Recipe for a Date

1. Send Son to a friend's birthday sleepover where they plan to have a cookout, sing around the campfire, and sleep in tents.

2. Cook dinner using the amazing Sephardic-inspired or Mediterranean-inspired kosher cookbook, Levana's Table. We made Chicken with Dried Plums (cough, prunes) and Almonds--an utterly delicious "special" dish that was also very easy to make.  Serve with roasted Brussels sprouts.



3. Set table with beautiful thrifted quilt, which will be discussed in detail in a future post.



4. Light a candle in a hollowed out tree limb decorated by Son many years ago.



Fill a vase with the dessicated "flowers" trimmed from a pot of garlic chives.



5. Just as partner pulls into the driveway, turn on Etta James," one of the soundtracks of our seventeen-year romance.

6. Pour wine--preferably a deep luscious Zinfandel from a winery with a name like Folie a Deux--"a madness shared by two." (Doesn't that sound romantic? Unfortunately, it is actually a psychiatric syndrome in which the symptoms of psychosis are transmitted from one individual to another. I do my best.)

7. Talk leisurely, play no board games, don't remind anyone to practice their instruments,

8. Use beautiful pottery "pie-plate built for two" to make a half-sized rhubarb pie (with this excellent free recipe--which makes a full pie). For the pie crust, use the very much-loved and very earthy whole wheat pie crust in Laurel's Kitchen, my most used cookbook ever, full of healthy everyday possibilities for vegetarian meals. Save some pie for Son when he returns home.





9.  Go upstairs with candles...