The days of wine and roses.

Some days are this full, every corner blooming, scents and color enticing bees and birds. We think of youth as the blooming season of our lives, when we are at our most beautiful, our most enticing, our most productive.

So, what are our senior years but the harvests of our lives, sated with pleasures and tastes, sheltered from doubt and the winds of passion that might catapult our efforts.

We come to the kitchen at different times for different reasons. Sometimes we want to recollect and re-create those days of wine and roses. We want to serve a heady meal, with specific wines, with enticing aftertastes.
 Other times, we want to make simple things to nourish the child in us, the- stay- in- bed- it's-too-dangerous to go outdoors.

Yesterday, my heart said make a memorable meal, a heady celebration. My stomach said, finish the leftovers and clean the refrigerator before you head on south to California for the rest of the month.

So, here are the meals that I served:

Breakfast: Pancakes made with whipped cream and Bisquick
                orange slices, sausage.

Lunch: Panzanella salad with old cubed bread, vinagrette, tomatoes, arugula and cubed cheese and cold cuts.

Dinner: Leftover chichen and rice resurrected in fried rice, with additions of mushrooms, onions, ginger slices, garlic, egg, soy sauce, garlic hot sauce, and strips of that leftover chicken.

We're gone for a couple of weeks, sunning and visiting our boys in L.A.  We'll revisit our old haunts, places we loved during our days of wine and roses.  See you when I return.