Seasonal Sundays (Week 19)

Ideas in and out of the kitchen for standing strong during this sobering time when right or wrong, the country (and the rest of the world) begins to open up ...

~ Skip Straight to the Good Stuff ~

Welcome to Seasonal Sundays ...

And so the virus divides us again.

First, those with essential jobs and those with one job, to stay home. Those infected who survived and the undercounted 66,445 who did not. Those whose jobs disappeared and those zooming through the work day.

But now looms the (We're Not) Great (At All) Divide. Those who refuse masks and those who bend over sewing machines to produce masks. Those willing to give up the "old and the infirm" and those desperately fighting for the lives of all, the Littles, the Middles and the Olds. Those hellbent to prove that "It's all over! Let's go to the beach! I need a haircut!" and those who heed the worry in the words and experience of the healthcare, public health and infectious disease people.

When did this become about sides? left and right? blue and red? us and them? rich and poor? community well-being and individual rights? free-thinking debate and gun control? science and politics? false information protected by free speech and expertise silenced by false power?

"We're All In This Together" is increasingly – perhaps ever – a false platitude.

God help us.

Stay well. Stay safe. Stay strong.

About the Photo By Popular Request, a Little Insight into the Top Image

I call this image "Wondering". That's Luka the resident toy-chaser at the window where I read in the morning, gathering myself to greet the day. In This Moment, the window signifies the uncertainty of these next few weeks. What is out there, awaiting us? What IS out there, past the familiar fields and the old pear tree ...

For Luka, it's the nemesis chipmunks. For me it's the birds that feed at the new feeder my sweet husband built and fills each day. This week, the neighborhood turkey hen who comes to feed has been stalked by a huge tom in full strut, his tail feathers on display, gobbling for her attention.

Did you know that a turkey's head changes color from blue to red to white throughout the day? Blue = Excited. Red = Stressed. Calm = White.

What is your head color right now? And what is out there? Only time shall tell.

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PICK ONE

Pick One is for those of us overwhelmed by life's unending choices. If that resonates, then check out this one recipe and then call it a day. It's one that I think could make the most difference, the one I hope will become a regular in your kitchen, as it is in mine.

The easiest of all easy tacos, open-faced like a, well, open-faced sandwich. I especially appreciate how it's easy to make just one or two, using bits and bobs of leftovers. The beans themselves are fabulous ...

• RECIPE Oaxaca Tlayuda (Flat Tacos) Easy, healthy build-your-own crispy baked tortillas.

Compliments!

• "We didn't have to worry about the leftovers because we ate the whole thing!" ~ bookworks
• THE RECIPE Big Cajun Chopped Salad

Cook. Eat. Repeat.

Here's my appeal for mealtime minimalism, the idea that you don't have to think up a new breakfast or a new lunch every day. It's a way to think less about food rather than more. It's maintains that the ritual of healthy satisfying staples can fill you up in a way that the new and the novel cannot.

This is the go-to coleslaw around here for um ... maybe 15 years? A long time. It's got a certain Mexican-ish taste so would work for anyone planning Mexican-ish meals this week.

• THE RECIPE Alice Waters' Coleslaw

Back-Pocket Recipe

We all keep certain recipes in our virtual back pockets, right? We might not need them right this minute but recognize their usefulness in our recipe repertoires.

We're eating from the freezer (so beef and venison) but I know some people still have access to fish. This is a spring classic ...

• THE RECIPE Roasted Salmon & Asparagus

Something for the Slow Cooker

One of the verrrrry easiest things in my repertoire ...

• THE RECIPE Slow Cooker Shredded Beef Tacos So handy to have on hand!

Something for the Soup Pot

Serve it hot or cold, such gorgeous color.

• THE RECIPE Deep Mexico Carrot Soup with Tomatillo & Lime

Thoughts & Musings

SAVING GRACE The weeks are f-l-y-i-n-g by, zippppppping past. It's deep-clean kitchen day and then whoosh, it's deep-clean kitchen day again. One reason? My phone minutes are way-way-way up. Every day, I talk to my dad who's just a couple of miles away down the road in lockdown (still virus-free so far, the effort they go through is amazing). And every day, I make it a point to talk to someone whose voice I haven't heard for way too long. (Hello, LyndaBell!) Try it, if you're not already!

GATHERING HOUR The St. Louis spring is so lovely, we spend a lot of time in the back yard especially late in the day, right before dinner. Give me two glasses of wine and ooops, we'll do "dinner" tomorrow so I've switched to tall glasses of wine spritzers, some red, some ginger ale or even water.

THE BIRDS Our backyard birds are out in full force, thanks to my sweet husband. His birdhouses are busy with nest-building, including a pair of wrens in a little Finnish "mokki" house outside my office window. His car trunk is the "bird food storage" at the moment and he keeps the feeders stocked. He switched to a cardinal-friendly blend and whoah, the cardinals! I counted nine males at one point! Last night, a female cardinal spent a good half hour in a tree bough just above our heads, working with twigs and strings.. We wondered if she were building a nest or just settling in to roost for the night.

THE HUMMERS! My brother-in-law is the king of hummingbirds, dozens at a time. We started getting fly-bys about ten days ago now but so far, only see one at a time at the feeders.

