It's All in the Presentation, Right?

Nothing as dramatic today as Mindy's post was yesterday.

Today we have peaceful and pretty.

I love looking at the flowers while I'm walking Fenway.

Aren't daisies just happy-looking flowers? So cheerful.

And these beautiful pink roses.

Tonight we had a gorgeous sunset. I wish I'd had my camera handy on Friday because the sunset was absolutely, insanely beautiful - the kind that makes the whole sky and even inside the house glow because of the intensity of it.

God in all his glory.

But the food treat was man-made.

I thought you would appreciate seeing this. Over the weekend, my daughters and I traveled to PA for a memorial mass for my husband on Saturday. On Sunday, we were on the lookout for a place to enjoy brunch where the vegan daughter could find something before her flight took her away.

Success!

She found an adorable little place. It turned out to be run by a super health conscious young couple,  recent immigrants from the Czech Republic who are determined to make the healthiest eating experience around. They were so dang cute and conscientious.

Daughter #1 had jerk chicken and their special gluten-free waffles. (Everything was gluten-free).
I had the waffles with blueberries.  I have to admit, the waffles were extraordinarily good tasting, but they didn't look all that different from any other homemade Belgian style whole grain waffles.

What struck my fancy was the vegan daughter's smoothie bowl.  Isn't this adorable?

Ha! It wasn't lost on me that my mother would not have approved of the plumeria in the food (if you recall my honeysuckle debacle post!)

The smoothie bowl was called Ocean View.

The blue green water came courtesy of spirulina, banana, and vanilla. The sand was a nutty granola, and the whitecaps were a delicious coconut cream.

They also had smoothie bowls called Oktoberfest and Flamingo Lake. I'm sort of dying of curiosity to know what those look like.


Now seriously, most smoothie bowls have everything pretty much tossed together. The extra artistic care these guys took really impressed me and made me hyper aware of how little effort I put into presentation. So I figured I'd ask you.

Do you go the extra mile in presentation? All the time or just on special occasions? Interested minds would like to know (and maybe alleviate some guilt?).



I'll leave you with a sweet moment. Sun-dappled kitty.

A Few of My Favorite Things

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens....

I found myself humming that the other day, not because I was thinking of Maria, but because I had just bought crumb buns.

There is a connection here. Just please bear with me.

I bought the crumb buns from a bakery near work. I know they are not healthy (by any stretch of the imagination!), but I needed a guilty pleasure.

And that got me to thinking - what are some of the things we eat, that we know we shouldn't, but sometimes we just give in because life is short and we should be able to enjoy treats in moderation.

*Note that word moderation. It is not really a word in my working vocabulary.

Since the crumb buns made me hum about my favorite things, I started to think of a few others, and realized they all are favorites because of memories attached to them.

The crumb buns - well aside from just being delicious - remind me of my grandmother who loved them. They were a treat we often shared together - especially the summer my sister worked in a German bakery.

Honeysuckle - I saw this bush the other day and it brought back a funny memory. I had a new friend who moved in next door when I was in kindergarten. One day, we were playing before our class (kindergarten was half day back then and we had the afternoon class). Terry introduced me to the pleasure of sucking on honeysuckle flowers.

Ours were actually white, but I saw these in my neighborhood.

My mother did not find it a pleasure. She said we would be poisoned and made me drink a quart of milk and eat a loaf of bread - I guess to "dilute the poison."  I never see a honeysuckle bush that I don't think of this.

Is it an act of defiance that my favorite soap is Meyer's Honeysuckle?


Lilacs - Another mom story and another threat of poison. This time not from eating them, but because I cut some and put them in a milk glass on the breakfast table. She said I was g oing to poison the family.
Fast forward - my husband always bought them for me for Mother's Day - even though the first time he messed up and bought purple statice by mistake. It became a family joke.  This year, my daughter bought them for me in his stead.

This bush may not look like anything special, but they caught me by the nose. The scent was just heavenly!

And just because I love them - no reason - I saw this rose. Earlier in the day it was just at the point of perfection, but after hours in the hot sun, it had gone a little past bloom. That's okay. I can identify.

And since I started with roses and  kittens, here are two shots of my daughter's cuddly one.

Sorry, no photo of the crumb buns. I ate them before I took one.

So, what are some of your favorite things?