When we no longer have good cooking in the world, we will have no literature,
nor high and sharp intelligence, nor friendly gatherings, nor social harmony. 
Marie-Antoine Carême

Eat wonderful meals brimming with taste.  Dance, drink, laugh, love. 
Think Zorba the Greek meets Julia Child. 
W.C. Willett

Eating with the fullest pleasure —
pleasure, that is, that does not depend on ignorance —
is perhaps the profoundest enactment of our connection with the world.
In this pleasure we experience and celebrate our dependence and our gratitude,
for we are living from mystery,
from creatures we did not make
and powers we cannot comprehend. 
Wendell Berry

Seize the moment. Remember all those women on the Titanic
who waved off the dessert cart. 
Erma Bombeck

It’s the fourth of July today, and my sibs and I have converged on the family home for the great annual bash.  Five strong grandsons have been carting cartons of beer, soda, wine, water and iced tea upstairs to the deck on and off since yesterday evening.  Great drums of ice stand ready to receive them all. 

I walked upstairs this morning to see my mother arranging a mountain of rolls (from the local Italian bakery) in a huge basket lined with a striped blue cloth napkin.  My dad was driving around in his kaboda, a mini-tractor, positioning grills, chairs, and recycling bins.  Tall piles of burgers (from our own steer) were thawing in the kitchen, and my mother’s delicious homemade cole slaw and potato salad were blending their flavors in the refrigerator.  The gorgeous, cool green cabbages for the cole slaw were harvested from my mom’s garden last night.  I’ve been assigned to cut and arrange trays of peaches, plums, and mangos for the celebration.  There are blueberries, raspberries and cherries to add, too.  The raspberries are everywhere around my parents’ farm this time of year. 

Across the street, our neighbors Connie and Duane are compiling several magnificently marinated salads.  They arrived the other night for a different meal with a large tray laden with marinated asparagus on one side, haricot verts on the other, triangular slices of Parmigiana, whole basil leaves, lettuce leaves, and thickly cut tomatoes sprinkled with oregano and fresh black pepper.  Humble and generous, they would have you believe they tossed it together in just a few minutes.  Connie, the daughter of a fireworks scion from the Midwest, makes me feel like a kind of July 4th royalty is in our midst. 

A last-minute trip down to the vegetable garden yielded the last of the season’s lettuce greens.  Here’s a recipe for a delicious homemade ranch dressing with no secret ingredients.  Add 6 T sour cream, 2 T mayonnaise, 1 chopped green onion, 1 t each of honey and mustard, 1 T chopped celery leaves, 1 t finely chopped fresh Italian parsley, 2 t apple cider vinegar, 2 chopped garlic cloves, salt and fresh pepper to taste.  Puree the ingredients for a minute, and add shredded Parmesan for more taste if desired.  It can be stored in a covered container in the refrigerator up to 1 week.

In a few hours, the table will be piled high with cornucopias of plenty.  I saw the fixings for a gallon of black bean, corn and cilantro salsa on my sister-in-law’s counter yesterday morning.  If we’re lucky, Aunt Gerda will show with a reprise of the same extraordinary arborio rice pudding she brought to my wedding 30 years ago.  Libby always brings a beautiful fruit pie, some years peach and some years strawberry-rhubarb, and sometimes her guitar, too.  And my sister, a cantor, has invited a bunch of her musician friends.  So in addition to the great sights and smells, there should also be some great sounds coming from here in a little while.  The music, food and friendship should last late into the night.

I indulged a desire for a bucket of silly bands to share with all the children we’re expecting today, and picked out a few red, white and blue ones for myself.  Some of the bigger kids will spend the afternoon playing cribbage in the air conditioned living room.  A few years ago, the grandparents taught their grandchildren to play cribbage, and now they attend competitions together.  The annual soccer game will be played in the field, and it will most likely end with a large influx of young people doing cannonballs right into the pool.  I expect that the pool will see even more activity than usual today, with temperatures expected to reach the mid 90’s. 

I hope you enjoy all of your celebrations today.

***********************Upcoming Events***********************

Log on to WCLV.org FM 104.9 tomorrow Monday July 5th, Wednesday July 7th, and Friday July 9th, at 5:45 p.m. to hear Dr. Roxanne Sukol speaking about  preventing diabetes and obesity on Healthlines, the award-winning project of Cleveland’s Academy of Medicine.