This week was definitely an ice cream kind of week, especially since my building does not currently have working air conditioning – they say it’ll be fixed soon. The heat and humidity made me wish I had a walk-in fridge to cool down in.
My daughter is a chocolate ice cream person. She will try any chocolate ice cream. I instead, like my father, prefer strawberry ice cream. I take great pleasure in a bowl of Haagen-Dazs strawberry ice cream. It is so rich and creamy and full of actual strawberry chunks. I treat myself once or twice a year. The best thing is that my kids don’t even like it so I can enjoy it all to myself. I also love strawberry cheesecake ice cream at Baskin Robbins. The cheesecake chunks are delish. These are probably my favourites, along with lemon gelato. Lemon gelato is so fresh and tangy and tastes like summer. I’ve always wanted to try making my own ice cream, like this recipe for strawberry ice cream. I remember my mother making ice cream once when I was young and it tasting pretty good.
What is your favourite flavour of ice cream? – Cris
Have you ever been to a “paint your own pottery” shop? I love doing this. The pieces in the picture above are painted by one of my daughters and her friends.
Sometimes it’s hard to find bowls, mugs or platters in the colours that you really want or with the right pattern. I have a growing number of pieces with an orange theme. I love them and use them all the time. They feel joyous and make me happy to present a good meal with them.
Did you know that humans have made pottery for somewhere between 15 000 to 20 000 years? Pottery has been an essential part of human history and development. We use ceramic bowls and platters and mugs to bring friends together and share a meal, a cup of hot tea or to celebrate a milestone or an accomplishment. Ceramics help us to be social people and to create community.
Have you ever painted your own pottery? Let us know what inspired your creative choices. – Cris
I am the spatula queen at my house. I will be buried with one by my side. The underlying reason is my personality, but obsession with cleaning every last scrap of food from a container began in earnest about 35 years ago. I was a stay-at-home mother, baking to earn a little money, while having children and trying to keep the house reasonably clean. The profit margins were very low and I needed to scrape every last bit of dough into the pans to make my muffins and cakes look as attractive as possible. I still remember my children asking, “Is that for us or for somebody else?” My children do not have the childhood memory of licking the beaters or the spatula. Everything went into the pan.
Each spatula fulfills a specific need; the green and blue one is for baking as it is my newest one and has no nicks, so is guaranteed to get every scrap of dough into the muffin pan; the wide plastic one is used for cooking as it won’t scratch the pan bottom, but is sturdy enough to efficiently scrape and turn the ingredients; the small red ones are great for getting that last bit of jam onto my slice of bread, and the metal ones are great for lifting cookies off the baking sheet. I cannot imagine my kitchen without them. – Maria
Spring returns more rapidly each year. How will I keep time with the rose? – Juan Ramon Jimenez, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature 1956
As I get older, more and more I think of spring as this paradoxical time of the year; on the one hand, I try to make a conscious effort to appreciate, enjoy, luxuriate even, in the moment, the rapid blossoming, the fresh greens of nature racing to once again create gorgeous canopies above our heads and around our feet. On the other hand, it all happens so fast, I’m busy keeping up with all my responsibilities and I get agitated thinking that once again it will all zip by me before I have time to fit in time to just sit, breathe and absorb the beauty in my own backyard.
I think I might set up a little table and chair back there to encourage me to make the time. What do you do to enjoy and appreciate spring? – Maria
I feel like cribbage is a great play-at-the-cottage kind of game, or at a coffee shop, in the car or by yourself. It’s small enough to carry in your purse, your backpack, or slide into the glove compartment. All you need is a deck of cards and the crib board. You can play in teams or as individuals (up to four players).
Sir Suckling was a poet and a gambler, but is best known for inventing the game of cribbage. Supposedly the game has changed very little since its invention in the 1600’s.
If you see a board at a garage sale or a thrift shop, pick it up and start playing. If you don’t know how to play cribbage, here are some of the basics. It’s not a hard game to learn and it’s fun. -Cris
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