Clear Tomato Soup

My grandmother used to make this recipe for Christmas dinner....used to cleanse palate between courses...But it is also good the Passover seder for those who are vegitarian and made with matzoh balls...

Clear Tomato Soup Recipe

2 lbs tomatoes, chopped

2 cups onion, chopped

2 cups carrots, chopped

2 cups celery, chopped

1 bay leaf

4 cups beef, chicken or vegetable broth

1/3 cups very dry sherry

1 dash salt and pepper

1/4 cup sugar

1 dash fennel

1 dash worchester sauce

3 cloves

Chop tomatoes and combine with vegetables and bay leaf. Add 1 cup of broth and cover and simmer gently of low heat for 20 minutes. Remove from heat and strain through sieve lined with dampened muslin. Do not press vegetables through cloth or soup will be cloudy..Transfer clear soup to sauce pan...Add 3 remaining cups broth and bring to a boil...Season to taste with salt and pepper. Add a pinch of sugar if needed. Add dry sherry for additional flavor.

Summertime

julie swennes butler's handiwork

quilts by Julie Swennes Butler

Julie's Prayer

Lord, Thou knowest better than I know myself that I am growing older, and will someday be old.

Keep me from getting talkative, and particularly from the fatal habit of thinking that I must say something on every subject, and on every occasion.

Release me from craving to straighten out everyones affairs.

Keep my mind free from the recital of endless details, give me wings to get to the point.

I ask for grace enough to listen to the tales of others pains. Help me endure them with patience.

But seal my lips on my own aches and pains; they are increasing and my love pof rehearsing them is becoming sweeter as the years go by.

Teach me the glorious lesson that occasionally it is possible that I may be mistaken.

Keep me reasonably sweet; I do not want to be a saint - some of them are hard to live with -- but a sour old man/woman is one of the crowning works of the devil.

Make me thoughtful, but not moody; helpful, but not bossy. With my vast store of wisdom, it seems a pity not to use it all- but Thou knowest, Lord, that I want a few friends in the end.

Margaret's trip to the beach

Manzanita Oregon Beach

I heard the sea breathe, inhaling and exhaling on the shore. The smell of seaweed and salt water and wood smoke permeated the air. Seagulls call calling along the shoreline picked at the beached fish and crabs. I scampered down the craggy boulders that make the seawall with my cousins, my sisters, and our dogs, and jumped onto the smooth dry sand. Along the beach lay driftwood, bleached of its life by the salt and sea and sun leaving skeletal dryness of may odd shapes and sizes. I picked through the driftwood until I found one that suited me, one with a gnarled wizards handle.

I dragged the driftwood along the firm wet sand, and wrote my name and "Peace on Earth" in large girlish letters to be seen by the air plane flying overhead and the man in the moon. I pressed my foot in the wet sand making a foot print to catch the sea water that whirls around my feet and bubbles and tingles around my toes. I watch until the foot prints and writing are no longer visible from the breathing waves.

The dog a cocker poodle mix, ran wildly down the shore giving chase to the seagulls, but never too close to its quarry of crab and star fish and the sea as it exhales and inhales. The dog jumped back as the ocean exhaled onto the shore running wildly in circles on the sand. The waves brought in the long green and yellow sea weed uprooted from the ocean depths. She curiously sniffed at the bulbous root end of the sea weed and bit into its hallow bitterness until it squirts salt water at her. Again, the dog jumps back and runs in circles. The dog then picked through the driftwood scattered along the sea wall and picked one bigger than herself, big enough to prove her might. She came toward me with her stick and then ran with it, dropped it and then stood over it protectively.

I waded along the shore to the tide pools stopped for star fish and sand dollars to take home. Sea anemones with their long tendrils thook in small unwary fish brought in by the tide. I giggled as the dog poked her nose into the anenome and felt its embrace. She yelped then barked and ran down the sand. Light and golden brown star fish clung to the rocks dining on mussels and the anenomes. Seagulls whirled overhead and dove into the tide pools to feast off the treasure there. The dog ran into the water and out of the water as if the ocean air breathed a life into her that invited unbounded energy. She continued to run up and down the shore as fast as the wind and the inhaling and exhaling sea could carry her.