Different but not Less

Appetizer- Apple Pie Sticks
Main Course - Cajun Salmon & Fall Festival Salad
Featured Book - "Lottery" by Patricia Wood
Spoonful Rating - 5 Spoons
Beverage - Ginger Ice Tea
Dessert - Blueberry Cobbler

Take a pinch of wisdom, sprinkle laughter, while slowly but deliberately adding joy along the way and one cannot help



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Location:Top Chef Kitchen

Bitter Sweet

Appetizer- Pineapple Glazed Meatballs
Main Course - Lemon Pepper Halibut and Steam Vegetables
Featured Book - "The Paris Wife," By Mclain
Spoonful Rating - 4 Spoons
Beverage - Green Tea (Iced)
Dessert - Carmel Truffle Cheesecake


Falling in love is suppose to be surreal and memorable, yet alluring that one dives in with both feet, anticipating for what lies ahead. In the moment, one captures the eye of another, and blissfully, they join together for what they believe is eternal. Except when there is three, four, or more in the triangle, then there's ties that are not easily broken, and scares that can never be erased.

In the dramatic exposition of Ernest Hemingway's life, Mclain draws the lines of his life between his greatest passions --- the 'drink', women, writing, socializing, and the great temptations of always wanting more. Over the span of 299 plus pages, she unfolds the struggle Ernest divides his time and treasure with, and the constant need to be adored more than loved. And, someone enters his triangle he had not accounted for --- the love of his life, Hadley.

She enters his life for the better, but amid his strong pursuit for public acclaim and the endless nights of partying and emptying every glass, he scarifies the basics --- that is, shared life with one true love, stability of family, and a sense of self. The multiple appraisals of his work does not curve his appetite for even more. He cannot tear himself away from the deep rooted sores of emotional baggage of his past and thriving lust for life ahead of him. So, his decision is to indulge all of his passions, at the risk of losing everything, Ernest crafts a mirage of pain, shackled, mistakened emotions, and a web of lovers, he no longer knows.

In the corner space of each room he lives and across miles of ocean, Mclain draws the reader into the world of one fine artist, writer, and prolific orator. Through the captivating lens of his true love, Hadley, the reader witnesses the stains Ernest endured and passion he exuded on paper, as well as, in the flesh. Whether you are a fan of Hemingway or not, the reader cannot deny the torn emotions the book evokes, and by far, leading a public life draws so many questions, like what's normal?

Hadley Hemingway is the source of inspiration for the late author, and she, bares the scares that will leave you breathtakingly in awe of what it means to sacrifice all in the name of family and for love. This is a novel of true American spirit to be more than life, and survive the tumultuous times of the 1920s.

Pull up a seat, sink into a comfortable, oversize chair and blanket, and fall into the world of one amazing writer's thrust to overcome a lot. In the end, what will be said of a life lived so large, and to what degree will you sacrifice the passions you care for most.

In a word, the reader is left with is, ahhhhhhhh!

Bon Appetite!


Lemon Pepper Halibut and Steam Vegetables

3-4 pieces of fresh, cleaned Halibut
2 tsp. of non-salt margarine
Olive Oil (or Canola Oil, if preferred)
1 cup of bread crumbs (corn bread)
Dash of salt
Dash of coarse pepper
2-3 tbsp. of lemon juice
1 slice of fresh lemons (if in season)
1-2 cups of sliced, yellow squashed (julienne sliced)
1-2 cups of sliced, zucchini
1 tbsp of red peppers
1 tbsp of yellow or orange peppers
1/3 cup of cauliflower


Clean and separate fish in a bowl. Sprinkle on lemon juice, dash of salt and pepper. Dip in bread crumbs and set aside for 5 minutes. Soften margarine in sauce pan over medium fire. Add vegetables (in order) and stir for approx. 3-5 minutes, tossing on each side. Heat olive oil or canola oil in frying pan. Add Halibut to sizzling pan, one piece at a time. Cook on both sides until golden brown. Remove from pan and damp lightly excess oil. Assemble plate for fresh bed of vegetables and top with Lemon Peppered Halibut. Serve for 4-6 people.

