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Engaging stories of love, joy, comfort and friendship with proven scrumptious, healthy recipes, we celebrate LOVE as the secret ingredient for wonderful food!

Lunch with Nora

March 7, 2013 by Mary Frances 10 Comments

I was having lunch at the office today, by myself, in the conference room, reading this article by Nora Ephron that my friend Marie sent to me. Well, I was literally laughing so hard I was crying and not a sound was coming out!

Do you know that kind of hard, teary, unstoppable laugh? You can read the article here and you too can laugh your socks off. http://www.oprah.com/spirit/Nora-Ephron-on-Maintenance-Remembering-Nora-Ephron

I never met her … but I miss her. She was one great lady!

Ever since her book came out on I Feel Bad About my Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman, I have been obsessed about my neck. I remember first hearing about this book on the radio, while I was in the shower, shaving my legs. They said she talks about you having to shave less as you get older and I thought, great! But then, I have to thank Nora for spending hundreds of dollars on special neck creams and doing awful looking neck exercises in front of the mirror at night before going to bed. I’m not sure if they’re doing anything, but I’m sure as hell putting in the effort.

Now on to my lunch. I’ve been meaning to talk to you about lunch. I actually like to and do bring my lunch to work everyday, including my husband’s, unless I have a lunch date set up with a client or a friend. Of course, many of our clients are friends, so that does double duty.

This all started with the great recession/ depression descending upon us several years ago now. I figured we could save at least 20 bucks a day for the two of us – that’s one hundred a week, four hundred a month! (I can do the math!) But now, I also love to intimately know what I’m putting in to my body. I care about that – and you should too. I love my lunches. They’re clean, healthy and delicious and I know everything about them because I made them. My husband usually has dinner leftovers – he calls it “gourmet fast food” and I love my salads. I think it’s very important to eat some raw food everyday. One probably gets more vitamins and minerals out of them that way, and seeds are good too – sunflower or pepita (remember Euell Gibbons?) are great as garnishes. I’ll tell you what – I feel great every day and have a tremendous amount of energy. And now here’s a funny thing. When my extended family is all together at my one brother’s house in Vermont and they’re all eating sandwiches, hot dogs, chips and dips, on the side, I make my own salad and you know what? They all drool over it, because it looks so delicious, and they’re eating crap. You choose!Red leaf lettuce salad with tomatoes, red peppers, tomatias, cucumber and roasted pork tenderloin.

I love warm meat on a salad – great protein and staying power to take you through the day. And when the warm meat juices mix with the cool lettuce and dressing, it’s nice. Here is red leaf lettuce, radishes, cucumber, red peppers, grape tomatoes, tomatillo wedges and warmed leftover rosemary roasted pork tenderloin with sauteed onions and apples.

Filed Under: Lunch, Salads Tagged With: cucumber, grape tomatoes, I Feel Bad About my Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman, leftovers, Nora Ephron, radishes, red leaf lettuce, red peppers, roasted rosemary pork tenderloin, salads, tomatillos

Entertaining

July 22, 2012 by Mary Frances 4 Comments

Entertaining does not always have to mean you cooking everything, especially when you live in a city like New York. It is so much more important to get together with the people you love and don’t let anything or any excuse get in the way of that. My good friend, Susan, pointed this out to me and executed a beautiful example this past week.

We were invited to their apartment this past Tuesday evening. Now Susan always does a beautiful job. She usually makes all the food and we have such a good time getting together and catching up and discussing politics. But this past Tuesday was so darn hot here, she decided to change it up a bit. No matter, as long as you serve it with LOVE, it makes no difference.

She had her fish store, Dorian, on York Avenue between 83rd and 84th Street, deliver some beautiful poached salmon fillets with some green sauce on the side. Then she put together a gorgeous platter of the salmon with the sauce, along with some fresh cucumber and dill. She made a cold yummy rice salad ahead of time with black nicoise olives, served some gorgeous sliced heirloom tomatoes with chopped fresh basil along with some guacamole (also from the fish store). Add some warm rolls and butter and we were all set. It was so delicious and THE perfect menu for a hot summer night. Plus, she could spend the whole cocktail time with us in the living room as dinner was already made.

Dessert was a French yogurt cake she made, topped with a dallop of mascarpone cheese and fresh blueberries and raspberries. The perfect ending to a perfect meal!!
But I forgot to take a picture!!

As part of our hostess gift, we brought a little bit of the country to them – Ethel’s garlic.

Susan says they won’t be able to take the subway after eating this garlic! Taxis all the way from now on! Woohoo!

Farm stand garlic.

Fresh farm stand garlic!

Ethel and her garlic.

Ethel and her garlic

Filed Under: Dinner Tagged With: blueberries, cucumber, dill, Dorian's, fish market, French yogurt cake, guacamole, heirloom tomatoes, mascarpone cheese, nicoise olives, poached salmon, raspberries, rice salad, York Avenue

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