Have you joined the fans clamoring for skirt steak? It’s relatively inexpensive, as steak goes, but it does require careful grilling and it needs to be sliced thin as it’s a more-chewy cut of meat.

My favorite steak is ribeye. That’s no secret if you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time. I haven’t had a steak for awhile – once in a blue moon I do make one for myself – and it’s very satisfying, I must admit. When my DH was alive, we’d have a steak every 2-4 weeks, for sure. Dave love-loved them. And he had perfected the cooking of them on the outdoor grill. My poor barbecue doesn’t get much of a workout with just me these days. We’ve had a really hot and muggy summer here in SoCal. Hotter earlier than usual, and more muggy than usual. So I don’t tend to go outdoors in the early evening as it’s just too uncomfortable. So this recipe would fit perfectly into that routine since it can be done on an indoor grill.

This skirt steak (also called flap meat in some grocery stores – it’s a boneless portion of the diaphragm muscle attached to the 6th through 12th ribs on the underside of the short plate) does need to be marinated for at least 8 hours, or overnight if you can make the time to do it. That helps tenderize the rather chewy cut of meat. And in case you’ve never done a skirt steak, when you buy it, it’s a big, long piece of meat, relatively thin and very grainy when you look at it. Do cut it up into manageable pieces before marinating and then grilling them.

This marinade is heavy in the oil component. It needs it here, although when you’re done, that marinade gets thrown out anyway. Combine the ingredients in a plastic Ziploc bag, and turn the meat a few times to coat everything well. Then seal it up and stick it in the frig until later.

Make the garlic yogurt sauce – it’s easy to do – Phillis Carey (this came from a class with her) prefers regular yogurt, not Greek, but I think I’d use Greek. She said you could, it’s just that the sauce will be much thicker. Do make it several hours ahead too, so the garlic and lemon juice will mix and flavor all the yogurt. Chill it until you’re ready to serve it – can be made the day before if you want.

Now, the grilling. I was so impressed – Phillis discovered that you can save all the cleanup of an indoor grill by covering the top with foil – you just lay the foil on top – don’t press it in/on it. Spray or brush the foil with some of the oil from the marinade – try to get just the oil, not the lemon juice part. Or, barring that, just spray with olive oil spray. Pick up the meat pieces with tongs and just let them drain for 5-10 seconds (over the open bag) then place on the pre-heated grill. You’ll be so surprised – the meat gets grill marks just as if it’s right on the pan itself. This meat, however, only wants to be grilled for 3-5 minutes per side. The meat shrinks up something fierce – you might think that 2-3 pounds of skirt steak would feed 10 people, but NO, it shrinks a lot. In case you don’t know, skirt steak is quite fatty – you can’t SEE the fat very much – but enter the meat into any nutrition info and you’ll find that it’s very fatty. Sad to say . . . but it’s full of flavor. More flavor than regular steaks, it’s true.

Let the meat sit, tented with foil, for about 5 minutes once you’ve taken it off the grill then use tongs and a sharp knife and cut it across the grain into thin slices. Pile it onto a heated platter and serve with some of the garlic yogurt sauce drizzled over it, and serve the remaining in a bowl to pass at the table. Or, as I suggested a few days ago, serve this steak with the BLT Salad with Grilled Corn and Buttermilk Parm Dressing.

What’s GOOD: the flavor, first of all. Easy to do, easy marinade, easy grilling – just watch it carefully and don’t overcook it – served medium-rare at most (cooking it further may make the meat more tough).

What’s NOT: really nothing except watching the grilling carefully.

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There’s still time, this summer, to make this really refreshing and satisfying salad. Grill the corn, fry up some bacon, plus a few croutons while you’re at it, and add usual ingredients.

You will need buttermilk, to make the dressing for this salad. Frozen and defrosted buttermilk doesn’t hold together, so you do have to buy some buttermilk. The dressing is easy – shallot, cider vinegar, mayo, Parm, salt, pepper and a tiny sprinkle of sugar. Plus the buttermilk. The mayo gives it plenty of richness and thickness as well as there is only 1/2 cup of buttermilk in the dressing. It won’t keep for too long, so better to use it and then make it again fresh. OR, Phillis said if you wanted to make it further ahead, don’t add the shallots until an hour or so before serving.

