Savor the Moments



Karen's Birthday Celebration



Karen REALLY enjoyed her cake! She gobbled down two slices before the boys finished their first and only slice.

Here is the post-cake sugar high. All four kids got the crazy wiggles at the same time. Moments like this make the exhaustion of four kids worth the journey.

Huntsmen Cheese, Meyer Lemon, and a Glass of Merlot!

At night, in the bed when my husband is at work and my ten-year-old is not working to sleep with me, I love to indulge in my own solitude. This is also the only time of day I'm able to enjoy, I mean savor every morsel of a treat instead of hiding behind the kitchen gate and gobbling down food before my kids see me and begin to beg. It doesn't matter what it is, they want a bite, especially the ten-year-old and the oldest twin, Elijah. Their taste buds are similar to mine. Just Tuesday night, Elijah who is two, was riding through the living room on his Plasmacar with a chunk of goat cheese in his hand.

I make a plate that includes cheese and fruit and carry it upstairs with a glass of wine. The cheese is Huntsmen, my new favorite. My daughter has appropriately named it moldy cheese. It is a combination of double gloucester, which is like sharper then sharp cheddar cheese, and blue stilton. All by itself, it's a pretty cheese to look at. I buy it in small chunks from higher-end grocery stores. It's delicious with a glass of merlot or pinot noir and perfect for small tastes and delicate sips. The bottle I'm enjoying now one sip at a time is 14 Hands 2009 Merlot. It's sweet when it first hits the taste buds, mildly bitter, and it does down smoothly.

The fruit I am currently savoring is a meyer lemon. Yes, a lemon! But this lemon is more like an orange-lemon. Wikipedia describes them as native to China (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meyer_lemon). I know them from the backyard tree at the home of my grandma (now deceased) on Rawson Street in Oakland, California. I became recently re-introduced to these delicious lemons when my mother brought five of them home from a trip to Atlanta. Panicked that my daughter or I would sneak to new lows coveting the last lemon, I Google searched "where can I buy meyer lemons in the Twin Cities" and found them widely available.

A meyer lemon smells like clean warm Northern California sunshine. It's essence also brings me back to my childhood spending many days in my grandma's kitchen on Oakland breezy days. The fragrant tree in her backyard would always intrude into her kitchen whether her windows were open or not. My grandma's kitchen is my fondest memory when it comes to almost all of my favorite foods. So many of the foods I absolutely savor and crave started of sliced, chopped, boiled, baked, or fried by her hands. It's a hugely gratifying treat enjoying memories of innocence biting into a meyer lemon.

Cheers to savoring moments of sheer happiness whether it's a birth, birthday, the sugar wiggle of kids, or a treat of cheese, fruit, and wine enjoyed in solitude.