I am having trouble wrapping my brain around the fact that today is the last day of July. You?
When I let the dog out this morning there was not a hint of cool in the air. It is all ready hot and sticky and is just barely 8 a.m. as I write this. Hopefully I can get my work knocked out and head for my float in the pool. At least that is the plan. I am also kicking around a rolled sponge cake filled with creme patisserie and sweet red strawberries in my head. If all goes well it will make it to the table, and the blog!
Saturday is “Donut Day” here. In the past I would try to make donuts on Saturdays as a special treat for the kids…Now my fiance brings them every Saturday. He once told me that once was a tradition and my kids have certainly accepted THAT mentality. It is his own fault though. I tried to warn him. 
The cruise is in a little over a month and I am fiercely low-carbing trying to get off some of the extra weight I have. It has been tough. I tried to do the traditional diet/exercise thing but between unstable blood sugar issues and no thyroid gland I gained 13 lbs and 3% more body FAT in three months. Even my trainer was stumped. Low carbing has always been a good choice for me and I am 9 lbs down after 3 weeks. Once you are this far into it cravings are really not an issue and if you avoid that first bite of carbs you are o.k. It has made it a little difficult to keep up with the blog because I tend to taste- taste- taste ….. it is good discipline for being more careful of the dynamics of putting together a recipe and balancing tastes…I suppose somewhat like Beethoven writing symphonies when he was deaf. You have to trust your gut instincts.
About this time of year I start craving apples from two particular trees of my childhood. One was behind a neighbors house, on an old fence line in Pennsylvania and one was on the dirt path between my Aunt’s house and her Uncle’s house in Michigan. I can’t tell you the name of either of these apples, although I suspect the Michigan apple was a Northern Spy… The trees were old and gnarled and for the most part I think they had long since been forgotten about by everyone but me. The apples picked warm from the tree had a flavor that I have never forgotten and to this day I prefer my apples room temperature or sun warmed. Back then I was a pretty free spirit and roamed over fields and through woods to my heart’s content. By the time I was 8 or so I was happily leaving the house first thing in the morning and tramping through the woods, discovering a world much bigger than the one most kids these days have a chance to experience. I knew every clearing, every climbing tree, every spring and stream for miles. I learned to create my own lunches from sweet wild blackberries and those forgotten apple trees that I came across. By the time I was ten I had read Whitman, Thoreau, and several other Victorian naturalists works and had learned more about the natural world than I ever did in school.
I suppose if I am trying to say anything with my rambling today it would be that kids need to experience the solitude of the woods on a summer day. Maybe rather than rushing them to soccer games and the mall, or allowing them to play hours of video games we could somehow get them outside to explore and interact with nature. It’s necessary and healthy… and you can’t respect what you haven’t experienced. Just a thought.
Enough… Here is today’s Saturday Surfing
Cinnamon Pecan Biscuits with Peaches and Cream
Vanilla Bean Macarons with Roasted Strawberry Buttercream
Double Chocolate Brownie Semifreddo
That’s all I have time for today. You know, if you visit a blog, mine or another, take a minute to make a comment. It is just nice to know people are reading and it helps the writer get to know the readers.
I should take my own advice.
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