This came from a cooking class with Phillis Carey. My friend Cherrie and I love going to classes with Phillis – she makes the kind of food we both really like. Only trouble is we have to drive to San Diego to attend. We leave at about 4 from Cherrie’s house and get there about 5:30 for a 6:00 class. Then, of course, drive back north, drop off Cherrie and I can get home by about 9:30 pm. Cherrie is suffering from two “frozen shoulders,” so she really doesn’t drive except close to home as it’s painful and she doesn’t feel as safe on the open road or freeway, so I’ve been doing the driving for awhile.

Anyway, you’ll see at least 4 recipes from the last class (this one, watermelon sangria, a shrimp and cheese toast kind of appetizer, a skirt steak one too). I think the skirt steak recipe would be a great addition to this salad and it would be a complete meal with just the two items.

Phillis made home made croutons, but you could buy ready-made ones if you don’t want to bother. The dressing should be made a few hours ahead so the flavors will meld. The corn could be grilled earlier in the day – you don’t want to serve it hot on the salad as it would wild the greens. Phillis grilled the corn on an indoor grill, and she put foil on the grill pan, greased it and the corn browned beautifully through the foil. Such easy cleanup.

Ideally, if you’re making this for a big platter presentation (it’s really beautiful), you’ll spread the Romaine lettuce you’ve chopped up, then the tomatoes, the corn, and the bacon last. You drizzle part of the dressing on top and serve the remaining dressing on the side.

What’s GOOD: such a lovely summer salad. I succumbed to the corn and ate some (not on my diet, but I enjoyed the few kernels that jumped onto my fork!), and all of it has a lovely full-flavored taste. I could have eaten an entire meal of this salad, it was so good. And as I mentioned, the skirt steak recipe coming up in a few days would be especially good with this.

What’s NOT: A bit more prep since you do need to make the dressing, grill the corn and crisp up some bacon. But oh-so worth it.

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(A post from Sara) These very tasty muffins are great to stuff in my son’s lunches or for snacks. Full of flavor and warm fall spices.

My 18-year old H.S. senior son plays football. And he eats a LOT. When my husband and I recently went on Weight Watcher’s, my son lost weight he didn’t need to. Although he says he’s fine at his new, lower weight, he needs tons of calories (and carbs) during football season. That’s like NOW. So, even though I’m not baking much these days, I still need to make things for John.

My mom, Carolyn, was visiting over the weekend, so we made these muffins. ‘Tis the season for pumpkin, and I knew John would like the combination of pumpkin and cream cheese. The recipe is supposed to be a copycat of Starbuck’s version. I found it at Genius Kitchen, but as my mom and I read all the comments (many) we decided to change the recipe some. And after we had made half of them we decided to change it a little bit more.

There was cocoa in the recipe, and although we used it, we both decided it didn’t add anything. You couldn’t taste chocolate, so why bother, right? We were glad we didn’t add molasses, but we did up the spices a lot. It called for 1 1/4 cups of oil – we decided to use 3/4 cup of buttermilk and 1/2 cup of oil instead (suggested in one of the comments). These were still very moist and tender. And the biggest tweak we did was, for each muffin cup, to pour 2/3 of the batter in first (instead of half which was the instruction in the original recipe), then spoon the cream cheese filling (a brick of cream cheese, an egg, some sugar and vanilla) across the middle, then we spooned the remaining batter on top, but left some of the cream cheese portion visible. We thought it made these much more interesting to look at.

So, there was a little bit of quality control going on that day – my mom had a couple of bites – and I ate a little bit too. Even though a muffin isn’t on either of our diets. But we needed to tell you these were good, right? And they were. I’d definitely make these again (when I’m off a low carb diet!). All the muffins are safely stored in my freezer to be pulled out as needed.

What’s GOOD: the warm fall spices were the best part, I think. And the look of the top – the cream cheese peeking through. Loved the pumpkin flavor, of course. We thought next time we might use more nuts on top – we were very stingy with them. Be generous.

What’s NOT: only that you do have to make 2 batters, but really, the cream cheese one isn’t difficult in the least. My muffin tin is a bit on the small side, so we got more muffins from this recipe than it indicated. If you have larger muffin tins, of course, you’ll yield fewer. Just so you know . . .

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Is it halibut season? Found some at Costco and couldn’t resist!

Rarely these days do I have halibut – it’s so gosh-darned expensive. But I found a lovely 3-serving size slab of it at Costco for just under $20. I searched through my to-try recipes and didn’t really find anything that wowed me, so I went on the ‘net and found a recipe at epicurious that wasn’t difficult and contained plenty of lemons. I have fresh rosemary in my garden, and I’d just happened to have bought a small jar of Aleppo pepper at Penzey’s last week, so I was in business.

