Cassava Cake (the recipe)

Once again I had the craving for sweet homey cassava cake last night. After dinner I  took out the four ingredients that's needed for  (my version) of cassava cake. Of course you can GOOGLE cassava cake and get all sorts of promisingly yummy cassava cake recipes. Those that have strips of jackfruit, strips of (mutant) coconut we call "macapuno",  butter, coconut milk,eggs, nata de coco....the works. My cassava cake is so simple you can make it with your eyes closed. I like my cassava cake simple and clean tasting. It has 5 ingredients. And the fifth one is optional

So while Zachary was busy being amused with the novelty of his new loft bed, I seized the moment to whip up the cassava batter, divided them in pans and  shoved them all in the oven. Soon after, Zachary was calling me to "spend time" with him. He suggested I grab my book  and the two of us will read up in his loft bed (whose instruction booklet actually says, Not for two people. I figured we are two slim  ahem! people so it should be okay)  That was a temptation I cannot pass up. It will be my chance to lay down my tired body, read my can't-put-it-down book about Jackie O,  play footsie while reading and lastly spend time with him.  About 45 minutes AFTER I shoved the cassava in the oven, the timer started beeping. We said his night prayers ( this is another story in itself!)  and I climbed down the loft bed with my bones literally creaking, and told Zach to go to sleep. I waddled to the kitchen sniffing the beautiful smell wafting in the house and took the pans out of the oven.
And for that craving that patiently waited, it deserved a good treatment and must be dealt with, pronto! don't you think? So I sliced me a dainty portion and made tea in my flowery teacup, all the time hoping Zach has gone to dreamland. I sat down and poised myself to start my nightcap, then...from the dark little room came a muchkin voice,
"Maaaaaa......what are you eating?"
I said....."Whadddddaaaaaa?!!!!!"

(this is an old picture of cassava cake I've made in one big pan)

Cassava Cake

Ingredients:
a small bag of ground cassava  (I'll have to put up a picture of this bag...soon :-)
a cup of sugar
1 can of evaporated milk
a tsp. of vanilla
Coconut Sport (macapuno)

Preheat oven to 375F or  180C. Mix all ingredients except coconut sport (macapuno). Divide between batter into two small round or square pans ( because I like my cassava cake thin and soft) OR  in one big pan.

Bake for 40 minutes.  Take out the pans at this point and put coconut sport (macapuno) on top of each  cake. Put the pans back in the oven for 5-10 more minutes. when the batter is all gelled up it's done.

Mikki's Visit

When a friend...a very, very good friend from my youth came for a visit. It was a most happy occasion. It was a time to catch up on everything that happened from the time we last saw each other. A time to know how much we've changed and how much we've stayed the same... to know what our new thoughts and ideas are, dreams and plans or simply what our opinions of things, even random things.


Sharing a simple but beautiful meal with a friend is precious. You look back down the road and reminisce the time you made special and you realize how fun and delightful it was. Things come to mind: the beautiful weather, the color of sunshine, the  leisurely dragging of  time on this lazy day, the small and long talks and  the sound and echoes of laughter.

Setting a cheerful table to complement our  happy mood. Lots of yellows and blues and reds and orange.
What a blessing to enjoy all these hues with our eyes that see.

There is nothing  better than a friend, unless it is a friend with chocolate. ---Linda Grayson

Life is an awful ugly place to not have a best friend. ---Sarah Dessen

What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.  ---Aristotle

"We'll be Friends Forever, won't we, Pooh?" asked Piglet.
"Even longer," Pooh answered.

Out  beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field.
I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
The world is too full to talk about.
    ---Rumi

The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, not the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when you discover someone else believes in you and is willing to  trust you with a friendship.  ---Ralph Waldo Emerson

No friendship is an accident. ---O. Henry

Milkweed Blossoms

Delicious boiled, buttered and salted.

Sumac and Blackberries

Foraging Sumac and  Blackberries on our way home from browsing the flea markets
in PA. The blackberries I made into syrup for cold summer drinks and the sumac I soaked in  water for the next day's drink.

Sunset Dinner Alfresco

Lounging. That's what we do best, especially in the summer when we are "rich with sunny hours and summer days." Reading, yapping, munching on nuts and berries, listening to music and taking catnaps.

The good thing about our lunch picnic was that we had leftovers which we easily augmented with some salad and boiled eggs accompanied by a bottle of rose' for dinner.

We brought our leftovers from lunch to the rooftop of the other building and set to enjoy dinner celebrating the sunset. (Mesclun salad with boiled eggs, cherries and daylily buds)

(of course the photographer is always the missing person in picture...:-)

The food, although beautiful, this time took the backstage and allowed the sun and the skies to take center stage. We ate and talked quietly enjoying each other's company as the sun lazily slid down the skies and sent out a burst of colors for us to be in awe of. From hereon starts the sky show and while you appreciate the burst of  colors I shall clip my pie-hole shut. Enjoy...

Smoked Salmon in Cream Cheese with Broccoli Sprouts on Toast

I'm really showcasing here my flea market find. A gorgeous  milkglass plate that cost me $3.

But after that, we can move our focus on the broccoli sprouts I grew in my kitchen. Crunchy, refreshing, delicious, and oh, did I mention  VERY nutritious?

And you know how smoked salmon and cream cheese taste like...... heaven...

Beautiful as this sandwich is, I truly can't open my mouth big enough to catch all the goodness....so....

I pull the toasts apart and attack the dish open-faced. 

Will you start sprouting now? Oh do....!!!

A Memorial to Zach's Funny-Craaaaazy Fish Named Scales

Zach named him Scales. His companion was Fins. He was a beautiful red-capped goldfish. He was also the craziest trickster fish we've ever had.  We did not have the heart to leave him at home while we went on road trips last summer, neither did we have the heart to bother our neighbor to take care of him, so we brought him with us. Then he passed away. He probably could not take the sloshing water when we encountered road bumps, anymore. Poor little Scales, we traveled  long ways, it was too much  for him. It was a sad day to find him  one morning floating sideways, all pale. And so we said our goodbyes and gave him the Royal Flush in the toilet at the dainty shabby chic hotel  where we stayed in  in Lake George.

Why crazy, you ask? Well, Scales liked to show off a trick he learned  not long after we got him. He actually liked to swim on his back, for long periods of time as though he was relaxing. He even played with Fins in the same swimming position. And when he realized I have my camera targeted at him, he would swim towards me and looked at the lens in the eye and  would strike a pose. He was adorable little fish and we miss him.
Scroll down and see for yourself.

He was such a laid-back fish literally and figuratively. He loved to swim on his back

around and around  the fishbowl.

He even liked to be watched swimming on his back.  I think he believed, he was not demonstrating a trick. He simply loved to swim on his back, period.

And so this fish always looked at the world upside-down. The day I brought home my flea market find which was the  dinner set of vintage  rose, he spent the  night  and the morning looking at the  lovely rose print upside down.

And he also knew that we  watched him a lot swimming upside -down.

He even played with Finns upside down. What an adorable  craaaaaaazy fish Scales was.

Have you ever seen such a fish---who liked to swim round and round his fishbowl on his back?

And when he realized that I was taking pictures of him, he would swim towards me, still on his back and stare at me in that upside-down manner.

And I' d talk to him about how  beautiful the day is...and  I'd yap about my plans for the day...and ask him  questions about why he liked to swim on his back...upside down...he would just stare at me as if questioning me, "How about you, why do you talk to a fish and asking questions like you're gonna get an answer?"