AC - you're da bomb!

I love air conditioning!


I love it in the house, I love it in the car, I love it in the supermarket, I love it in the department store, I love it in the bookstore, I will love it all summer long!

I remember especially loving it when I visited our ballerina daughter in Orlando in 2005 August-September. (Boy, did I love the Orlando Ballet studios!)

I love the window air conditioner in my old bedroom on LI.
I love that wonderful feeling of cold as I come in from outside.
I love it in my kitchen, my bathroom, my bedroom, my family room!

Last summer we almost didn't use it at all. I loved last summer's weather!
I know that if we didn't have it, I would just lie down all day with all the fans in the house trained on me, blowing hot air (but at least blowing air). Those days are so over!

We lived without air conditioning for decades. I raised 6 kids without it. I used to drag our mattresses onto the little balcony we had off one of our bedrooms and we'd sleep there - until the night a family of raccoons wanted to keep us company (the balcony was just a few feet above ground level)!

I often carted the kids + the mattresses into the basement at night so we could sleep. I've slept outside in a Mayan hammock - quite cosy and nestlike - and on a mattress on the grass in the backyard with hubby. We lived within walking distance of a shopping mall, so I and the children went there daily in heat waves to get relief.

Our house was like a saun! (Spell check is telling me to change this to "sauna" - as if it didn't know "saun" is the Estonian word for it!)

What to others is a given, is to me a gift and a privilege, still recent enough to extol the virtues of. The birth of our last child 20 years ago was during a heat wave and I had three fans pointed at me all through labour. The midwives had to turn them off in order to check the heartbeat, then put them back on again.

I love open windows and open breezes, but when the sun is scorching, a/c is a godsend.

I was referring above to my childhood bedroom as it is now, but, truth is, I did have my own air conditioner in it during university. The campus buildings were all hot back then - a benefit during our summer dance courses because it made us instantly more flexible! - but at home I had a/c.

Even when we're not using it, just knowing that it's there is very, very comforting!

Rhubarb sauce - the simplest of desserts!

Rhubarb! As spring arrives, rhubarb is not far behind. It is a taste sensation like no other. Tangy, soft-textured when cooked, visually appealing raw, baked, or boiled, rhubarb is as much a harbinger of spring as are robins, crocuses, lilacs, and forsythia.

To make this simple dessert:

1. dice a bunch of rhubarb - as many stalks as you like (I had about 10)
2. put in pot with some water
3. add some sugar
4. bring to a boil, then simmer until it reaches the consistency you like

That's all!

How big a dice? I just went down the rib, like I do when dicing celery, and chopped it into thin ¼" to ½" pieces. With a wide stalk, halve it lengthwise first so the pieces will be roughly the same size.

You'll find that as you dice, some strings want to be pulled. I only pull the ones that encourage me to pull them - I don't peel the whole rib as some folks do - there's no need to for this recipe.

How much water? For my sauce, not too thin, not too thick, I probably added about ¼ to 1/3 cup. It did not cover all the rhubarb pieces. This made a nice puree.

Oh dear, Pizza Supreme....

As I ate my slice of pizza (at my beloved Pizza Supreme), one of the staff was adding plastic utensils to the utensil cups at the condiments stand. He accidentally dropped a bunch of forks - maybe 15-20 of them - and started picking them up. I was in a booth nearby reading a magazine, with my glasses perched on my nose. He didn't see me watching him and no one else was facing his way.

I was wondering why he didn't immediately discard the dropped forks in the trash bin which was right in front of him. He took them, instead, around the corner into the back room, ALONG WITH THE UTENSIL CUP, returning a minute later with the cup jammed full of the dropped forks, and placed it back on the condiments stand.

Through all this, the owners were standing, each separately, two to three feet away from him! I made a note to never eat anything at Pizza Supreme which required the use of utensils. I only ever get a slice of their divine pizza which comes straight out of the oven and onto a paper plate. (Hmmm, I wonder if they've ever dropped a stack of paper plates...)

Plastic forks are cheap, especially when bought in bulk like they must do at Pizza Supreme. They landed on what is probably the dirtiest spot in the entire pizza parlour. EVERYONE goes to the condiments stand at least twice. That's where you get your napkins, sprinkle oregano, garlic powder, and/or red pepper flakes on your food, get a utensil!, throw your paper plates and napkins away, leave your tray. The floor is visibly dirtier there.

I'm so sorry such a thing has besmirched my appreciation (not to mention devotion) of Pizza Supreme.

Just a regular slice, please....

Mother's Day bagel and lox!

This Mother's Day I happened to be at my own mother's house, for the first time in decades. Pictured is the breakfast sandwich she made for me - a bagel with cream cheese and smoked salmon with dill and chives. It was so delicious I can't even describe it! Part of its deliciousness must have been because my mother made it!

Long Island is a friendly place

On every visit home to Long Island, I am struck by the friendliness of those who serve the public. No matter where I go to shop and eat, the atmosphere is strikingly different than back in Toronto. From the guy behind the deli counter to the kid working at Payless, everyone's got the gift of gab, or at the least, a knack for friendly banter.

It takes so little to put someone in a good mood, and the folks on the other side of store and restaurant counters everywhere on the Island are good at making us feel good. If only for that part of your day, you leave with a smile on your face and a feeling in your heart that people are good and mean well.

One pleasant interaction also spurs us to pass it on. I always feel like smiling at the next person I see and exchanging a word in passing, even it it's just to say "Nice day, isn't it?"