I made this in my toaster oven, believe it or not, and it turned out just fine. I lined a small rimmed baking sheet with foil, sprayed it with nonstick oil, blotted dry the piece of halibut and placed it on top. The top of the fish was oiled with EVOO (not much), then was sprinkled with salt and Aleppo pepper. You can see it on the front edges of the lemon slices in the picture above – Aleppo is quite bright red – and it’s not particularly spicy hot, so I was generous with the sprinkling of it.

My Meyer lemon tree is on its last few lemons of the season, and some of them still have juice in them, but the flesh has shrunk away from the outer peel – so interesting – have never seen this before – but probably owing to our extreme heat this summer. The lemon slices worked better by cutting each round in half and kind of layering them on top. I also sprinkled a little bit of chopped fresh rosemary on top of the fish before layering the lemon slices.

Into a 450°F oven it went. The recipe indicated 10 minutes, but this wasn’t cooked through to 120°F interior temp until about 13-14 minutes and I whisked it out in a hurry so it wouldn’t overcook. I drizzled the top with additional lemon juice and served a wedge on the plate as well. I removed the lemon slices, but if serving to guests, I’d leave the lemons on top just because it looks prettier. The lemon really didn’t “cook” as such and doubt you’d want to eat them. The recipe indicates broiling the fish at the last for 1-2 minutes until the lemons are charred. I didn’t do that step because I didn’t want the halibut to cook too much. To serve, I chopped up more fresh rosemary and sprinkled that on top too along with a dash more salt. The leftovers are going to be flaked into a large green salad. Doesn’t that sound good?

What’s GOOD: halibut has such a lovely tender flake to it – don’t overcook it, so use your instant read thermometer and remove it at 120°F as it will continue to cook for another 3-4 minutes. I loved the intense lemony flavor and liked the rosemary too. And I liked the little bit of heat from the Aleppo peppers. Was this off the charts? No, but it was really good and very, very easy!

What’s NOT: nothing, really. It was easy to do. Tasty, so no negatives.

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Have you ever prepared Jerusalem artichokes? I had not, but decided to give them a try. They’re really good!

Truly, the only reason I decided to try these little knobby guys was because Jerusalem artichokes (also called sunroot, sunchoke, earth apple, or topinambour), are a starch, not quite a true carbohydrate. And not that I understand the metabolic chemistry behind this, but this starch turns into inulin (no, that’s not misspelled) instead of sugar (as would a potato). Here’s what Wikipedia says about it:

Inulins are a group of naturally occurring polysaccharides produced by many types of plants, industrially most often extracted from chicory. The inulins belong to a class of dietary fibers known as fructans. Inulin is used by some plants as a means of storing energy and is typically found in roots or rhizomes.

Jerusalem artichokes are a tuber, closely related to the sunflower plant. Imagine that? And what I’d read was that prepared certain ways they can give you the illusion of a potato. I kind of miss having a potato now and then. So I bought a one-pound package of them, peeled them with my Meissermeister peeler, then cut the larger ones in half. I poured a little bit of avocado oil on top, tossed them around a bit on the baking sheet to coat them, sprinkled them with salt and pepper and roasted them in a 425°F oven for 33 minutes. Larger ones would take a tiny bit longer.

I’m still following the diet I’ve mentioned here and there, the Stephen Gundry, M.D. one which restricts all carbs. And trust me, if this diet wasn’t working, I wouldn’t be doing it at all. The enemy is lectins, a bad bug that we ingest in foods – a bug that then wreaks havoc in our intestines. I’ve never had intestinal issues, but after reading The Plant Paradox, I’m a convert. So – — Jerusalem artichokes don’t contain any lectins, hence they’re a safe food. And they’re not a true carb, either, so they mostly slip through your system.

So how were they? I thought they were delicious. I read a recipe for making baked Jerusalem artichoke chips, so I may try that recipe soon also. Because I’d never bought them before, or prepped them before, or ever eaten them before, I wanted to taste them without a lot of seasonings, hence just salt and pepper. The texture is not fluffy like a potato, but yet it has some toothsome feel to it – somebody else compared it to the texture of a cooked turnip. I’m not a turnip fan, so that wasn’t appealing to me, but perhaps the texture description is true. Coming straight off the baking sheet the outside edges were semi-crispy, which I liked. The leftovers weren’t crispy since they sat in the refrigerator container for a day or two and got soft, so next time I might stick them in my toaster oven for 10 minutes to crisp them up a little. I was also having asparagus, so during the 33 minute roasting time, I plopped the narrow asparagus on top (also coated with a bit of avocado oil) for about 9 minutes and they were perfectly done at the 33 minute mark. I’d made salmon, so had the Jerusalem artichokes alongside, and with the asparagus. Very satisfying.

