Honoring Okra and the Summer Games

Who knew? I was on my way to the office listening to an update about last night’s games when this story from National Public Radio struck me from across the airwaves. Apparently, from the dawn of the Olympic games until 1948, poetry was included as part of the competition.

Olympic Stamp 1960 Greece

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“I like pie”

Urban dictionary says that this is a phrase used to politely decline to engage in discussion, with the implication that the original speaker is deliberately trying to upset or post flamebait. Perhaps I will have to do a future post on flamebait but as this political season heats up with all of its rhetoric and smear ads, I prefer the idea of eating more pie.

Summer Tomato Pie

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Get Your Grains On!

It’s true that for two years of my life I lived on little more than beans and rice. Pinto beans and long grain brown rice to be specific. Now, they’re still a fall back food. They cook easily on their own and offer up that warm comfort that’s hard to match. So last Sunday, after receiving a lovely batch of homegrown pinto beans from my blogging friend, Linda, and a dozen thick corn tortillas from another friend, I decided to make a pot of brown rice to go along. One problem, there wasn’t any.

Get your grains on!

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Tidings of Joy

There are some who find it difficult to celebrate Christmas in the desert. The lack of snow, constant sunshine and cactus tax their childhood visions of sugarplums and pines. So is this a Christmas post or just coincidental? I invite debate. It began months ago. In my desire to engage locally,  I was exploring an opportunity called Donors Choose. Their focus is education – something our family believes can be an essential determinative in quality of life.

Christmas on a Desert Hike

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Pot-Luck!

Some scholars believe that the first use of the term Pot-luck appears in the work of an Elizabethan poet named Thomas Nashe. While that might be true, given that his fame was largely driven by his erotic poetry, I hesitate to consider what Pot-luck may have meant to Nashe. Instead, I favor the Irish and the sense of a communal meal where friends and neighbors brought whatever ingredients they had to place into the one pot – hence, the food they enjoyed was literally the luck of the pot.

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Ask a Fool

“When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” This quote by Wayne Dyer perfectly describes my Sudoku prowess. After agonizing over one of the most difficult, I often walk away for a few minutes, come back, turn the puzzle upside down, and am able to finish it off.  It also describes my latest eggplant strategy.

Coming to the End of the Season

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Note from a Friend

Hi Tammy:  

I am on vacation and want you to know there are people

tearing up lawns to grow food up here!  

Love your blog,

Jill

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Laughter

“I am thankful for laughter, except when milk comes out of my nose.” The quote from Woody Allen describes the condition that triggers the release of endorphins, our natural feel-good chemicals that promote a sense of well-being and have also been shown to relieve pain. It also triggers the release of milk from one’s nostrils but never mind.

flickr.cc.2.0/photos/chrishuggins

Paletas

One of the greatest benefits of eating seasonally is that foods begin to speak of the seasons themselves. I only need to hear the words rhubarb crisp or see a photo and I’m instantly cast into mid-July. Peaches, berries, and sweet corn do something similar to me. But here in the desert where it’s so brutally hot, it’s hard to contemplate a dish that will require us firing up the oven. Conversely, there’s nothing so welcome as a cool refreshment.

Paletas de Pepino - okay the sticks are a little off-center!

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Tumbling the Pyramid

I actually expected to see it happen last year. With Michelle Obama’s focus on childhood obesity, I knew it we were in for a revision. Online the USDA claimed a planned update in 2010. Then I got word from a wonderful blog, The Table of Promise, the new American eating plan had been unveiled.

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