Spice of Life

Appetizer- Chicken Dumplings
Main Course - Mojo 'Spicy' Chicken, Sweet Cinnamon & Butter Yams w/ Asian Apple Green Salad
Featured Book - "Life is Short But Wide" by J. California Cooper
Spoonful Rating - 5 Spoons
Beverage - Raspberry Lemonade
Dessert - Double Chocolate Fudge Cake w/ Café Latte


Life is short, and often times not as you would design it---- but wide. I'd tell you that once you plan and prepare for things you'd like to achieve, then it simply is waiting on the precious return. The reality in most cases is, what you plan rarely is the absolute desire you dreamt. As Joseph Campbell cautiously points out, "We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us."

In this wonderful journey called life we encounter a myriad of feelings, emotions, people, and circumstances that call on us to be more. In some cases, more generous of ourselves, gifts, time, talent; and, in other times, we are pulled in one direction we would not have chosen, if honest; and, all the while, we are encouraged to challenge and be changed.

The author pulls the reader in every direction mentioned, challenging one's values and true self. The heroine takes on two (2) powerful yet life-changing elements in life ---- that is, family and fortune. The challenge to love and be loved, while learning to cherish the moments least expected is a treasure worth securing.

What a fitting title and moving account of true sacrifice --- why waist what you are given only once? In the eyes of a mother, daughter, wife, sister, widow, and far- too-soon loner, the author pushes the reader to acknowledge the emotions that lie deep below the surface and compels one to be better.

If you are traveling on this road called family, love, sacrifice, then may I suggest a traveling thought, "We will often find compensation if we think more of what life has given us and less about what life has taken away," says William Barclay.

Bon Appetit !

Mojo 'Spicy' Chicken, Sweet Cinnamon & Butter Yams w/ Asian Salad

6-8 oz chicken quarters
1 jar or bottle of Mojo Seasoning
Nonsalted butter
Olive oil
Ginger
Cinnamon
Allspice
Lettuce
1 sm cabbage
2 carrots
1 cucumber
1 green/ yellow/orange pepper
3-4 Asian apples
1 red onion
2-3 handful grapes and craisins

Clean and separate chicken quarters in a bowl. Gently rub Mojo seasoning on chicken, place in baking dish, sprinkling a dash of ginger, cinnamon, and allspice. Top with 8 slices of nonsalted butter and cover to bake for approximately 1 hour at 350 degrees. Wash sweet potatoes and rub olive oil around potatoes, placing in oven to bake for 1 hour at 400 degrees. Next prepare Asian salad as directed, slicing lettuce, cabbage, carrots, cucumbers, green peppers, apples, and onions. Top with craisins, sesame seeds, grapes, and your favorite lite dressing. Serve for 4-6 people.






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Location:Davis Kitchen

Belonging

Appetizer- Crushed Cheeseballs w/ Hazelnuts

Main Dish - Pesto Parmesan Cheese Pasta w/ Grilled Chicken & Summer Salad

Beverage - Raspberry Lemonade

Spoonful rating - 5 spoons

Dessert - Double Chocolate Mousse Pie

What a powerful and beautiful story of family and belonging!

Interestingly, one may think that belonging is reserved for one's family, and yet, one can become apart of another family, a special bond, that is not one's own and truly belong, finding unconditional friendship has no boundaries.

How special indeed it is to belong --- be loved, cared for, and mostly, share your innermost self --- impartial --- despite different cultures and upbringing. "Little Bee," by Chris Cleave catapults the reader from the shores of Africa to the bells chiming in England on a shoestring of faith, hope, and unconditional desire to live instead of merely existing. The young heroine journeys between two worlds, in separate but powerful time periods, and captures the heart and soul of one who answers the question, "What would you do in this situation?" exquisitely and with wit.

The moving epic of such detail can only be made into a movie, and I await to see the cast. It would be a shame for this symphony of poetic words and beautiful language not to grace the Big Screen.

Bon Appetit!

