My first Celebrity Tomato picked and consumed December 13, 2010.  I was delighted with the color and texture.  It had the perfect balance of acidity and sweetness.  The quality of fruit picked in your garden when ripe will surpass anything available on the market, even in season.

Thanks Margo, Kaylin, Brendon and Trae for the creative centerpieces at Thanksgiving Dinner and thank you Ken and Norma and family for inviting us every year to your annual celebration of tradition and festivity.  The food is always delicious and the company top notch. We feel truly blessed. Thank you!

Let us make this Thanksgiving Feast the one where we rekindle the traditional spirit of a Feast.  Let us enjoy the spiritual and physical benefits of “breaking bread” with friends, family and relatives.  Let us reflect upon the blessings in our life and express our appreciation to those who make a difference to us and to others.

Let us practice gratitude every day.  Let’s start with our breath and our heartbeat.  We should all be humbled by the life that flows through our being and marvel at all its glory.

Artwork by Ava Hasson.  Thank you, Ava!

Growing up in New Jersey, you are proud of your tomatoes. In my recent quest to grow my own tomatoes (Celebrity, Big Boy, Better Boy and Cherokee Purple), I have learned much about the 7500 different varieties of tomatoes and why the New Jersey tomato receives such notoriety across the country for best flavor, tenderness and juiciness.  The history and lore of the Jersey tomato developed not because of the unique weather or soil conditions in the state but it had everything to do with the competitive landscape in the farming industry.   New Jersey did not have the land or resources to compete with the large commercial growers in Florida, California and New Mexico that dominated the commercial farming market beginning in the 50s.  A tomato’s flavor, tenderness and juiciness have to due with variety, growing care and how long they remain on the vine to ripen.

New Jersey got lucky. Jersey farmers never concerned themselves with picking green, tasteless tomatoes that would have to withstand transport and storage so they focused on cultivating stake grown varieties which protect a tomato from soil borne diseases.  The tomatoes were picked when soft and vine ripened for immediate sale to the local markets and farm stands for the enjoyment of all of us living in the Garden State.  Jersey tomatoes are tastier and the “slow food” tomatoes are not treated with chemicals such as ethylene that give a green tomato a red glow.  You get the real deal!

This is not Kill Bill or the Karate Kid.  This is the 2010 Seibukai Shiai Dojo (“Pure Heart”)  Tournament hosted at the Delray Community Center last weekend where all ages and ranks from the Little Dragons to the “Black Mambas” competed on technique, strength and skill.  We came to support and watch our fellow students test their competency in kata and kumite.   The Senseis are passionate about karate and truly dedicated to make each and every student’s experience positive and life changing.  All ranks from the Senseis to the Little Dragons teach you more than you could possibly teach them.  We feel honored to be training with such a talented and committed group.

Friday, November 12, 2010, Diane’s Backyard (A toad rescued from jacuzzi.)

Saturday, November 13, 2010, Jupiter, FL–Weekend at Rick’s Fish Camp

Laughing Therapy Group and a Patient Surfer Playing Banjo (8:00 am Jupiter, FL)

Sunday, November 14, 2010–Nature Conservancy, Blowing Rock Preserve-Jupiter Island

Every year my parents would drive us to the beach house at the Jersey Shore for our summer ritual of sun and fun.  As soon as we turned off the Garden State Parkway and headed down Route 35,  I would be overwhelmed by the smell of salt and sea and how the air grew damp from the surrounding water. It is unique to the Jersey Shore which is sandwiched between the Atlantic Ocean and Barnegat Bay.  Even now when I take the drive, the smell evokes memories of summer romance, my parents, my siblings, my first job and the joy of unstructured time.  

Our sense of smell is the only sense that is directly linked to memory and there is a growing awareness of the power of scent.  Smell plays a large part in our lives. Pheromones, or hormone-like substances, are as individual as we are. Just as no two people are alike, no two people smell alike. Pheromones are our own private fingerprint and influence our choice in mates.  Aromatherapists have contended for years that a scent can affect people in profound ways and scientists are now trying to find the hard evidence of those connections.  For example, they say the scent of the grapefruit can take years off your age!

