The 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, once said, “Whatever you are, be a good one.”  I believe I am a pretty good cook.  Although admittedly I have never attempted to make fried okra or fried rice at home.  I just have this sneaking suspicion neither one would turn out quite right.  In the meantime, this “Chinese” take out is our “happy family” pleasure.  We all love the little place we frequent and it’s gluten free.  Fried rice is a favorite of mine and I always ask for extra green onions.  I miss the days though of the little red boxes that looked so exotic.  Anyone else remember them?  The thin metal handle always made me think of a lantern and I enjoyed the different designs they used to put on the cartons.  The scenes reminded me of patterns on old Chinese ceramics portraying fierce dragons, delicate trees, and tiered rooftops turned up at the corners.  I also miss bamboo chopsticks and fortune cookies.  I still use chopsticks but I have precious few left.  In truth I never really cared for the taste of fortune cookies; I just always enjoyed reading the sayings inside.  There was one Asian restaurant which used to have paper placemats listing all the animals of the zodiac and you could see under which animal’s year you were born.  I am the year of the dog.  I’ll take it as that is the closest they have to the wolf.  Funny how the little touches can mean a lot.  Now it seems as if everything is so sterilized and homogenized.  Where did the character go?  Where are the different cultures?  Where is the little something extra?  It seems to have been swallowed up, no pun intended.  I for one think that’s a shame.  We can go to any city in the U.S. and eat the exact same food thanks to chain restaurants.  Heaven help that anyone actually venture out.  I have never minded our country being a melting pot, but I wish it remained more of a mixing pot.  I think our differences make us stronger.  We do not all have to be carbon copies of one another.  And yes, I realize how much that sentence just dated me.  Let’s all resolve to be creative, bold, and to break the proverbial mold!  Like our former president once said, “Whatever you are, be a good one.”

I am a terrible creature of habit.  In the spirit of trying to branch out, I decided to try a new restaurant.  I do not have time to cook every night but I at least try to get good food for our family to eat.  This is not always an easy feat, whether I’m cooking or not.  My husband is a huge carnivore, I’m almost vegan, and our little one is gluten intolerant.  Words cannot adequately describe my surprise and delight upon discovering this restaurant.  I believe they call it “Mediterranean” because unfortunately “Halal cuisine” I fear would not go over very well; to me Mediterranean is Greek.  The place turned out to have a huge buffet and, to my complete shock, apparently Halal food does not use gluten, or wheat as we know it in the states.  So EVERYTHING is gluten free!  My little one could eat ANYTHING there and they even had two different kinds of rice, something she normally cannot eat.  For my husband they had red meat, chicken, and fish.  And pour moi they had the best hummus I have EVER had (like savory silk,) and *drumroll please* the BEST FALAFELS EVER!!!  This picture just does not do them justice.  The only thing that has ever come close were the ones I had on Bowling Green in New York.  I didn’t even know the white sauce was tahini back then; I just knew it was great with the hot sauce.  My husband and little one eat them plain they’re so good.  They also have wonderful flat bread my little one calls pizza.  It’s excellent dipped in the hummus.  Plus they have green beans and onions in tomato sauce, a yellow lentil soup, okra and tomatoes, and other hot vegetable dishes.  I’m telling you the place is incredible.  As a person who cares deeply about animals, I feel better knowing my family is eating halal or kosher, since both Muslims and Jews observe strict laws about the swift slaughter of animals; unlike the unthinkable duress they are put through here in American factory farms.  This restaurant is an oasis for our little family.  The men could not be nicer and one of them even has a black belt in taekwando!  They are all recent immigrants and I cannot help but recognize they have made our lives richer.  I taught my little one to say “thank you” in Arabic and they clearly see the cross I always wear around my neck.  No one is trying to convert the other; we all are just trying to live good lives with our families.  The 32nd President of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt said:

“We have always held to the hope, the belief, the conviction that there is a better life, a better world, beyond the horizon.”

I for one look to that horizon with hope.  We enjoy visiting with our new friends from Syria and Jordan.  Unfortunately, I know there will be fighting … over who gets the last falafel.