If  you’re interested, I’m losing about a pound every week. Some weeks it’s more than that. And I’m not hungry. That’s the 2nd best part – the first being that I’m losing weight consistently, albeit not every day, but almost. I have a scales that measures half pounds, and it’s SO fun to stand there and see, every 2-3 days that I’m down another half pound. Yea!

This diet isn’t for everybody. There are a lot of tasty foods out there that I can’t eat – I haven’t had a piece of bread, rice, a potato, or pasta, corn or peas, any bean, a speck of sugar or flour/grains at all in several months. Do I miss them? Yes. But the motivation is there to stick to this diet because it’s working. I miss having dessert (except fruit [berries mostly], which I can have, but a very small amount I might add). I miss baking. But once I lose the weight I need to, there are some things I can add back in (beans that are pressure cooked, since that removes the lectins) maybe oatmeal on occasion (I wasn’t much of an oatmeal fan to begin with so I don’t miss that). And baking without grains, which will be a bit more challenging. If you’re asking, what does she eat, then? Protein and vegetables mostly. And salads by the bucket load. Nearly every day I have for lunch or dinner a big veggie-centric salad with protein on it. BTW, Gundry recommends stevia as a sweetener (I like Truvia and also Sweet Leaf) and I also use a lemon flavored monkfruit sweetener too. I don’t use much sweetener – sometimes a speck in a salad dressing, or iced tea or iced coffee. Honey is a safe sweetener, but not during the lose-weight phase of this diet.

What’s GOOD: I thought these were really, really good. Do they compare comparably with a potato? No exactly. But it’s not too far off the mark. The texture is a bit different (soft in the cooked form). Does it taste like an artichoke? No, not at all. I suppose you could say the texture is similar to an artichoke heart, but not in taste. Anyway, I liked them, and definitely will be trying them again.

What’s NOT: only that the little knobby tubers are bit of a nuisance to peel. You can prepare them unpeeled, however. I chose not to.

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Isn’t that the cutest thing?

As I mention frequently, soup is a common theme here at my house. I eat soup year ‘round. Recently my best bud, Cherrie gave me one of these things. She’d won it a a Bunko night and didn’t think she’d use it. I loved it so much I ordered the larger size too.

They’re on etsy.com – here’s the link to Mary Egan’s website called “Just 2 Dang Cute”:

https://www.etsy.com/shop/just2dangcute

In the event you want the larger ones, here’s a picture of both sizes:

May I make a suggestion – these would make a great gift – for a birthday, or a housewarming gift, or a Christmas gift (maybe buy 2 matching ones). Or a Bunko prize! I heat soup with the cozy in the microwave and then I take the whole thing to the table and leave it on. You can pull the soup bowl out and off, but it’s just as easy to leave it. Mary makes them with all kinds of sports teams fabric, and plenty of collectible kind of designs. She makes other things too – obviously she’s an accomplished seamstress! I think these bowl cozies are just the most adorable thing! I use mine several times a week.

Mary has kindly emailed me saying that if you order anything from her during August, 2018, and write in BLOG ON THE COZY she will refund the shipping. SUCH A DEAL! Thanks, Mary.

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Do read this post, my friends – this salad is fabulous. Wish I had some in my refrigerator right now! Alas, this was gone the day after I made it.

It was nearly 2 months ago now that I was entertaining my SoCal kids, spouses and grandkids, in preparation for the trip to Europe we were planning for the last 2 weeks of July. It was our last hurrah-meeting before flying off. There were packing decisions to make (dress up clothing for going out to dinner or not [NOT]), suitcase sizes (small, but going in checked bags); use of wi-fi and settings to adjust on our cell phones; downloading the Google Trips app (I entered all the info mostly, shared it with everyone going, then they could access it all) and if you download the trip to your phone,  you don’t have to use wi-fi to access all the info (places to visit, hours of opening, hotel/airbnb locations where we were staying, car rental data, restaurant reservations, flight times LA to London, London to Florence, Florence to Paris, Paris home, etc.).

Anyway, one family brought dessert (fresh berries and whipped cream) and the other family brought a green salad. I had pork chops to grill (recipe up soon) and it was served with a cauliflower slaw to go with it. The recipe came from Suzanne Goin, the famous chef from Lucques restaurant in L.A. I am guessing this recipe came from the Los Angeles Times, but truly I don’t remember.

