Lunch Al Fresco

Today, I made a special treat for my daughter, Amy.

She has been on a 'all fresh food' cleanse

for an entire week.

How she did it was beyond me.

Must be the Buddhist in her.

In any event, I woke up this morning slicing, dicing, and sauteeing.

That is, right after I had my morning cup of coffee from Starbucks.

Yesterday,

during one of the many correspondences we had either by phone, or email 

I invited her over to have lunch out on the patio.

 

It is absolutely perfect outside this time of year.

The flowers are blooming,

the birds are singing,

and the temperature is just right.

 

I realized it had been a while since we sat down together

JUST BECAUSE.

Nothing to hash over,

no problems to solve,

no schedules to mesh.

So I made her a great big pot of her favorite veggie chili.

And some real corn-in-the-batter corn muffins,

with a great big glass of pomegranate/lime spritzer

to wash it all down.

When I cook, I never use a recipe. I just take a little bit of this

and a little bit of that,

taste a bit here,

add a little bit there.

Then stir, and stir, and stir.

Finally, I let it rest.

It was a few bites into our lunch,

when the heat kicked in.

Not from the sun.

As you can see the light was beautifully dappled.

No, the heat was coming from the five alarm chili.

Guess I got a little carried away with those red pepper flakes.

Sorry Sis.

After wiping our brows multiple times,

and slugging back another spritzer,

we each ate an extra corn muffin to calm down the screaming coming from our taste buds.

We had many

"Whoa this is cleaning out my sinuses," laughs, and

"Mother, back away from the red chili flakes, PLEASE!" giggles.

Finally, we were sated.

I packed up the rest of the chili for her to take home.

I gave her a few hints on how to knock down the flames a bit,

"Just throw another can of tomatoes in it, and maybe a can or two more of beans.

That ought to do the trick." 

She jumped into her car,

and headed back to work amongst some protestations.

"I want to hang out on the patio. I don't want to go back to work."

But like the good girl she is,

back to work she did go. 

As I saw my daughter drive off, I thought

I guess my grandson Brenden was right when he said to me the other day,

whilst shaking his head,

"Guess this is what you get when you have a Crazy Grandma."

Or in my daughter's case,

a Crazy Mother.

I don't always get everything just right, but I do give it a try.

I love you daughter.

Thanks for sharing some time with me.