Thoughtful Memorial Day, first strawberry, the Calgary marathon, food capers

 Yesterday strawberries were in at the farm

And I took the first bite of the year. I learned this pleasure, like a lot of other pleasures, from Handsome Partner. He loved strawberries, and made a ritual of the pure enjoyment of that first bite each year.

His birthday was in June, so I made him strawberry shortcake each year.  We remember him on his birthday rather than the day he died, since that was on Handsome Son's birthday in August.

This morning's breakfast was pita bread stuffed with fruit as it often is. Today it's strawberries. Everything in season.

And since recent storms flattened the flowers, including the sage blossoms, I brought them in as edible cut flowers.

They'll go in the freezer once they fade, for future cooking.

Speaking of which, there's a current exhibit of paintings from the 18th century Mughal era in India, where smells and touch and taste are all part of the experience. 

It's curated by a perfumer, currently involved in creating edible perfume,  and an art curator.

Here, in the last picture, the narcissus, symbolic of desire and the evocation of scent, is in action.

Those paintings are so much more life-filled than I realized, full of sensuous experience.

Crashing back to my kitchen, I used up most of the mushroom mixture I'd made for ravioli, and the roasted vegetables you saw a while back, only I filled the last of the frozen pasty dough with them, along with hot sausage.

And made artisan all looking big pasties.

Then, since the mixtures were now thawed, I needed to use the rest of them up. 

So here goes red and brown lentil and pasta soup, using the rest of the roasted vegetables and the mushroom mix, plus that tomato water I saved from earlier. I knew those pulse foods would come in handy. Sooner than I expected.

But, best for last, my honorary grandie ran the Calgary marathon yesterday, raising a ton of money for cancer research, and a personal best! She sent me a Garmin link to follow her progress in real time

The link came complete with stats including heart rate, and like a true grandma, I checked that hers was raised but not too high!

A big yell of excitement here when she achieved her goal, well, a couple of goals. In recent years she's run marathons and shorter races, getting huge fun out of what seems to me like the impossible! 

Celebrate life with us, while remembering today the people who died in war and who enable us to celebrate life.

Thoughtful and grateful day, along with grieving. The shakuhachi effect.