Daily Dinner Table
Ideas for dinner tonight. Household and kitchen tips, recipes, tweaks. What's worked great, and not so great.
It’s my Mother’s Birthday!
I know this blog is titled Daily Dinner Table, but I’ve been so busy with other stuff lately and this weighing heavily on my mind. My mom’s birthday is tomorrow, August 19. The only problem is, she passed away 24 years ago. You’d think I’d be over it by now, and most of the time I’m really alright with it. I’ve accepted the fact that we lost her when we all were fairly young. My mom was quite a remarkable lady. She could pretty much do everything she wanted to. She is where I got my love of cooking and experimenting with food, and experimenting with all that interests me. She was an unbelievable cook. She never had any training aside from her own curiosity and talented taste-buds, yet came up with spectacular dishes and entertained like nobody’s business. She opened a little restaurant with a friend that had superb food and was quite popular. The only problem was neither one of them had any business sense and it’s hard to make a go of a restaurant when you purchase the food from an expensive grocery store every day. The food was very high quality and delicious, but she didn’t charge enough for it, and there ya go. She was a very kind and fair woman. She supported those who nobody else would support. She loved people as long as they were nice. It didn’t matter if you were black, red, white, blue, or spotted. Gay, Sad, Morose, Mad or Happy. If you were a nice person with good intentions, you were good in her book and she gave you a fair shot. She understood all viewpoints, even though she may not agree, she still was respectful and understood other viewpoints were just as valid as hers. I’d like to think I inherited that trait from her. She was trusting, fair, and loved you unless you gave her a reason not to. But, she also had good instincts. She wasn’t a pushover, but she didn’t push unless necessary.
There’s nothing she enjoyed more than going to the beach during a thunderstorm or hurricane. It was really the only time she’d EVER go to the beach. She loved the boardwalk at night. We lived in a beautiful little oceanfront town in New Jersey named Spring Lake. It’s a story book utopian town that I didn’t truly appreciate until it was too late. Now it’s too expensive! (WAY too expensive! I just saw our old house is for sale and has been reduced to something like 7.5 million! Jeez! )
Our old house, Swanhurst, in Spring Lake N.J.
Oh my.
Anyway, there’s a thunderstorm brewing here in Florida, and it made me think of her. Every time there is a thunderstorm, I think of my mother. My mom has not had the opportunity to see any of my homes except for the first one my husband and I build in Arizona. She briefly met our children, but didn’t live long enough to know them. She’d love her only grandchildren, They were just 3 and 5 years old when she died. She didn’t get to know that they are remarkably smart and would LOVE to discuss and debate with her. She didn’t get to know that they are interesting and interested in affairs of the world and humankind. That they are so much fun, they have a terrific sense of humor, they are loving, caring, kind. She didn’t get to know that THEY love to cook and are really good at it, that they graduated college, grad school, and law school with honors (Ivy league too!)
David Graduating law school
She didn’t get to attend the wedding
Xander and Tana wedding
or meet our magnificent daughter in law Tana, who would also give her a great forum for discussion. (Ala Joan Azrack, (now a New York Supreme Court Judge.. they’d sit on the porch for hours upon hours discussing….. everything!)She didn’t get to know Maddie’s sweet husband Tony, and how we found our sister Eileen and are now all so close.
Tony, Tom, Maddie, Jim
Tom,Eileen, Jim and me
She didn’t get to come with me to the Doctor Oz show,
Doctor Oz and me
She didn’t get to know how I decorated the houses we’ve lived in, (she always wanted to change the furniture around) the friends I have, that I play tennis,
my tennis team
that I do “art”,
one of my drawings
she’d love our dogs,
Bam Bam and Daisy
the parties I threw, the traveling I’ve had the opportunity to do that she always wanted to but couldn’t. I hope she knows I’ve spread her ashes around the world in all of the places she dreamed of going.
Paris!
She’d love to know that I became a cosmetologist.
our beautiful daughter in law, Tana. My cosmetology talents at work
(She had a beauty shop with Tova Borgnine
Tova… way back when
way back when) she’d love to visit us here in Florida, our home would be her ideal. It’s for sale now and at times I have mixed feelings about selling, I must say. I LOVE our home.
our home
It’s pretty much my ideal too,
our backyard
but we’re ready for a change. Guess it’s the military/nomads in us. Can’t stay in one place for too long! Always up for a new adventure. I miss my mom. I’m now interested in and am learning to practice Reiki, a healing art. Right up her alley! She was a fortune teller, palm and card reader, a fabulous cook, a voracious reader, party planner extroidernaire, a friend, a person I would like to emulate. I hope I have made her proud, I know she has made me so. I miss her so much. I know my brother and sister do too. There is so much more to write, but there’s not enough room or time. It’s all in my heart. We love and miss you so much Mom.
Mom
Happy Birthday.
Love always,
RayMatBarb
Daily Dinner Table 
Happy I found this, late as I did. Happy belated Birthday, and Merry Christmas, too.
Wow Barbie, You really said it well. You are everything and more that Mom wanted you to be , she is very proud of you as we all are. I am trying to type over my tears and not doing a very good job of it.I sure miss her too, every day.
I LOVE your Daily Dinner Table, it’s beautiful, delicious and extremely well done and just what Mommy would be doing if she were alive today.In fact Carrie likes it so much, she has started a little blog too , Totally Carried Away. I have a very cool little Sister. I love you more than you know. xxxxxxxxx