Food For All

For our family, it's all about the food.

Mom the Retired Caterer (she'll be inducted into that Hall of Fame once the one-year time statute elapses) treated us to a typically stellar dinner Saturday. We enjoyed gourmet burgers with a garlic green chile relish that was oustanding, as well as a barbecued chicken my sister Anne blogged about recently. We also slammed black beans and a tasty apple cole slaw I can't describe well enough to give justice.

Yesterday at sister Anne's, we assembled around noon with my Dad and stepmother Peggy to honor the dads. Anne's hubby Stephen had put together a slide show album of family photos that played on the TV to music my Dad enjoys. Nice touch.

The food, pictured above, was excellent. Anne's fantastic fresh dill potato salad essentially made yesterday's jog at Radnor Lake "heavy." Just couldn't help myself. The fresh mozzarella, tomato and basil with EVO also was great, as was the pork tenderloin sandwiches with honey mustard glaze. Dori made a wickedly good fruit salad that went along well with a shrimp salad on bibb lettuce. Peggy's fruit tea and desserts, brownies and key lime pie, rounded out the classic fare.

Dori, not to be outdone, made my favorite Asian tenderloin for dinner (I went easy on the sandwiches at lunch knowing a pork tenderloin was thawing in our fridge). Her crunchy black bean and corn salad with cucumbers and cilantro was her best I've ever had. We ate leftover fruit salad (no complaints whatsoever) and a little ice cream for dessert.

When I met Dori, she wasn't what you'd call comfortable in a kitchen. She never ruined a frozen dinner, but she wasn't at ease over a stove. Then she goes and marries a young man who's been enjoying gourmet food by two chicks who can flat out cook. Fast forward from the early 90s, and the girl I love can serve up serious meals. Tonight's simple red beans and rice, something all of us enjoy, is another good example of how the healthy Browns like to eat. She takes pride in cooking for us, and I'm grateful for it. Sorry McDonald's, you're going to have to pick on another American family.

So I have, compliments of Dori for Father's Day, a new Garmin 305 GPS watch with a heart rate monitor. We're talking "toy for grown-ups." I'm still learning how to use it, but I tested it yesterday on a 3 p.m. run, belly still swimming with dill and potatoes. I downloaded the results (Garmin, not my belly's), and learned my heart rate maxed at 174 bpm as I ran the last mile at an 8:00/mile pace. The Garmin doesn't work great under the Radnor trees, but well enough to give you essentially whatever information you request. I'm expecting it will be more accurate on other runs I enjoy.

I rested today. Yesterday's run was just under 3.5 miles. Tomorrow morning is a six-miler before we get a wonderful cold front later in the day. This week's weather looks phenomenal for June. Can we fast forward to late September soon?