Pesto Parmesan Cheese Pasta w/ Grilled Chicken & Summer Salad

1 tbsp. of Pesto paste
1/2 cup of Parmesan cheese
1/4 tbsp. melted unsalted butter
1/3 cup 2% milk (or cream of your choice)
Dash of salt
Dash of course pepper
Dash of oregano
1 bay leaf
1 bag of Grilled Chicken Strips (Trader Joe's Preferred)
1 box of favorite Pasta

1 Romaine Lettuce Heart (chopped)
3-5 Sweet sm-med. Spanish tomatoes
1 avocado (sliced)
1-2 strips of bacon (Turkey preferred)
Feta Cheese
Raspberry Vinaigrette Dressing

Heat med. saucepan with melted unsalted butter, adding milk, pesto paste and stir for consistency ( no lumps). Add bay leaf and simmer for 3-5 minutes. Top with dash of salt/pepper/ oregano and stir until sauce is smooth.

Prepare pasta as directed on box or al dente (approximately 9-11 minutes). Drain excess water. Mix pasta and sauce together. Garnish with Parmesan cheese.

Prepare ingredients for Summer Salad as listed in order. Toss as desired. Serve chilled w/ dressing. Optional delights include topping salad with fresh summer fruit --- raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, walnuts, craisins, etc.

Imperfection

Appetizer- Crushed Garlic Bread w/ Hummus

Main Dish- Homemade Soup with meatballs, baby bok choy, oyster mushrooms, carrots, noodles, ginger, cilantro and scallion (courtesy of Eva)

Featured Novel - "Faith and Doubt," by John Ortberg (2008)

Spoonful Rating - 4 spoons

Dessert - Strawberry Cheesecake w/ Bananas & Fudge

Beverage - Pineapple Spritzer

Life is a gift, not a privilege. Oftentimes we seldom realize the deposits we make in our lives and the lives of others. Far too often, it is assumed that we care for a person, love someone, and cherish the time we have. On the surface, we can mask genuine understanding and compassion in the guise of being friendly; but, the real challenge is share what we know and feel for others.

In "Faith & Doubt," the author pulls on various sports and family examples to exhibit this point --- take the time to share what you know and tell those you care for them the truth. While it seems ease to portray one cares for, and about, others; it is life lesson to show not tell. In journalism, I learned the hard way in painful interviews and many re-writes that I, as the author, need to illustrate the message poignantly NOT tell the reader. In this case, I have stolen the very essence of the message in the story --- don't give it away so easily!

If you have Faith, then compel yourself to push farther than you normally would go; and, if you Doubt, then recount the many opportunities given and A-HA moments, to fully understand there is a gift in life --- faith & doubt. To this end, the faith to believe in the impossible is possible, and the doubt that tomorrow will be different if one does not make a change today. Two different but essential gifts we are given in this life, and the choice is always which one will you choose.

"There are no guarantees for the perfection of [our] choices. In fact, to the contrary, there is the guarantee of imperfection...If I refuse to sing a word or play a note until I'm certain of perfection, there will never be music.. If you don't want to go to the grave with all your music in you, you'll have to take a shot. --- Faith & Doubt, John Ortberg, 2008

At the expense of gaining, you must first loose yourself! The greatness within you cannot come forth until one is challenged --- until broken (in many cases). Do not wait 'til the last mile or second on the clock ticks for you to share what you know and for those you love. There are no guarantees for success, but I am confident you can achieve more by giving up yourself, first.

The bad medicine of perfection can cripple one from ever realizing the genuine truth and blessings that lie within. One sure measure of your life are the imperfections --- choose to make soup with the ingredients handed to you!

Go ahead, take a shot!

Bon Appetit!

Homemade "Imperfection" Soup w/ Chinese Cabbage, Meatballs, Mushrooms & Ginger

10 oz. minced pork(preferred meat)
3 scallions, finely chopped
6 oz. Chinese cabbage
1.5 tablespoons cornstarch
2 tablespoons light soy sauce
1 tablespoon rice wine
7- 8 oyster mushrooms
1 carrot, peeled and sliced
2 cups of baby bok choy
1 tablespoon of shredded ginger
4 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 tablespoon peanut oil
2 tsp sesame oil
fresh noodles
1/4 cup of cilantro

Heat the oils together and saute the ginger and garlic, until the garlic begins to turn brown. Set aside.

