My Starfruit tree is producing more fruit -it’s like the Ever Ready Bunny- it never stops and I have one Banana Tree left. My Mallika Mango tree is loaded with green, teardrop-shaped fruit. So far, I’ve just eaten them plain, but have plans for Mango Ice Cream, Mango Bread and Salad Dressing. We’ve also been lucky to get fruit from other people’s trees.
On that same day as the First day of Summer, I was invited to participate in a #eatnorthamerica Instagram Food Blogger’s meeting, where we all posted recent photos and liked and commented on each others posts. We then had three challenges to post- breakfast, our favorite chicken dish and dessert. For the breakfast post, I posted what I ate for breakfast that day- Coffee and Chilaquiles and (we were allowed 2 posts) and a Miami Bowl, which is a breakfast bowl of my own invention. It consists of: rice, black beans, sliced avocado, salsa, a fried egg, plantain chips & a cilantro lime sauce on top. Que rico!
For someone who LOVES chicken almost every which way, I had a surprisingly small amount of chicken photos- I need to work on that. The last challenge was dessert, but I missed the cut-off time of 9 p.m. to post.
I was SO excited that the new Elvis movie by Baz Luhrmann came out last week, on Friday. I’m a huge Elvis fanatic and actually got to see him in 1970 with my grandparents and sister Kelley on Miami Beach. I still remember picking out my outfit for the concert with my grandmother (as if Elvis would notice an 10-year-old little girl) and being so excited for the show. After the concert was over (it was fantastic!), we were going to try and see him outside, but instead heard the famous words: “Elvis has left the building.”
Since I went to the concert with Kelley, we went to see the movie together on Sunday. The actor who played Elvis (Austin Butler) did a fantastic job nailing the voice, moves and look of Elvis. I wasn’t as crazy about the actress who played Pricilla, more for the lack of chemistry between the two of them, than her acting ability. Baz Luhrmann’s films are glitzy, fast-paced and eclectic, blending music and genres, and this one was no exception.
Elvis, the movie, did a good job conveying how revolutionary this Southern boy was with his music (which crossed race lines) and his singing style, back in the ultra-conservative 1950’s. I mean, this is a guy who wore a pink Lansky Brother’s suit to sing on the Louisiana Hayride! Ultimately, it was also a sad story, as the once-wild Elvis becomes trapped in the gilded cage Parker created for him. Although Tom Hanks, who plays Parker, says he tried to find the humanity in the part, make no mistake about it. Colonel Parker is the villain here.
The food I craved this week was Comfort Food, probably similar to what Elvis ate when he was home at Graceland. Although I didn’t have his famous Fried Peanut Butter and Banana Sandwich, I did make myself a delicious BLT one night for dinner, with sliced vine-ripe tomatoes, Romaine Lettuce and bacon. I slathered mayo on one side and mashed avocado on the other, on a PumpernickeI Tuscan toast. It really hit the spot! I don’t eat bacon very often so keep it in the freezer, but the problem with this is, it freezes together in a solid lump and makes getting one or two slices extremely difficult. I saw a video on Instagram on how to solve this problem. Brilliant hack!
While I don’t really like cooked salmon, I did attempt a Food and Wine Roast Salmon with Miso Butter and Radish Salad recipe which was baked in the oven, and served with Scallion Oil. It was actually very good (for someone who doesn’t like salmon.) I’m trying to eat more of it. Those Omega 3’s are supposed to be good for your brain!
Thursday I made my favorite homemade Mac ‘N Cheese to go with grilled pork loin and sliced tomatoes. The leftover Pork Loin turned into Pork Tacos for lunch the next day. And Sunday, after the movie, we grilled St. Louis Style Ribs on the charcoal grill with a rub, along with corn on the cob, Elote-style and Baked Beans. I used Bush’s Baked Beans, but jazzed them up with some mustard, ketchup, Worcestershire sauce and chopped onion, like my Mom makes.
In preparation for the Elvis Movie, I watched an Elvis documentary called The Searcher on HBO Max. It’s a 2-parter and part one was really good. We are still slogging through The Staircase; honestly sometimes I feel like I’m on trial trying to get through this darned show! I recently watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall, the hilarious movie set in Hawaii with Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell and Jason Segel, who also wrote it. Catch it while you can, because it’s leaving Netflix soon, as are a slew of other good movies. I presently stream Netflix, Peacock and HBO Max and Zeke wants to get Paramount + to watch The Offer, about the making of The Godfather. Where does the streaming stop? How many subscriptions can one have? Remember the old days when you just turned on the TV and there were three main channels?