What does this look like to you?  Chicken?  Pork?  Fish?  It is actually a plant called jackfruit and, according to my research, it is in the species of the fig, mulberry and breadfruit family.  I don’t even know what breadfruit is.  I did not know what jackfruit was either; I just tried it.  In my pursuit of trying to go vegan, I have read this was a good meat substitute.  It is native to parts of South Asia and can grow up to four feet in length!  The flesh is a good source of dietary fiber and it sort of tastes like a combination of pineapple, mango and apple.  It is commonly mixed with curries as you see here.  I discovered the seeds are edible as well and are said to have a taste comparable to Brazil nuts.  Unripe jackfruit has a meat-like taste and texture.  I learned in West Bengal it is especially sought after by vegetarians and has the nickname “tree-mutton.”  I have always been highly sensitive about the slaughter of animals which is why I have been a vegetarian for years.  While some might find this gross, I wanted to try it in my pursuit to find meatless substitutes that do not have soy.  My little one ate it and thought it was a “sort of weird” kind of meat.  The hubs was even great enough to try it saying he suspected it was some type of “sour vegetable.”  The American philosopher John Rawls said:

“Certainly it is wrong to be cruel to animals and the destruction of a whole species can be a great evil.  The capacity for feelings of pleasure and pain and for the form of life of which animals are capable clearly impose duties of compassion and humanity in their case.”

And so, in the name of compassion and humanity, expanding my search for good-tasting, critter free cuisine continues.  Now that I know about factory farms I know I cannot ever go back.  I was unaware of it then, but now I realize I did not know jack.

I realize that I have blogged about this sweet lady before.  In fact it was almost one year ago exactly, but she is so fantastic I could not resist writing about her again.  For anyone who wants to read the first piece, just search my archives by scrolling to the bottom of the home page and entering in “A Trip To Trader Joe’s.”  I have seen this woman almost weekly for an entire year now and I have never failed to see her outgoing, cheerful, personable, and silly.  Silly is the part that I like best.  Schlepping to the store as a repetitive chore is transformed by an effervescent worker who never ceases to brighten my day — or my little girl’s, when she is with me.  Even my husband loves her because she doles out free samples.  What I admire about her is that every day this woman makes a choice; consciously or not.  And I have yet to see her choose anything but happiness.  What would the world be like if we had more people in the professional workforce who were not afraid to step out, be creative, and celebrate life?  My pal Patty Woodrich exemplifies this.  On her own, she has created hats she wears to work for New Year’s, Valentine’s, Mardi Gras, Easter, May Day, Flag Day, the Fourth of July, a Hawaiian theme in August, an autumnal theme, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas plus several more.  I have discovered she MUST have a Groundhog Day hat.  Aside from that, I have seen the woman sporting ridiculous turkey legs on either side of her head, whirligigs spinning every which way, spiders, chicks, hearts, American flags, flowers, and so much more.  She has a youthful personality which matches her hats — original, festive, and fun.  The American singer Frank Sinatra said, “Cock your hat — angles are attitudes.”  I can say with no small measure of admiration and respect, my friend Patty does it her way.

It is has been discussed here several times that I love salsa; more specifically hot, spicy salsa.  I used to cook my chili with ghost peppers before the baby was born.  Now I have not cooked anything at a level past habanero.  I simply cannot live without fresh jalapeños and we are never without an array of hot sauces at our house like Cholula, Valentina, or Tabasco.  I have elevated my husband’s tolerance slowly over time so I am able to cook more to my taste.  The baby had the hottest food on the planet when I carried her and she loved it — so much in fact that now she simply drinks salsa straight.  She has been doing so ever since I started letting her I think sometime when she was around a year and a half.  Some restaurants still refer to her as “salsa baby.”  My girl has a cast iron stomach, just like her mama.  I came across this old picture from about four years ago; this was all the salsa I let her have before cutting her off because she wasn’t eating her food.  She screamed.  It was not pleasant.  My mother didn’t like very spicy food so I suppose I got it from my father.  One of my earliest memories is of him dousing red pepper on everything and showing me how to “add” to chili.  The American writer Orison Swett Marden said:

“Nothing else so destroys the power to stand alone as the habit of leaning upon others.  If you lean, you will never be strong or original.  Stand alone or bury your ambition to be somebody in the world.”

I have stood alone all of my life but with the loving support of my parents.  Now I stand alone but with the loving support of my husband and daughter.  We all need support in our lives but it is my hope that my family and I continue to stand alone, each in our own way.  Much like the Leaning Tower of Pisa is freestanding, so too is our leaning tower of salsa.

