A Salute to Spring

April 11, 2014 – A Salute to Spring

Elliott has been busy, as usual, developing his expertise in kitchen remodeling.  He has spent hours online investigating the installation of heat registers and the extension of water lines.  He has also enlisted my help with measuring, marking, photographing the kitchen floor.  I hope our contractor will appreciate all of his hard work.  In the photo below, you can see Elliott taking a well-deserved break from his labors.  He’s sitting outside in the spring sunshine, sipping Green Glory juice, a blend of apple cider, pineapple, celery and wheatgrass.  It’s available at Wegman’s.  

Meanwhile, I’ve been on Blossom Patrol at the Tidal Basin.  Last Tuesday, I went into DC to take my annual walk under the pink froth of cherry blossoms.  I even dressed appropriately, in a pink sweatshirt (and pink socks, too).  

The blossoms were about 50% open on Tuesday.

And I have some big news to share regarding the kitchen project.  We now have an official starting date from our contractor.  Demolition will begin on April 21, which gives me plenty of time to sort through the cabinets, get rid of unwanted items, and box up those things we’ll keep.  Discovering forgotten items hiding in the back of cabinets makes me a bit nostalgic.  Objects can bring back such memories.  A little gadget for making gyoza, my mother’s old fondue pot, and Elliott’s mother’s egg scale all remind me of earlier times.  Even those peeling, aging cabinets, which I’m eager to replace, served me well for a long, long time.  I’ll definitely miss the butcher block island, the scene of many cooking adventures and center of daily life.  It wasn’t all that many years ago that I’d sit around the island with Elisa, gobbling up homemade guacamole when she returned from work.  The island was where I watched the kids gobbling up milk and cookies when they got home from school.  And of course, until very recently, it was Elliott’s command headquarters, where he’d sit with his coffee mug, hunched over the newspaper, for a couple of hours each morning. 

I guess we’ll be eating out a bit more often while the kitchen is under construction, and that’s one aspect of the project I’m looking forward to.  It will be a challenge, however, to find restaurants that serve food that is not only delicious but healthy as well.  Before I took my mother out for lunch today, I did some research online.  It’s pretty grim when you check the nutritional content.  Even seemingly healthy items are loaded with excess calories and sodium.  I finally chose Baja Fresh where I was able to satisfy my desire for a tasty lunch without sacrificing my health.  And as you can see, Katie enjoyed her Baja chicken taco.  

Creeping weight gain over the past 12 months or so has forced me to re-evaluate some of my cherished beliefs about my diet.  I think I will have to abandon the theory that calories consumed in restaurants don’t count.  The same goes for calories consumed while standing up.  I’m even going to jettison my long-held conviction that the consumption of “positive” foods cancels out the calories of “negative” foods.  An example of this would be eating an apple so that I could safely eat an ice cream cone later.  Midway through my seventh decade, I have to accept the reality that my eating system no longer works as it did previously. 

In the interests of reducing my calorie intake without suffering from dessert deprivation, I’ve come up with a recipe for coconut-lime chia pudding.  Honestly, it’s not as bad as it sounds although the specks of chia seeds look a bit weird.  I’ll spare you the photo, but let me know if you want the recipe.