Christopher and Courtney are coming back to Tallahassee after an almost-year stint in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. My sister Elise just got back from a visit there and was able to spend time with them, little Liam and Boxer dog Maggie. I won’t have all three grandchildren in Miami, but at least they’ll all be in Florida and that will have to be enough. And it seems that most everyone I know has fled, or will be soon fleeing, the humidity of Miami for the cooler mountains of North Carolina.
Were he still alive, Elvis would have been 87 this year, the same age my Dad would’ve turned on his birthday, July 4th. They were born in 1935- both Depression babies, children of the South, Rebels, Military Veterans, Family men and Hellraisers. My Father, however, couldn’t sing his way out of a paper bag, although he did sometimes belt out the Marine Corp Hymn with gusto. I’ll be making my Dad’s favorite dessert, Toll House Cookies, for his birthday on the Fourth of July in his memory. If you want an excellent recipe for Pound Cake, look up Elvis’s Pound Cake on Epicurious. It’s a hunk, a hunk of deliciousness.
Speaking of which, Azucar, the wonderful Ice Cream Shop in Little Havana is coming to Suniland. They are taking over the old Tutti Frutti spot. They have so many delicious, Miami flavors but also have the Elvis- a Peanut Butter ‘N Banana ice cream- that would go great with that pound cake!
And totally unrelated to all this, Happy Birthday to my husband Zeke! He’s 60 today! Yippy!
This was the song that we danced to as our first dance at our wedding.
Wise men say, only fools rush in But I can’t help falling in love with you.
Elvis, Blue Hawaii
Up Next: Mom’s Baked Beans
]]>“And the songbird is singing like she knows the score…”
Fleetwood MacGigi camp has just concluded and Gigi is… exhausted!
The first Gigi camp occured when Wyatt was only 3 years old and I took him down for the Keys for what was to be a week-long camp. I quickly realized a full week with a three-year-old was way too ambitious and decided the new rule of thumb should be one day for each year of my grandson’s life. Thus, Gigi camp this year should have been only five days long, but I went the Full Monty and played camp counselor for a week!
Under normal circumstances, this would have been a lot to handle, but as it turns out, I hurt my knee and caught a cold, so I was not in my prime Super Gigi condition! But I soldiered through and had Wyatt from Sunday- where I had the family over for Spaghetti Sunday- through the following Sunday.
Gigi Camp is sacred. A period of time devoted soley to my grandson, with activities, field trips, art projects, French lessons and science experiments scheduled. During this week- my life as I know it- is put on hold. That means: no meetings, tennis matches, meditating, yoga, work-outs, long walks, happy hours, answering e-mails, reading the paper, Instagramming, writing reviews for Yelp, talking on the phone, journaling, blogging, writing or watching murder mysteries for me. I did watch Jeopardy with Wyatt, but I consider this educational, right?
If there was one activity we did more than any other, during this version of Gigi camp, it would have to be swimming. As any parent (or grandparent knows) this is the perfect activity for wearing an active child out, so they go sleep early and sleep well. We swam in my backyard pool, at Riviera’s pool (with lunch with Courtney and Liam), at the pool at the Sanctuary down in Key Largo and (most fun of all! ) out on the boat, in the bay. With noodles and water guns.
Field trips included: Pinecrest Gardens playground, the Library to get new books, Riviera Country Club for swimming with Liam and lunch and to Target, where Wyatt and I got t-shirts to tie-dye. Wyatt also got to pick out a toy, actually two- a voice changer and a Super Soaker water gun. The tie dye was my favorite art activity and Wyatt was totally hands-on. He picked the colors, designs and squirted the dye onto the t-shirts himself. At one point, he had a plastic dye tube in each hand and was free form squirting the dye over the shirt- very Jackson Pollack! After this, I put the t-shirts in a plastic container and into the microwave to “cook”. That’s right! These tie-dye shirts didn’t need to go into the washing machine, but set in the microwave. Kind of ingenious and a lot quicker than the washing machine method.
