The recipes seem appealing, but the soba, penne and linguine are not healthy for me. Too many carbs. So, I would need to substitute either shirataki noodles or tofu. 

Rudi,

I read through some of your posts last night (my time to catch up, after work) for the first time. It was wonderful to read you. I even told my boyfriend that WOW has a new voice. A man named Rudi who is politically astute, tells it like it is, just spot on right. What a pleasure to read your posts, along with the likes of DeBurca, and fp, and others whom I have long since considered intelligent, informed beings. Keep telling it like it is, Rudi! Best,   

Frannie,

How kind you are. Say, I loved your story about Joanne. How you married her off in the beautiful wedding on the lawn, how she gave you the cookbook she had made for you … what a wonderful story. And I, like you, enjoy the Barefoot Contessa on the Food Network. That’s a great cooking show. This has been a fun thread, hasn’t it.

Best,             

Chips,

Now I’m going to have to look into the two 60 Minute Gourmet books by Pierre Franey, and JP’s Cooking with Claudine … and it’s all your fault! I like your "picks" and I can’t resist. 

Thanks!

Phyllis,

I’m jealous. The only way I can cook like Alice is by opening one of her books!

Best,

If you took all of my cookbooks and stacked them up, they would tower over me. I could not choose just one.

I can mark my life by my cookbooks. I was a senior in high school when I went on a dinner date with a boy. We went to one of his friend’s apartment, where he and his date were preparing dinner for the four of us. I don’t know what impressed me more - that this girl had her own place, or that she had the nerve to cook for us all. They were making a vegetarian lasagne from The Vegetarian Epicure. That two-series cookbook is on my shelf today. Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant was another of my favorite books I picked up in my hippy days.

In my 20’s, my boyfriend and I were dinner guests in the home of another couple. The hostess, Debbie, was a chef. She was also thin, leggy, busty, blond with blue eyes - your average nightmare. Anyway, she was a consummate hostess. And what a mix of hippy to elegance. For an appetizer, she brought out a silver tray of raw carrots - with the tops still on! Here was my boyfriend munching on a carrot, with the long greens bobbing up and down. He didn’t seem to mind though! And she brought out a tray of glasses with white wine. Anyway, moving on, she served pepper steaks cooked in cognac, red wine and brown beef gravy - with fresh asparagus on the side. And she did it all with such panache. Of course I immediately ran out and got the book: Jacques Pepin’s A French Chef Cooks at Home. This Steak au Poivre became my go to dinner recipe.

My go to general cookbook is Craig Claiborne’s The New York Times Cookbook.

If anyone has a better roasted chicken recipe than appears in Julia Child and Jacques Pepin Cooking At Home, I’d like to know it.

By Alice Waters I have The Art of Simple Food, and Chez Panisse Menu Cookbook. 

By Mark Bittman I have How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. By Nancy Jenkins I have The New Mediterranean Diet.

And unfortunately, lately, I have added a string of books to help with my pre-diabetes: Cooking With the Diabetic Chef by Chris Smith, and the All Natural Diabetic Cookbook by Jackie Newgent being among them.           

Oh, the joy of cooking!

Joni,

Wishing you the happiest of birthdays and …

Champagne from your shoe!

I don’t know if it’s "cool" but I know that it’s the right thing to do.

To my mother, her children were everything. I mean everything. Through her marriage, and divorce, she was always there for us. And I will be there for her. 

When the man I live with now, and have for over 30 years, first suggested we move in together, one of the four conditions I presented to him was that he never ask me to move far away from my mother. Because I wouldn’t. And that when the time came, I was going to do the right thing by her. Well, he is a gem.    

I want my mother to be independent, and safe. And right now she lives a thirty minute drive from me, and she walks four miles a day. She’s a mix of Sally Field, Shirley McClain, Meryl Streep and Ann Bancroft. So for now, she’s a handful, and life is good. But, my boyfriend and my mom have both told me that they don’t want to live in So. Calif. forever. So I have asked them to think about where they want to end up. And if we can agree on a place, we’ll move there. I just want them to be happy. And I’ll be happy too. So, maybe Seattle. Maybe Portland. Maybe Canada. We have a lot of decision making to do, until the housing market turns. 

I don’t know what the future will bring. But I know we will all be together. And I know there won’t be any nursing homes. I promised my mother. That is a promise I intend to keep. And as I actually like my mother, any labor involved will indeed be a labor of love.      

Who knows for sure, but that’s my plan. 

No. No. No. No. No.

The heart of all religion is: Treat others the way you would like to be treated. That’s what it boils down to.

I don’t need to go into a building with a steeple on Sundays to get that. Organized "religion" scares me. Maybe a church provides some social outlet for some. For me, no thanks. In fact, if I know someone goes to church, I steer clear of them.

Suzanne,

Thank you for the link. And thank you for confirming my thoughts about gibberish in my initial post. I still think it is. But I appreciate your response. I’m saying this kiddingly; I’m not trying to be mean. I sort of got a kick out of the video. 

I believe in spirituality, in energy, in the ability to motivate ones self through determination, on and on. But to me "God" has nothing to do with it. I could go on, but no point. My father is a retired physicist, an intellectual, and a "believer" and my mother is an artist, a spiritual being, intuitive, a "believer" and an intellectual. We have had numerous discussions. They both scratch their heads about why I am not a "believer" although I am very spiritual. I have had "strange" things happen in my life that occur to often to be merely coincidental. Others might say, "Oh, it’s a sign from God." But not me. I know them to be something else.

Anyway, thanks for your kind response.      

1. Sheila - I agree with you, all the way. And how well you write!

2. Joan - What scientific studies, and who wrote them? I hear stuff like that, and I think, what gibberish.