But, I’m telling you true, this recipe is a real winner. I sent most of the leftovers home with daughter Sara and kept but one small portion. I was sorry I didn’t have more, it was SOOO good.

First off, you need to cut and slice into tiny pieces an entire head of cauliflower. This took awhile. No chunks at all, but I pried off little florets and cut them in half or quarters, then sliced those, so no bite was very big. It also had a couple of heads of Belgian endive (chopped) in it, a hunk of fresh jalapeno chile (minced), some pecans and shredded coconut (very little). I didn’t strictly follow the recipe as I chose not to use coconut oil (I used avocado), I used less Belgian endive than called for, and I didn’t have any unsweetened coconut, so I used a lot less sweetened. Red onion is called for, and I soaked it in acidulated water for about 15 minutes before draining and adding that. The soaking takes away a bit of the sharp bite of raw onion. Goin called for cashews (I used pecans). And because I wanted to add a tetch of sweetness to it, I added about 6-8 dates, finely (every so finely) minced. You never tasted dates, but they added to the sweetness of the salad. And I wanted to add some green, so used some baby arugula. And there was cilantro in it too. The dressing included oil, vinegar, garlic, orange and lime zests plus some fresh OJ (and salt and pepper of course). The arugula and cilantro were tossed in at the last minute – otherwise the salad was ready about an hour before we ate. If you’re not a fan of cilantro, the salad will be just fine without it. If you want more pronounced date flavors, chop them rather than mincing. This salad is very flexible.

What’s GOOD: the overall flavor is marvelous. I can’t tell you if it was the orange juice? the dates? the pecans? or the coconut? that made it so good. Probably some of all of those things. This is a keeper, and one I’ll make again even for myself, it was that good.

What’s NOT: only the cutting up of the cauliflower. That was a bit tedious. The rest of it was easy, though.

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Can we ever have enough recipes for a weeknight chicken dish? Here’s another one, a new one for me, bright with leeks, lime juice and garlic.

As I clicked through recipe after recipe for some new way to fix chicken, I finally came across this one – I had chicken thighs to begin with, I had fresh garlic and I had a lime. Plus a leek, which needed using. As I read this one, it said I’d entered it into my recipe program years ago (in 2001), from Cooking Light. Wow, long time ago. The original recipe didn’t have leeks in it, but I decided to use them anyway, and they provided a nice topping (and a side dish as you can see on the plate). I had 2 leeks – one would have been ample.

The chicken is mixed with lime juice and garlic. I let that sit while I sweated the leek in olive oil. Then I added the chicken thighs to the pan along with more lime juice, a little tiny bit of low-sodium chicken broth and white vinegar. That was brought up to a boil and baked for about 20 minutes – or until the middle of the chicken reaches 165°F. If you use bone-in meat, it’ll take a bit longer, just so you know . . .

The chicken and leeks were removed, then I boiled down the juices in the pan (on the stovetop), and that was spooned over the chicken. If you remember, serve with lime wedges and some chopped cilantro on top. Done. I’d roasted some broccoli and onions and served that alongside. One thigh was enough for me, but my son-in-law who was visiting, ate two of them.

What’s GOOD: the chicken was perfectly done – still moist, yet tender. Loved the sauce on it – you’ll want to scrape your bite of chicken through whatever is lingering on your plate. Leeks were tender and delicious too. Altogether nice dish, albeit with a bit more work than some.

What’s NOT: nothing, really.

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This trip my family took was 16 days – 3 nights in London, 4 nights in Florence, 4 nights in Paris, 3 nights in Normandy and the last night at an airport hotel. Our Airbnb adventure began in Florence, at an apartment just 30 steps from the Piazza Santa Croce. In hunting for a place, I knew about what area I wanted us to stay, and it was difficult, 10 months before the trip, to even find anything available to sleep 8 of us. As I mentioned earlier, however, the only reason (I believe) this apartment was available was because it was up 4 flights of stone steps without an elevator. We all got used to the climb (my grandson John carried my luggage up and down for me – bless him!). With my workout routine (cardio) I was able to walk up the full 4 flights without stopping – the first time each day – but each subsequent climb I’d usually have to pause at the 3rd floor for about 3 breaths, then continued on up. 

The apartment was wonderful – and the best part – it was air conditioned. Florence was HOT. Hot in temps and high in humidity. We all complained of the heat, but then, we asked for it by traveling to Europe in July. It got worse after we left (in fact, Europe has been experiencing a heat wave since we came home). 