You will note that this post is not under “nature;” rather food.  I have written before our family does not seem to do well containing themselves around sweets.  My little one is gluten intolerant and when I discovered these peanut butter cups were gluten-free I thought I would get a bag but keep it high in the pantry.  As you can see from the picture, it is a “party bag,” which I had (delusional) visions of lasting for months.  According to the back of the bag, it contains 130 pieces.  In less than three days’ time essentially the entire bag was emptied.  My first worry was that the wolves ate them but they were locked in the pantry.  My five year old could not have possibly gotten to them a) due to the height at which they were placed and b) because of the fact that the pantry was (childproof) locked.  As I stood in the kitchen wondering if perhaps they had spilled, I looked over to find my husband shirtless with my little one rubbing his belly chanting “Buddha Buddha Buddha!”  A very chagrined, slightly red-faced Burk had come downstairs to the laundry looking for a shirt when our little one caught him.  SO many questions swirled through my mind at that point.  First:  how on earth would my American, Christian child know about rubbing Buddha’s round belly?  According to folktales, if a person rubs Buddha’s belly it brings good luck, wealth, and prosperity.  As I stood there goggle-eyed, the nearly empty sack dangling from my hand, my husband asks, “Baby Doll, do I have a paunch?”  Again, so many things swirled around in my head.  The first was that I still have not lost all the weight I gained during pregnancy and our child is now five.  He has never failed to tell me I look great even though I know I do not.  As our progeny continued her circular rubbing and chanting over his smooth, rounded stomach I immediately said, “NO!”  I did not wish to be unkind; nor did I wish to be untruthful.  So I added, “Do you know what happened to all the peanut butter cups?” and I could see him considering denial.  After a hesitant pause he defensively replied, “Well I left four.”  Good Lord the man took down an entire humongous bag of peanut butter cups in just days; ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-SIX of them!  That may be a record even for him.  The Irish novelist Elizabeth Bowen said, “No object is mysterious.  The mystery is your eye.”  The bag was not unexplainably empty; my husband’s stomach was the receptacle.  And thus, my friends, solves the mystery of our Buddha and butter cups.

When our little one was two her father and I got her the best play kitchen ever.  I had always dreamed of having an Easy-Bake Oven as a kid but we did not have the money.  So I confess I had a lot of fun choosing this for her.  The kitchen is four feet tall with pink “brick” walls and has a microwave, an oven, a refrigerator, and a sink.  Plus it boasts a stove with burners that “sizzle” when you put a frying pan on it and when you place a pot on it makes bubbling sounds.  There is dish rack up top and even a little cubby down below for feeding a dog, cat, mouse, or whatever critter she chooses.  It has a dry erase board, a coffee maker, bins for storing both canned goods and recycling, and hooks to hang her utensils above the stove.  In the top center of it all is a picture of our family in a built-in plastic frame.  The English actress Michelle Dockery said, “The kitchen is the most important place in any house.  Visit your family, and that’s where you’ll end up.  Go to a party, that’s where everyone congregates.”  Burk and I have sat countless times at her little table and chairs as she has graciously served us tea, cookies, and toast from her toaster that really makes the bread pop up when it’s “done.”  For Christmas my father-in-law and step mother-in-law got her this darling cooking set.  I couldn’t even get our little one upstairs in her own kitchen to take the picture!  So this was taken in our real kitchen where she proudly put on her oven mitt, hat, and asked for help tying her apron.  She got a mixer with all the ingredients to make a cake:  flour, sugar, milk, and — the cutest of all — an egg that splits in half complete with a yolk inside!  It is ingenious; the yolk is yellow velcro that reattaches the egg.  The hubs got so excited he actually said, “NOW WE CAN MAKE CAKE!”  I have already been letting her crack real eggs and she uses her little stool to reach the counter.  I said this should be her sous-chef apron as she begins helping me cook more and more.  On that note, I think I shall end this and go see what we could be fixin’ in the kitchen.

The American model and actor Justin Deeley said, “I always say whoever can figure out how to make ice cream healthy will be a gazillionaire.”  I have been trying to go vegan for awhile now for animal ethics reasons and had resigned myself to giving up ice cream.  Schlepping up and down the gluten free aisle my five year old started asking/begging/hollering for popsicles.  “Nope,” I said.  “But WHY?!” she wailed from the shopping cart.  And suddenly I became my mother.  “Because I said so.”  “Well that’s not FAIR!”  “Keep it up and I’ll take those crackers away,” I fibbed, because she had already eaten half the box.  Staring mulishly at me I turned away and contemplated having a glass of wine.  This grocery store is ingenious for allowing folks to do that.  One can also have beer if they’d prefer.  While I was in the process of praying inwardly for patience I discovered it.  The same brand of almond milk we love apparently makes ice cream!  CHA-CHING!!!  I leaned in closer to the refrigerated door and could hardly believe it:  cappuccino swirl; mint chocolate chip!  AND it’s gluten free!  Turns out you cannot tell the difference (but the poor cows will sure thank you) and your pants will, too!  My regular ice cream was THREE times as caloric!  Since it is made from almonds it is full of protein as well.  Oh happy day!  My incredulous little one quickly abandoned her popsicle quest in favor of the ice cream.  From the sweet cows, to my gluten intolerant child, to a woman just trying to lose weight — everyone’s a winner.