I started to reflect again about the power of scent when recent guests gave us a very cool house gift –a candle from Le Labo Fragrances, a London and New York based perfumery.  www.lelabofragrances.com.   At Le Labo their goal “is to help you ‘open your nostrils ” , as they state, “in the same way a good book opens their readers’ eyes to life.  Philosophers speak about “men with stitched-up eyelids’ when referring to people who are blind to the basics of existence”. They believe “most of us live with stitched-up nostrils, having grown up in a world where smells are hidden away, and our olfactory senses left to wither”.

Le Labo wants us ” to breathe in deeply and take in all that life has to offer”.  I agree.  Thank you,  Cindy and Stephen for helping us broaden our “olfactory palette” with Santal 26–the scent is phenomenal!

Friday Fear Fest (Boca Raton, FL)

Despite our fascination of  creepy monsters and the bogeyman , the  Halloween celebration began as a purification.  Halloween is short for “All Hallows (All Holy) Evening”, the night that precedes All Saint’s Day (November 1st). The lore states that the Saints call forth all unhealed spirits so they can be blessed and released.  So while we are fascinated with the theatrical aspect of Halloween, let us not forget its roots.  If you have any monsters lurking in your closet or grotesque memories that stalk you in the middle of the night, this is the time of the year to let them go!  Life could get creepier; we have an election a day away.

Boos and Brews (Palm Beach Gardens, FL) October 30, 2010

Red Rose (Diane’s Garden October 2010)

I read Michael Pollan’s The Botany of Desire-A Plant’s Eye View of the World  a few years back and was fascinated by his take on the relationship between people and plants. Pollan tells the story of four familiar plant species that are deeply woven into the fabric of our lives and illustrates how each of those species evolved to satisfy our basic yearnings for sweetness (the apple), beauty (the tulip), pleasure (cannabis) and sustenance (the potato).  And as we benefited from these plants, the plants, in the grand co-evolutionary scheme, have done well by us. The sweetness of apples, for example, induced the early Americans (Johnny Appleseed) to spread the species and gave the tree a whole new continent in which to blossom. 

Pollan’s story on the tulip (beauty) and the financial craze of tulip mania has always made me view a flower from a different perspective.  As Pollan states, “some perfectly good flowers simply are what they are, singular and, if not completely fixed in their identity, capable of ringing only a few simple changes on it; hue, say, or petal count. You can prod it all you want, select and cross and reengineer it, but there’s only so much a coneflower or a lotus is ever going to do”.   

However, the rose, orchid, and tulip are capable of prodigies and reinventing themselves again and again to suit every change in weather and landscape.  And in the co-evolutionary scheme of life and human’s desire for beauty and fragrance, the rose has evolved into over 100 species in a variety of colors.   And who benefits? 

If you have a chance, pick up Pollan’s book.  I promise you that the next time you are deadheading a rose bush,  you will think of the bumble bee and you will think of Pollan; he makes you challenge your basic understanding of the natural world.    

Every other week I have the pleasure of picking up at a specific location (close to my home) my bounty of veggies and fruits through a local organic buying club.  It consists of a group of people who share a common goal to save money on quality healthy foods.   www.Anniesbuyingclub.com 

After my pick up, it is a surprise and an education in identifying the different types of vegetables such as Lacinato Dino Black Kale and fruits such as a pluot.  The next challenge is to find a recipe that works with the ingredients on hand.  I look forward to these bi-weekly pick ups because cooking is a way for me to get in the “zen” and dine with friends and family.  

The buying club has also been an amazing way for me to broaden my exposure to the vast array of flavors, colors and textures in produce outside my local supermarket aisle.  On some weeks, it takes me time (and maybe a phone call) to discern exactly what I receive.  This week I was perplexed by a large fennel bulb.  But, all in all, it has been a wonderful experience in food preparation and my palate is certainly enjoying the new genre of vegetables and fruits. 

Tonight corn and spinach will take the back seat to leek soup and sautéed kale.  So how do you clean leeks–gratis the internet!  So if you live in Florida, check out Annie’s or if you reside outside the state look into a local buying club.  It is healthy, cost-effective and fun!

1. To prepare leeks, cut off and discard the dark green parts that are tough. Or you can wash and use them for stock-making.

2. Trim off the little beards at the bottom.

3. Take a chef’s knife and make a horizontal slice lengthwise. Don’t cut through the end, where the beard was. Rotate the leek, and make another lengthwise slice, creating a cross-hatch pattern if looking at it from the end.

4. Run the leeks under cold water, or better yet, swirl them around in a basin of water to remove any grit.