GENIUS Whoever packs that some-assembly-required furniture into boxes is a total genius, so much condensed into such a small space. Too bad that the same attention isn't paid to the assembly instructions ... from a major company, the phone number is bad (12 digits instead of 10, really?) and even the website address. Wish me luck, two pieces to go.

GRATITUDE Three cheers for Stuckmeyers Farm Market & Greenhouse who yesterday went out of their way to fill a large plant order from two lists, neither one particularly well-organized, all with careful, thought-through social-distancing ... call us grateful. St. Louisans here, make the trip to Fenton. Good people, good product, GREAT service.

REQUIRED READING COVID ICU nurse, Julianne Nicole, a long some times gruesome read but worth it. One passage: "A lot of people have asked me what it’s like here. I truly don’t have adequate descriptors in my vocabulary, try as I might, so I’ll defer to the metaphor of fire. We are attempting to put out one fire, while three more are cropping up. Then we find out a week or two later that we unknowingly threw gasoline on one fire, because there’s still so much we don’t know about this virus. Then suddenly there’s no water to fight the fire with. We’re running around holding ice cubes in an effort to put out an inferno. Oh yeah, and the entire time you’ve been in this burning building, you barely have what you need to protect yourself."

HISTORY IN THE MOMENT Meet American historian and history professor Heather Cox Richardson and her nightly newsletter, Letters from an American. It's an exploration of the day's events in the light of history and how history may be written in the future. It's always illuminating in some unexpected way. My husband sailed through her new book, How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America (affiliate link) and it's now at the top of my non-fiction to-read stack.

THINGS I LEARNED DURING THE SHUTDOWN Two people go through 10 pounds of apples in a couple of weeks, that's just one apple a day each, no allotment, no rationing, just what we go through.

THINGS I WISH WERE OTHERWISE Trader Joe's curbside pickup. Easy access to yeast, eggs and ginger ale. But they're also sooo small and inconsequential, versus, you know, the shortages of PPE for healthcare workers on the front line and testing and tracing for the rest of us ...

AMPHIBIOUS AMUSEMENT For 10 minutes of hilarity, play this video from the St. Louis Zoo to identify nearby frog calls outside just before dark, then wait for those nearby frogs to respond!

THE SCENT OF SPRING The locust trees in bloom ...

Soups & Salads Especially for May

• THE COLLECTION Seasonal Soup & Salad Recipes for May, tons of ideas!

Just Updated!

• THE RECIPE Quick Brown Bread

Quick Navigation Tips

It's called "UX" for User Experience and it's something that writers like me give a ton of attention because we want our sites to be easy for visitors like you to click-click-click around in, finding exactly what you want.

Every so often, I'll share an inside tip about my sites' UX here. I hope these are obvious but just in case, here they are!

Is there something that would make Kitchen Parade and A Veggie Venture work better for you? Let me know!

• New! BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE Like the looks of a recipe? Keep scrolling for more ideas. Every month, I change what's shown in the right column (on the desktop) and below the recipe (on mobile). My recipes are so seasonal, what's good in May looks nothing like what's good in November.
• NUTRITION INFORMATION Other bloggers consider nutrition calculations a burden and outsource the calculations or use an app. Me? Nutrition calculations make me a better cook. I take great care to get these right.
• IMAGES Images are hyperlinked, even on email and RSS subscriptions. That means when you click on an image, either with a mouse or your finger on a phone, you'll click straight through to where you wanna be.
• "STICKY NAV" stands for sticky navigation. It means that wherever you are on my site, on whatever device, the main navigation bar at the top remains visible so you can always find your way back to the home page or to another Recipe Box page.
• "MORE" On our phones' small screens, that main navigation bar at the top is pretty small! But just click or touch the "More" button on the right side and you'll see a dropdown box with more navigation options. Cool, eh?
• LOVE VEGETABLES? You know I have two recipe sites, right? This is Kitchen Parade, the food column I've been writing since 2002 and before that, my mom, starting when I was a baby! But way back in 2005, when food blogs were juuuuust beginning to appear, I started writing A Veggie Venture. It was a total lark, I thought I'd just try a new vegetable recipe every day for a month. Somehow one month turned into an entire year and all these years later, I'm still fascinated by, even obsessed, with the limitless ways to cook vegetables. For you, it's easy to switch back 'n' forth between the two sites. Just check the main navigation bar, on mobile you'll need to check the "More" button to see the link. Cool, eh?

Text Me Back!

I'd love to hear from you. Comment, send me a quick e-mail via recipes@kitchen-parade.com, dot-dash in Morse code, build a fire for smoke signals, launch a message in a bottle, send a Christmas letter, get the dog to yip, toss me a note wrapped in a rubberband, write a message in the sky, scratch a note in the sand, listen to a seashell, whatever.

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Kitchen Parade is written by second-generation food columnist Alanna Kellogg and features fresh, seasonal dishes for every-day healthful eating and occasional indulgences. Quick Suppers are Kitchen Parade favorites and feature recipes easy on the budget, the clock, the waistline and the dishwasher. Do you have a favorite recipe that other Kitchen Parade readers might like? Just send me a quick e-mail via recipes@kitchen-parade.com. How to print a Kitchen Parade recipe. Never miss a recipe! If you like this recipe, sign up for a free e-mail subscription. If you like Kitchen Parade, you're sure to like my food blog about vegetable recipes, too, A Veggie Venture. If you make this recipe, I'd love to know your results! Just leave a comment below.

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2020