I am one of those people who can easily turn down a pie or muffins.  Nothing stands any kind of a chance though if it’s chocolate; resistance is futile.  The hubs has a HUGE sweet tooth but, as I have stated previously, he has the metabolism of a squirrel on crack.  When we first got married I registered for a cake dome because I wanted to have a freshly baked cake for us to enjoy every week.  I do not know how other people do it but we apparently lack even the most basic form of restraint.  I caught my beloved with black teeth gobbling down my cake by the light of the refrigerator in the middle of the night.  (He was foraging for milk to accompany it.)  The one type of chocolate I have always been able to happily resist has been the “fancy” ones.  I just do not like very dark chocolate and I find it a personal effrontery to mix fruit with it.  The ONE exception to that is chocolate covered cherries.  I ADORE them.  So for most of my life I have assumed my palette was not sophisticated enough to properly enjoy the expensive ones.  And then my step mother-in-law gave us these at Christmas.  I had never heard of Louis Sherry so I googled him.  I assumed he was French but he was born in Vermont to parents of French-Canadian descent.  In 1881 he introduced the French chocolate making tradition to New York and quickly established a reputation for excellence.  I love that the chocolates came in a replica of the original tin which is now more than 100 years old.  I was also thrilled to read they are using ethically sourced ingredients from Ecuador, Madagascar, and the Caribbean coast of Venezuela, according to their insert.  The three of us gathered round and broke the seal on it skeptically.  Nestled inside were twenty-four of the most exquisitely detailed chocolates I had ever seen in my life.  And they weren’t all dark!  Mercifully, it came with a guide letting you know what was filled with what.  My Marian child reached for the Fleur de Sel caramel, shaped like a beautiful clam shell.  I went next and had one filled with Jamaican rum.  Ya mon!  By now the hubs was so frothed up he said to just give him one.  The Mexican vanilla was great, the milk chocolate trefoil was divine, and I loved the coffee costa d’oro.  Proclaiming myself the keeper of our fine chocolates, I pronounced we all must stop and have some decorum.  Everybody started calling dibs on their favorites (I called the rum and the coffee, our little one said she wanted the sea shells and the heart shaped raspberry cremes, and the hubs declared he just wanted whatever we didn’t.)  I am quite proud we made it through Epiphany before they were all gone.  Now we just open the box and stare at the empty contents, hoping more will appear as if by magic.  The famous American cartoonist Charles M. Schulz once said, “All you need is love.  But a little chocolate now and then doesn’t hurt.”  I am lucky enough to have gotten both.  J’aime le chocolat.

I don’t exactly remember Green Stamps but I do know my mother furnished my entire nursery with them.  So pretty much ever since I can remember I have appreciated the concept of acquiring something for, well, doing what would have been done anyway.  I have sandwich cards I get punched, we use our credit cards for travel rewards, and I seek out other perks whenever I can, like at the drugstore or the car wash (the fifth one’s free.)  So this year at the grocery store when they asked if I was collecting stamps I said yes without even knowing what was being offered.  Turns out they are pots and pans; one can always use a new skillet.  My husband lives for those stamps.  He puts them in with relish and announces how many more we have to go.  Now our little one wants in on it.  The excitement has mounted as we have nearly filled a whole sheet.  I can remember my folks getting an entire set of Corningware in the ’70’s right in time for Thanksgiving.  They had little blue flowers on them and I still see them in resale shops a lot.  We did not take out our good China that year and it was fun to have everything new.  If I were able to buy all new kitchen cookware I would look for dark blue Le Creuset.  Instead I have an all dark blue set from American cook Rachael Ray, who said:

“Good food and a warm kitchen are what makes a house a home.  I always tried to make my home like my mother’s, because Mom was magnificent at stretching a buck when it came to decorating and food.  Like a true Italian, she valued beautification in every area of her life, and I try to do the same.”

My mother made a great home for my daddy and me — full of music, love, food made from scratch, and imperfection.  I collected those stamps from her one by one, and now I have a whole book to show for them.  I know my daughter is learning from me now, and I hope I am imprinting her with the same stamp.