The garden is coming along. Every day I visit my seedlings, and imagine the bounty of green beans, beets, zucchini and tomatoes that will be produced in the future. I'm thinking a lot about food today. My niece is graduating from high school, and her party is Sunday. Hard to imagine 18 years have gone zipping by! I got an email message from her brother yesterday, with the subject line "amazing cooking skills requested," asking me to make a big pan of eggplant parmesan for the occasion. Now, with that kind of pitch, how could I say anything but yes? But I guess you know she must be pretty special for me to turn on my oven during a miserably hot day like today.

So I ventured out last evening and got all the needed ingredients - I don't usually have four large eggplants just laying around in the fridge, but I have yet to get the pot of sauce going. I'm also still deciding: fry or bake the cutlets? Fried is more delicious, much less healthy, and very messy. Baked is still pretty tasty, healthier, and will make the house temperature unbearable. Hmmm...

Thinking about either outcome, even in this heat, is making my mouth water. Eggplant parmesan is just about my favorite food. In my former life, I used to eat my lunch out every day, and I loved doing that. But when I have a full pantry from a recent trip to the market, I can whip up some pretty fine lunches right here. So today I made Barilla tortelloni, and greens & beans. Those tortelloni are so delicious - a recent discovery. I could do an advertisement for them, no problem. They come in several varieties, but my favorite is asparagus and ricotta. They are yummy, or my name isn't Giuliano!

I didn't have any white beans before I went to the market (I confess, I made the greens & beans yesterday, and just heated up a bowl today) so I used chick peas instead and it came out heavenly! For sauce, since the pot is still in the planning stages, I had to "make do." In the past I always refused anything but from scratch. My thinking is, if it comes from a jar, it must be crap! But another recent discovery, not for real cooking like the eggplant parm I promised Genny, but for quick meals like lunch while working, is sauce made by a nearby favorite restaurant, Villa Valenti. I felt good about trying it because I love eating there; you can almost imagine grandma cooking away in the kitchen. The supermarket just started to carry two varieties, primavera and traditional, and Rudy and Sophie give it two paws up.

Now, you'd think by all I just wrote that I live to eat, rather than eat to live...which isn't true. But treadmilling does make me very hungry!