Sylvia's Scenario

And the birthday celebrations continue.  Summer is officially over now and in our family we recognized that by celebrating two of my sisters' birthdays that are on the same day of the year but different ages, September 23rd.  One sister lives here in Seattle so we were able to celebrate with her yesterday and my other sister lives in Colorado but yes, they were born on the same day of the year.  I also have a brother born on February 16th and another sister born on February 14th, pretty close.  When you have seven children, I guess some are bound to be born near the same dates.  My mom was a busy lady.  Here's an old photo of all of us in 1979. Barbara has lived most her life in Seattle unlike me who has moved away four times and moved back four times.  She went to grade school, high school and college here so needless to say, she has a lot of friends in town.  Last night, her husband, Jim, made a delicious dinner and invited a few of us over to celebrate her big day.

Before summer comes to a close, I wanted to be sure to post one of my favorite summer drinks - the Aperol Spritz.  I was introduced to this drink during our trip to Italy in 2016 and drank them throughout Italy.  (It was one of the few drinks you could order and get ice in it!)  This drink is so refreshing during hot weather and really hits the spot.  It originated in Italy and is one of their most popular aperitifs there.  Aperol is a citrusy, slightly bitter liquor that is apparently getting more popular here, too.  This summer I noticed that they were offered on a lot of local restaurant menus and I was delighted to be able order this colorful, summer drink once again.  I ordered one on my  birthday  at Il Terrazzo Carmine  and then again for   our anniversary  at Salty's.   It's the perfect summertime drink.  They are usually mixed in a large wine glass with an orange wedge but for my photo I mixed them in beer glasses with lime wedge because I made larg

Yesterday was Bruce's birthday and I decided to make his usual favorite cake - carrot cake, only gluten-free...and nobody could tell the difference. I used a recipe from the same blog that I used for Lauren's birthday cake called Downshiftology . It's a Paleo food blog. I've discovered that Paleo people really like their sweets. So, if you want a good gluten-free recipe, check o ut the thousands of Paleo food blogs. After reading The Plant Paradox book, I decided to try out the diet and see if it helped my achy joints that I have from arthritis. Unfortunately, the P.P. diet is more than just gluten-free, although gluten-free is a large part of it. I'm finding that the gluten-free part is the easiest part of the P.P. diet. The P.P. diet's philosophy is to improve the bacteria in your G.I. tract by feeding the "good" bacteria and to starve the "bad" bacteria. Lectin, the protein in many foods (like grains), feed the "bad"

Tonight, we had one of our favorite salads for dinner and I realized I've never put it on the blog. So, here it is. It is a French salad that originated in the city of Nice and it has such a great combination of flavors; Bruce says he could eat it every week. Why I've never posted it here on my blog, I really don't know because we eat it often. I even made it for dinner one night during our trip to Japan last year in 2017. Nick and Sachiyo LOVED it.    Of course, this was the Japanese version with lots of fish in it, including the Japanese favorite of shirasu which are those little white fish that the Japanese sprinkle on a lot of dishes. I don't remember what the big fish were, something common that they eat a lot but I do remember we also bought some tuna to crumble in it that was delicious. It was really dense fish with a big bone in it, like a pork chop only fish. The Japanese eat all the parts of fish so this must have been a part that we don