From School to Pool: July 2009
July 2nd, 2009
This is a picture taken by my kid brother Harry, the family photo buff, on a recent trip to Italy. This one is part of his set that he labeled Amalfi to Positano, two of the loveliest spots in Italy, according to my husband. Someday I hope to see this, but in the meantime, my “backyard vacation” is terrific!
I am the first to admit that I am living “The Good Life.” From September until June, I substitute teach two or three times per week, and in summer I am on a virtual vacation every day. The reason is that my husband and I live in a condominium that has a beautiful swimming complex, for lack of a better term, merely yards from the back entrance of our building.
Surrounded by trees and grass, the pool is more like a swim club, with cabanas, lovely trees, lounge chairs and umbrellas, and places to cook out-of-doors. True, it’s not the Riviera or even Atlantic City, but it’s in my backyard. Every sunny morning I put on a bathing suit and swim some laps. Then I come back inside for lunch and some filing or reading, only to return to the pool in late afternoon to enjoy my dose of daily vacation. (It’s raining as I write this, so I cannot provide a photo of our pool area.)
Many evenings in the summer we eat at our table by the pool. This Saturday, the Fourth of July, we plan on having family come to stay and share our “good life.” Salads will be my department, while grilling will be my husband Alan’s department. Kitchen Nutrition will feature a roasted potato & beet salad, which I made last week and hope to make again for the 4th, as well as some other salads I found in a cookbook I picked up at Acme for $5.00. (See photo of the cover above.) The recipe(s) may appear in the Book Review section.
(All the food in this recipe is from my CSA —Community Supported Agriculture— order from last week.)
Last month I thought I would feature MANNA, the place where I volunteer on Wednesday mornings, as part of my article on the sprout workshop I did at The Wellness Community. It was sponsored by MANNA and coordinated by Cyndi Dinger, the nutritionist at MANNA. But I decided to feature MANNA separately, which you will read later this month. Here’s a photo of volunteers working the assembly line of food packaging.
I am sorting through my piles of files, so I haven’t decided what else I will feature this month. Definitely there will be more summer recipes, perhaps some health flashes as I find them in my files, and hopefully a review of a movie I plan to see called Food, Inc. with the subtitle, “Hungry for Change?” If you Google the movie title, Food, Inc., you can see the trailer, which features Michael Pollan, whose book, In Defense of Food, I reviewed last month in Book, Film, & Website Reviews, as well as words from Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation, another book I have read, but not yet reviewed.
Hopefully, the rains from June will abate enough to provide us some sunny beach and pool days, with enough rain to water our gardens and lawns to provide us with earth’s beauty and bounty. As we celebrate the 4th, our holiday of freedom, don’t forget to vote with your food dollars, picking and/or planting fresh foods with dense nutrition so that we can continue to have freedom of choice at our dinner tables.
This is my patio parsley, which came back on its own from last summer. I combined it with basil and dill to make a poly-pesto to be posted later this month. I may not have a backyard garden, but I do enjoy my patio plants.
P.S. If you are a new reader, you may want to check out my other site. www.divorce-dayz.info.
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