On Wednesday, I exchanged Wyatt for his little brother Phoenix (3 months old), so his parents could have a day alone with him. On that day, I made a Black Pepper Tofu dish from the cookbook Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi, NYT food writer and Vegetable guru. I’ve been trying to eat more plant-based meals and this one was delicious, but after frying tofu in oil and sauteeing it in butter, it didn’t seem like the HEALTHIEST meal. When Wyatt walked into my living room at 8 pm that night eating an ice cream Sundae, I asked his parents to take him for the night, as I didn’t want to deal with the sugar crash. I needed a good night’s sleep.
Because sleeping with Wyatt does not translate into restful slumber He sleeps between Zeke and I and, while he starts out vertical, he ends up horizontal, forming a cross bar to our vertical H. Zeke gets kicked in the head, I get squeezed to the edge of the bed, hanging on for dear life. It is not fun! Also, Wyatt is like a heat-seeking missile, so, by the morning, he has attached himself to me for snuggling. And, like Great Garbo- “I vant to be alone” when I sleep, I like to sleep unencombered by another life form. It should just be me and my weighted blanket, for prime snoozing. Serenity now!
Our meals were whatever was easy and quick. Every morning Wyatt had the same menu of Apple Juice and Milk in a sippy cup (I know it sounds disgusting, but he loves it) and Chocolate Chip pancakes with syrup, served on a breakfast tray in my bedroom. Yes, he is spoiled by his Gigi! Dinner was sushi one night, Spaghettios often and, my favorite meal of the week, grilled shrimp. Zeke found a recipe for a marinade in a magazine called Table from the Florida Keys and it was delicious. The marinade, shown below, hit all the right notes- sweet, salty and spicy- and you could really taste it on the skewered shrimp. I served it with rice, the Black Pepper tofu and sliced watermelon. Delicious!
Wyatt and I drove down to the Keys Friday around lunchtime and, both of us exhausted, were couch potatoes, coloring and watching T.V. Zeke came later and we went to dinner at nearby Skipper’s (they have a great kid’s menu) and then back home to watch Shark Week on the Discovery Channel. A.J. and Phoenix came down Saturday to join us for their first time out on our boat- ‘Bout Time. We had lunch at Bayside Grille and took a little joy ride out in the bay afterwards. Unfortunately, Wyatt wanted to go “Faster, faster!” on the boat and with sweet, little Phoenix, we needed to go slower, slower.
Gigi Camp went out with a bang on Sunday, as we took the boat out for one last spin. We anchored, floated on noodles and went swimming in Buttonwood Bay. Wyatt brought all his water guns and we had a water gun fight, while listening to Sweet Home Alabama on the boat radio. We dried off, then we headed back to our unit, where Wyatt got his wish to go “Faster, faster!” Then, we drove back home from the Keys, where Wyatt fell asleep in the car (yea!). Shortly afterward (although none too soon) his Mom came to pick him up and Gigi camp came to an end. Wyatt gave me a little hug goodbye. A.J. gave me a BIG hug. “Thank you Mom!” she said.
I have to say, this is the best Gigi Camp ever.
Wyatt
Said one night before bed. When I asked him his favorite part of Gigi camp, he said “The apple juice and milk and the TV watching.”
“Really? What about the boat? And swimming in the ocean?” I asked.
“Oh yes. Totally the boat!” he answered.
And I love you, I love you, I love you, like never before.
Fleetwood Mac
Spicy Cilantro Lime Marinade
Course: Uncategorized4
servings10
minutesFor Seafood and Chicken
Ingredients
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup lime juice
1/4 cup champagne vinegar (or white wine vinegar)
2 minced garlic cloves
1/4 cup cilantro
3 TBL brown sugar
1/3 cup honey
1 tsp salt
1 TBL red pepper flakes
1/4 tsp cumin
Directions
- Mix all ingredients, then process in the blender or food processor for uniform consistency.
- Place shrimp, seafood or chicken and marinate 15 minutes to 1 hour. For seafood, less time because the lime juice may “cook” it prematurely.
- Grill according to the protein.
- Serve with lime wedges.
Notes
- If cilantro is not your thing, simply omit and create a spicy, lime, garlic marinade instead.