I’ve been to Florence multiple times – and my choice always is to be out in the hills, the small towns, the countryside – but this was the first time there for some of them and there are so many things to see in Florence, so we needed to be in the hub of things. The closest grocery store was about 3/4 mile away, and Karen, Sara and I made the trek the first afternoon to stock up. We ate all our breakfasts at the apartment, drinking copious cups of coffee and filling ourselves with wonderful fruit, bread and cheeses. Plus some lovely salumi as well. You know, in Italy, the custom is bread without any salt – salt was an expensive commodity somewhere back in the dark ages, and the Italians simply got used to bread without it. We were able to buy baguettes too (also without salt) so we enjoyed those every day. The cheeses and salamis were my favorite.

My family all had varying goals in mind – the Uffizi museum, the statue of David (by Michelangelo), the Galileo museum (a highlight for 10-year old Vaughan because of it’s interactive gadgets showcasing Galileo’s infinite scientific inventions), Fiesole (a hill town nearby the city), the Duomo, of course, gelato and more gelato. And pasta. I think the 3 children had pasta every day in one way or another. One of my goals was to eat at Il Latini, my favorite Florence restaurant. Karen’s uncle, who speaks a bit of Italian, was able to make a reservation for us weeks ahead (it’s a very popular restaurant) and we were whisked right in when the doors opened at 7:30. Another goal of mine was to visit Michelangelo’s tomb which is housed in the Santa Croce church. You have to pay to enter. 

Back last year when I knew we were going to make this trip I sent my granddaughter Sabrina a copy of one of my favorite books of all time – The Agony and the Ecstasy: A Biographical Novel of Michelangelo by Irving Stone. I read it when I was in my 20s and have never forgotten it. Sabrina brought the book along on the trip, and since she’s an artist (she’s the granddaughter going to Clemson, who now says, she thinks, that she wants to go to med school, not vet school) she was really interested. After going to see the statue of David, she came flying into the apartment, arms outstretched, to hug me and thank me for the trip, but also the joy she felt at seeing the David statue. I didn’t go with them as I was standing guard at the apartment, hoping young John’s luggage was going to be delivered, but it was deadly hot that day and I remembered from before that there is simply no air in the building that houses the statue. I was thankful to be in the apartment, in the A/C, pleasantly reading. 

There’s the Michelangelo tomb, inside the Santa Croce church. You can’t walk up to it – they’ve constructed an ornate railing and there are engravings in the marble floor in front of it, so they don’t want the general public walking all over it. Many exhibits in Florence have English and Italian captions.

One of the evenings we took taxis (two, obviously) to a hill on the south side of the Arno. It’s an open piazza, on a hilltop, and there were about 300-400 other tourists angling to get the best camera shot of the river, of Florence, of the Ponte Vecchio bridge (the one closest to the viewer) at sunset. And oh, that did not disappoint. I took about 30 photos. There was a collective sigh when the sun finally disappeared.

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Our last night in London we got ourselves to a well recommended pub (I think it was called the Grenadier). I have no recollection what I ordered. In the foreground, where I was sitting, you’ll see a drink – we had it several times in London – strawberry gin. I’d never heard of it – Karen ordered it first, and then Sara did, then I did, then Sabrina did. It’s mixed usually with soda or tonic, and I must say, it was really refreshing. Sabrina bought a bottle at the airport as we left England; Karen did too. I didn’t think I would have room in my suitcase (actually I did, but just thought I’d wait until I got home) so yesterday I went to Total Wine and they carry Linton Hill strawberry gin. I’ll enjoy it this evening, I think.

The other drink that we found was on many menus was Aperol Spritz. Aperol is an Italian apéritif made of gentian, rhubarb, and cinchona, among other ingredients. It’s not sweet in the least, and it’s mixed with soda water and sometimes not on ice, as many European drinks are. It was so hot in Europe that most of us adults enjoyed a cocktail before dinner to help us cool down. 

I’d told everyone that Westminster Abbey needed to be high on the must-visit list. All of the kids used the tube one evening they were “out,” but the adults weren’t so enamored with the thought of it (hot and very crowded), so our last day we taxied over to the Thames and stood in line for about an hour. Everyone was in a bit of awe over the tombs of several English kings and queens, and the Poet’s Corner. We probably spent about an hour walking around. Photography is no longer allowed in Westminster Abbey, so I have nothing to show for being inside. The next morning we got ourselves to London’s “City” airport (closer than Heathrow) and flew to Florence. Next post . . .

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