through a glass

summertime, summertime, sum sum summertime...
I'm a pretty good cook but don't necessarily live to cook or even want to bother most of the time lately. I've been doing it for a long time. If I had a dollar for every meal I made.....I'd be in Paris this summer! Our tastes have once again changed with the season. Grilling is good, but meat and chicken don't appeal when afternoons reach 90 degrees (yesterday around 5 pm!). So I've been looking for lighter fare and found this recipe that I want to share because it's so good! It was in one of those free magazines at the organic market and I tweaked it a bit (as I do with most knitting patterns, poems, and other areas of my life).

quinoa salad

1 c quinoa, rinsed
1 tomato, chopped
1/4 c parsley, chopped
pinch of lemon zest (or tsp of juice)
2 T good olive oil (more or less)
2 c vegetable broth (organic)
1 c fresh spinach (or frozen thawed/drained)
1 garlic clove, minced
1/2 c pitted calamata olives (cut or not)
1 (or more to taste) T apple cider vinegar

Boil rinsed quinoa and veg broth for 10-15 minutes (until seeds start to pop). Remove from heat, cover, let stand. Combine spinach, tomato, parsley, lemon zest. Drain off excess liquid from the quinoa (if there is any), mix with spinach, etc. ingredients. Combine oil, vinegar, garlic, toss lightly into the mixture. Serve warm or cool - then pour a glass of chilled Chablis over some ripe strawberries and see the landscape in a glass.

Meanwhile, when I'm not drinking dessert or trying new recipes, I'm being done in by allergies! It's soooo dry, still sporadically windy, there's another fire south of us making the air kind of hazy and heavy. But there's no humidity!

ah, youth!
In my teens and twenties, living in the east where there's lots of summer humidity, I was often heard saying, "I just love hot days and sultry nights". And I did. Those July and August nights were the best times to go into the city on double dates wearing lightweight sleeveless dresses, white shoes and matching handbag. Walking till late, browsing midnight bookshops, eating at a pizzeria with a small courtyard in back, trees festooned with strings of colored lights. I loved muggy city nights and daytime sunbathing on beaches or in the backyard with the garden hose nearby for cooling down (the backyards were in the Bronx, after all). Now we are terrified of sunbathing with its promise of wrinkles and melanomas. Nothing like the days when we'd lie in the sun reapplying Coppertone Bronzing Oil (SPF -0) on our bodies all day, until in late afternoon, we were deeply tanned and had a rosy glow. It was a badge of beauty and went especially well with a new cotton or linen dress. The old New York ladies living in Miami kept deep tans all year long, and if you ask me, they looked a lot better than most of us look now with our wimpy pale skin. They didn't have to take vitamin D supplements either.

long gone those girls
in their summer dresses
with white-shirted beaus
and perfect hairdos