Shred the cabbage and boil for 2 minutes. Drain and squeeze the remaining water out of it. Pat dry with a towel.

In a bowl, combine the pork, scallions, cornstarch, rice wine, cabbage and cilantro. Put in the fridge and chill for one hour. Then shape into 22 meatballs, using about 1 tablespoon of the mixture for each one.

In the meantime, boil water and then put the fresh noodles in for 1 minute until soft. Drain.

Saute the baby bok choy, oyster mushrooms and carrots together in 2 tsp. of sesame oil.

Heat 6 cups of chicken stock infused with several slices of ginger and 3 scallions. Bring to a boil. Add the meatballs, cover and cook over low-medium heat until they rise to the top and are cooked.

Put noodles in each bowl. Add a spoonful of the bok choy/carrots/mushrooms, a few meatballs and chicken stock. Garnish with chopped scallion and chopped cilantro.

Enjoy!!

Brevity

Appetizer - Stuffed Mushrooms

Main Dish - Chicken Avocado Salad

Featured Book - Out of the Dust, by Karen Hesse

Spoonful Rating - 5 spoons

Dessert - Pineapple Upside Down Cake

Beverage - Pomegranate & Cranberry Cocktail

I am reminded of a conversation I recently held with my 10-year-old daughter, Jordan, where she quotes her mother saying, "A book does not have to be long to be powerful." How true!

Sharing the experience of reading together with my daughter has given me two (2) wonderful lessons thus far --- 1) re-igniting the passion to read and read (especially together w/ a companion); and, 2) the shear joy of knowing we share a special bond that I pray will last forever --- the love of reading and sharing our experiences of a book, time, memory or just thoughts together. This is the case for the novel, "Out of the Dust."

Reading Out of the Dust reminds one to treasure the small, precious moments in life. Taking placing during the Great Depression, the era of poverty but hope, brings out the humane and decent desires in life --- food, shelter, family, love, and self-worth. When the reader is challenged to choose, the question arises, "what will yield more value, and can one deal with the unknown circumstances that surround the ultimate decision?"

"Often our lives are so crowded, we need to hold to what is essential and weed out what is not...historical fiction [gives] us a safe place in which we can grow, transform, transcend. It helps us understand that sometimes the questions are too hard, that sometimes there are no answers, that sometimes there is only forgiveness." --- Out of the Dust

If you are 14-years-old, the answer bears great sacrifice despite the limited life lessons experienced. But, the reader cannot help but grow attached to the character's desire to empower herself and bridge the gap between the generations that separate her world from the loneliness she becomes accustomed to living in the mid-west during the 1920s. If you are 14 going on 29, does it matter that love takes on the form in the least expected way, or you pull towards family strain you, causing you to make drastic changes.

"The way I see it, hard times aren't only about money, or drought, or dust. Hard times are about losing spirit, and hope, and what happens when dreams dry up." --- excerpt from Out of the Dust, 1997

Well, as my daughter cautioned me in our follow up discussion, "Mom, you give too much of the book away!", so I will learn this lesson and encourage you to share the tug-a-war of emotions from the eyes of a 14-year-old heroine, who has hope for breakfast and a destiny unfulfilled for lunch and dinner daily. Sometimes you have to take a leap of faith and plunge forward, and reading the Newberry Award Winning novel, "Out of the Dust" captivates the inner desire to want more even with less.

Bon Appetit!

Chicken Avocado Salad
4-6 oz. of chicken breast
1 head of red leaf lettuce
1 ripe vine tomato
1/2 red onion (sliced)
1/2 cucumber (diced)
1-2 oz. red/green grapes
3-4 sm. sweet peppers (orange/red/yellow)
1 bunch carrots (julienne)
1 hard boiled egg (sliced)
1 -2 avocado(s)
feta cheese
handful of cranberries

Prepare salad as listed. Combine ingredients in order and top with your favorite honey mustard vinaigrette dressing. Serve chilled.

