New Year's Eve

So the New Year is upon us. People all over the country and the world are busy making resolutions for 2008 as well as starting the celebrations. "I will lose x amount of pounds." "I will quit smoking." "I will get a better job." "I will do volunteer work." Sometimes, I think resolutions are just too easy to break. I want everyday to be a chance to live better and try to be better than I was before. It's nice to think of the New Year as a new chance, but everyday should be a chance to be better and to live better. For everyone out there determined that this is the year they will go vegetarian or vegan my hopes are with you and your success.

In the Words of Leonardo da Vinci; "Truely man is the king of beasts, for his brutality exceeds theirs. We live by the death of others: we are burial places! I have from an early age abjured the use of meat, and the time will come when men such as I will look on the murder of animals as they now look on the murder of men."

Merry Christmas!!!

Merry Christmas! Yes, the big day has arrived and the family has all been gathered around the tree and the table. For years, my family, has had a surf and turf Christmas dinner tradition (steak and seafood)... however, the last five years have included some adjustment for my needs. Generally, I grill a portabella mushroom or merely eat the thigns that have been served along side of my family's own traditions. This year along side the lima beans, corn, salad, homemade fries, dinner rolls, and wine I had a vegan BBQ riblet. It made me happy and was non-threatening to family seated around the dinner table who often seem rather concerned with what is on my plate or going to be on my plate. Last night we had an entertaining Christmas Eve with family, friends, lots of food, and karaoke. (My cousin has absolutely no sense of pitch or musical ability, but he sure isn't afraid to go for his all.)

Christmas traditions in my house are fairly simple... Christmas Eve includes my grandparents, random other family, friends, and whoever else we come across that will be spending the eve alone with finger food and sweets. It has slowly evolved over the years from pizza bites and bagel bites to more. Christmas morning we wake, not as early as it was when my brothers were younger, to swap presents and empty stockings. (My mother still wraps each one of us kids presents in seperate wrapping paper that matches the stuff she wrapped individually in our stockings. It comes from the years when we were little and seperate wrapping paper was so Santa's hansdwriting wasn't used.) We usually eat a late lunch (not uncommon for various people to take naps in between here depending on lateness of the Eve and earliness of the morn) with many of us still in pajama type clothing. It is a comfortable, relaxed sort of day for family. My sister even brought her dog the share the morning and mid-day with my pomeranian and my brother's boxer mix. (They all got new dog beds for Christmas.)

Hoep everyone had the merriest of holidays and got to spend enjoyable time with family, friends, and loved ones.

In the Words of Abraham Lincoln: "I care not much for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it."

Love Those Limas

Here it is another day in my life and my world. Let’s talk about one of my favorite foods… lima beans. It is one of the vegetables that a lot of kids seem to hate or hide from… I was not one of them. Even as a kid I was fascinated by the lima bean… velvety inside with a protective skin on the outside. I used to drive my parents nuts at the dinner table by using my teeth to peel off the outside layer before eating the whole thing. As an adult I often serve lima beans with meals (like tonight I paired them beside my angel hair pasta) or put them into things (like soups). Instead of being something that I struggle to eat they are a comfort food from childhood that I have grown up with. Unfortunately, my picky brothers do not appreciate the lima bean in the same way that I do and don’t eat them when fixed (the story of many of vegetable fixed in this family). So cook them up plain, add some seasoning (garlic and pepper was tonight’s seasoning of choice), or add them to your favorite soup or stew. No matter how you like them, celebrate the lima bean and all the food love they harbor in that little package.

Check out these lima links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lima_bean

http://www.foodreference.com/html/flimabeans.html

From the mind and mouth of George Bernard Shaw: "A mind of the calibre of mine cannot derive its nutriment from cows."