Sunday, June 5, 2022Tonight's picture was taken in June of 2008. That weekend, like so many weekends, we took Mattie to Roosevelt Island. He absolutely loved the whole nature experience and the beautiful part about this was it was minutes from our home in Washington, DC. If you look closely, you will see that Mattie was holding a toy car in his hands. In fact, Mattie typically never left home empty handed.
Quote of the day: Life’s challenges are not supposed to paralyze you; they’re supposed to help you discover who you are. ~ Bernice Johnson Reagon
What do you think of tonight's quote? How do you think I feel about it? I absolutely understand the sentiment she is expressing, but HONESTLY! In fact, some of life's experiences do just that.... they paralyze you, consume you, and in some cases can destroy you. Or at least significantly impact your life. I also am NOT a big fan of the philosophy that we grow from our pain, trials and tribulations, and in some cases traumas. I think there are far more constructive and less emotionally devastating ways to find out who we are!
I have heard so many people tell me that through Mattie's cancer journey, that I have discovered who I really am.... an advocate, who wants to make the lives better for children with cancer and their families. Again, I get it, but my feeling is if I did not channel my passions in this way, it would have been in a different way helping people. Meaning, I would rather not have lived through Mattie getting cancer and dying, and now living full time dealing with dementia, to learn who I really am.
At the Farmer's Market, we saw these long stalked plants! So we asked what they were! They are garlic flowers! I never knew garlic produced a long stalk and flower above ground when it is ready to be picked. They were kind to us and gave us two free flowers to take home.
Garlic flowers are the flowering seeds, or bulbils, of the garlic plant. They emerge at the top of the garlic's above-ground stem. The seeds appear once the garlic has reached maturity. Garlic flowers have a green stem, also known as a scape, and are capped with lime green, pink, or white spherical capsule of fresh miniature flowers and bulbils. Depending on the variety, each capsule can produce hundreds of bulbils the size of a grain of rice or can produce eight to twenty larger bulbils, approximately one centimeter in diameter. The blooms and bulbils are milder than that of traditional garlic bulbs but still have a pungent and a fresh flavor.
I had no idea that you can cook with these flowers! Garlic flowers can be utilized in both raw and cooked applications such as sautéing, roasting, boiling, and grilling whole. Add to soups or salads or use as an edible garnish when finishing hot preparations such as omelets, pizza, and paella. It can also be used in savory side dishes such as rice and mashed potatoes.
I just think they are beautiful, so I stuck them in a vase with my other plants from our garden!
We took my parents out for an early dinner today. The room we sat in had a very large birthday party of 16 people in it. We stayed in that room because we like our waitress and see her weekly. But the noise was deafening and frankly I don't need much to make me more edgy. Peter's appetizer never came out either, and by the time he got it, our entrees were on the way. So I called over our waitress, who is lovely, and told her all of this wasn't acceptable and asked to speak to the manager. Given all the time we spend in this particular restaurant, you would think their management would know us. So this says a lot about the restaurant! Needless to say, I received an apology, got things comped, and got introduced to a manager. But why must everything be so complicated?
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