Another Day in the Country
Celebrate every day
© Another Day in the Country
I was in the library choosing a clutch of books to carry back home and peruse.
Rarely do I read any of a book before checking it out. I should. I usually find that only one or two of the books I pick are really worthy of reading.
My grandson asked me the other day, “How do you choose the books you check out?”
I told him that sometimes it is the design of the book jacket or the color of the artwork that catches my eye.
Sometimes, it’s the title that is intriguing — a little like headlines in a newspaper, drawing you in and inviting you to read what is written.
This time, it was the title “Celebrate Every Day.” I didn’t expect it to be a recipe book, but it was! The author was talking about delicious, seasonal food, listing recipes under spring, summer, fall, and winter.
In the beginning was a recipe for key lime pie — the perfect spring treat.
I already had my limit of new books, so I didn’t take this book home with me, but I kept thinking about key lime pie, remembering when I first tasted it in Key West, Florida, some 20 years ago.
It was delicious. Jess and I ordered it in every restaurant we frequented, trying to find our favorite.
I bought a whole bag of key limes — succulent, little green gems, hard as marbles and even harder to squeeze three-quarters of a cup of juice out of.
The recipe I chose also called for yogurt, sweetened condensed milk, and a graham cracker crust.
Everything assembled, I heated the oven, squeezed the limes, mixed up the concoction, and poured it into the crust.
There was too much batter, so I poured the extra into a couple of small custard cups.
I set the lot on a cookie sheet and turned to put it in the oven when my lightweight aluminum foil pan, filled to the brim, slid off onto the floor, and the rest followed.
This project started with a need to celebrate every day, and I determined this wasn’t going to stop me.
I salvaged what batter I could, popped it into more cups, baked for a few minutes while I cleaned up the floor, chilled my mini pies, slathered them with whipped cream, and celebrated!
They didn’t look like the fluffy key lime pie I’d imagined, but they tasted pretty darn good.
Jess found a calendar that declares every single day a celebration of something or someone.
“Really?” I said, when she told me about it. “Every day? I think they just made some of these up.”
Nevertheless, we’ve been celebrating quite a variety of things like National Pet Day.
We’re pretty boring since we only have cats, but her friends and coworkers pitched in, sending pictures of their pets, which included quite a variety.
Come to think of it, we could have included chickens and ducks, but I don’t think of mine as pets.
The next day was National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day, which made me roll my eyes in disbelief, but I agreed to make grilled cheese sandwiches for supper since she was working.
With all the lovely weather we’ve been having, the ducks have been celebrating, too.
I’ve been letting them out to frolic in the pond.
The word “pond” is a euphemism when it comes to this little puddle of water in my back yard. It’s about as big as two or three Jacuzzi tubs side by side, but it’s ample for five ducks.
When I first let them out, the ducks were startled because the yard looked different from when they’d last been set free to dabble in the water. Tulips are blooming, providing bright red and orange bunches of color.
“What is that?’ the ducks wanted to know.
The iris were stretching up tall, and the hosta bubbling up out of the ground.
Meanwhile, the ducks did not go straight for the water. They circled warily around lawn chairs blown over by the wind and approached the pond from the shelter of the house rather than running straight across the spring grass.
“Come on, you guys,” I called to them. “This is a celebration. Get in the water.”
They stood in a huddle, discussing the matter with their necks stretched up high. I laughed at their hesitation and clapped my hands. Then, they jumped in.
While the ducks celebrated the thrill of water — diving under, flapping their wings, spraying each other — I went back in to retrieve another one of those little cups of key lime custard, slathered it with Redi-whip, picked up a spoon, and came out to sit in the lawn chair and celebrate — watching the ducks play on another day in the country.