How I wish my mom was alive to see me playing with my veggies and tomatoes! How she suffered trying to get me to eat those gross things when I was a kid! How I used to regale people I met with the tales of my sneaky, anti-veggie campaign. I used those pockets on my overalls to full advantage, hiding each soggy, canned wax bean or, worse yet, lima bean, in the folds of my clothes, sneaking them to my room and depositing them behind the dresser where they would atrophy in limbo for six months or more. My mom was a working mom, she only did major (upstairs) housework, for spring and fall.
It wasn't until about ten years ago that I began to get with the program when my friend Donna tried to lure me into veggies by disguising them with gobs of wonderful cheese. Slowly, I began to say, hmmmm, these things don't taste so bad after all. Then, is it 6 years already? - Don came into the picture and the rest, as they say, is history.
We started with a few simple tomato plants and branched out to green peppers. Wow! I had never tasted anything like my own fresh peppers plucked from the plant. Next up I asked for an herb box and we had rosemary, basil, peppermint and parsley. Now I've added cilantro and all was looking good until the big freeze before Christmas. I only had so many extra sheets and I had to save the spinach and collards, right?
So, beginning to feel perkier after an unexpected bout with pneumonia found me in the emergency room last week, I went to Tracye McQuirter's cool cookbook and found a simple recipe involving all my favorite things: olive oil, garlic, and sundried tomatoes. Heated up for five minutes with the greens and plopped on the plate, it made for a gorgeous looking dish and, one would think, I should be getting healthier by the minute.
More on fiction in a few days. I've been honestly, too tired to read at full capacity.
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