Change..

Appetizer - Hope is everything, IT is EVERYTHING....

Main Dish - "Tough Choices" by Carly Fiorina
Southern B-Que Quarters w/ Cabbage & Grilled Vegetables

Spoonful Rating - 5 spoons

Dessert - Double-Deluxe Chocolate Brownies

Desired Beverage - Mint Iced Tea

"Change always takes great effort...in many real ways, change is an unnatural act and so requires a sustained disruption of sufficient force," says Carly Fiorina. Change, indeed requires continues acts, and perhaps the best medicine in preparation for change is, "a sustained disruption" of responses that requires one to do something he/she would not ordinarily do.

Today, we are witnessing vast changes in people -- the way in which individuals address, clothe, speak out about, and stand-up for themselves. In many ways, the new attitude of expression rest on yesterday's emotion of self --- that is, happy one moment, sad and depress the next, and eventually joy, at some point in the process (one hopes). Through each phase a series of disruptions mandates one to respond to a given situation. In most cases, the ability to actively respond and be aware denotes one is plugged into the environment. However, when change requires a sustainable response, a sense of uncertainty arises and, it is the insecurity in the unknown, that makes change difficult.

In Tough Choices, the once-law-student drop-out and later HP CEO, Carly Fiorina chronicles the life and times as an aspiring business women. The multiple drawbacks and set-ups she orchestrated in the course of 5-plus decades serves as the back drop of hope --- that is, the hope to dream bigger than herself, the belief that she will make a difference, and the opportunity to risk it all, if success was to be achieved --- made all the difference in the world.

In fact, she dispelled this notion of maintaining the status quo to succeed, and preferred the least expected route where she admits she "learned over and over, many people prefer even a deeply problematic known to the risks of the unknown...don't change horses in the middle of the stream are all cautions about the risks of uncertainty and the consequences of imprudent action."

Change requires more than a sustained disruption of sufficient force, it connotes risks, consequences, and it also champions hope, success, and unattainable desires.

Accepting change does not mean one relinquishes the necessary faculties of reason or logic, it simply puts courage, faith, belief, and self-worth on stage amid the unknown acts or responses that follow a change. Change challenges the individual's core value --- who are and what makes you different? As the MBA course taunt, what is the differentiable factor that separates one from another?

In many ways, the response and sustainable actions of one in the midst of change speaks volumes about the individual. In Tough Choices, the title says it best, in life there are tough choices, and I would advocate that one not run from the risks and unknown acts; instead, embrace and challenge the changes that emerge. Fiorina models this behavior on and off the stage of business, and one cannot help but wonder can you say the same.

If your book title was released today, what would your title speak of you?

Bon Appetit !

Southern B-Que Quarters w/ Cabbage & Grilled Vegetables


1 pk of Chicken Quarters (slice and/or section parts)
1 celery stalk
1 red onion
1 or 2 small red potatoes
1 bunch of green onions
1 handful of cilantro & rosemary herbs (diced and sprinkled on meat)
1/4 melted non-salt butter
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp Italian spices
1/2 tbsp cumin
1/2 tbsp allspice
1 jar sweet honey glazed barbecue sauce
Dash salt/pepper
1 tbsp olive oil

Prepare ingredients as listed.

Separate chicken parts or sliced meat to the side. Combine chopped red onion, red potatoes, green onions and herbs together in medium bowl. Sprinkled 2 handfuls of H2O on seasonings. Add melted butter with paprika, cinnamon, Italian spices, cumin and allspice to mixture. Stir for 10 beats, and spread b-que sauce on chicken quarters. Heat oven to 350 degrees and cook for 60 minutes.

Dice cabbage and vegetables in large saute pan. Melt non-salt butter, dash of salt/pepper and add cabbage. Cook until tender adding sm. amounts of H2O to avoid burning pan. Stir continuously for 15-minutes. Spray grill with olive oil and add vegetables. Turn over frequently until crisp and sultry.