greek/Turkish grape leaf rolls with rice, rasins and yoghurt sauce

Oh and then...

Pear Tart with Brown Suger Ice Cream

Fresh fried Doughnut holes with a crunchy, suggery topping

Cold pressed dessert Wine.

The End

My Godmothers, Portraits, Vol. 1

Brenda is an OB nurse at Serria Nevada Memorial Hospital. You can see the hospital from the highway. If Brenda were on the side of the highway you could probably see her too for her piles of greying brown curls shout out to be seen. Her heart is the kind of heart that envelopes other hearts into a warm, maternal place where you can cry and laugh and play poker with cash and chocolate as incentive. I can imagine her lovingly drawing new life forth from between legs bloodied and bare with her curls packed into sanitary submission. She whispers, "Rejoice!" into the the little ears, red and wet and new like unfurling rose petels covered in dew.

Sharon Rose married a Canadian ex-pat with an Italian accent and a penchent for asking deeply theological and metaphysical questions of eleven year olds as well as everybody else. This is her second husband. The first tried to kill her with a kitchen knife. She lost one daughter to a house fire on New Years Eve. Her other daughter is wasting away slowly as she fights a battle with the food gods. The son passes his time in imobililty and on various drugs. Sharon walks her labarinth of lavender and laughs at dinner parties and takes the wandering and misfit souls into her arms and feeds them pasta. In my closet hangs a hand-me-down gold party dress of Sharons. When I wear it I will listen for the echos of her footsteps. Each step sounds out, "Rejoice!", one in front of the other.

Janet and my father knew eachother before they were born. They grew up with fingers stained black each walnut picking season in a sleepy suburb in the Bay Area when the trees used to grow. Their pathes diverged. Janet penciled in her eyebrows, a thin hard line contrasting with the softness of her face. She married young, soon divoraced, and then got her masters in speech pathology. She married again, to a tall quiet man with grown children and a soft voice. Janet loves costume jewelry and keeping her nails polished and long. She loves Bluegrass music and camping in the Winnabago. She loves her extended family, her country and her hairless, tumor riddled dog. From the tips of her shining fingers to the soles of the fuzzy house slippers she tells everyone, loud and clear, "Rejoice!"