Food Talk: Dates

I love dates. Dates are the fruit of the date palm tree. I don't let myself buy them often because once I eat one I eat a lot of them :-) I also enjoy using date sugar, which is sugar produced from dates. There's a wonderful article about the cherished date palm at the following link:

http://www.saudiembassy.net/Publications/MagWinter97/date-palm.htm

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Even though I grew up in a poor rural area in northern New York state in the 1950's, we were no stranger to dates. We used them once a year for our Christmas cooking, where we could invest in making a favorite expensive dessert in celebration of the holiday. My mother baked what is called a bar cookie, called a "refresher." Bar cookies are cookies that have a consistency more like a cake and cut in a bar (narrow rectangular) shape. They are usually the size and consistency of like a soft brownie that is cut into finger shape rather than squares. Anyway, the bulk of the refresher cookie was diced dates and walnuts mixed with flour and sugar. The taste was absolutely amazing. Each bar was frosted with a vanilla butter frosting flavored with grated orange rind, and topped with a green or a red maraschino cherry. They were our family's favorite once a year dessert treat. We could not afford to make it more than once a year so we all looked forward to them being a regular treat at Christmas time. I have the recipe in storage, though I've not been able to make them for many years, due to the churning of my livelihood and my continual relocation to places not conducive to making a home and festivities. Anyway, enjoy the article, it is very touching.

Another GREAT article about dates, emphasizing its importance in Islam tradition and healthy life.

http://yementimes.com/article.shtml?i=884&p=health&a=1

Eclipse is pretty from my view in Mississippi

I actually forgot about it so around dinner time I decided to jump in the car to do some "retail therapy" (shopping). I'm trying to organize my tiny apartment so I don't feel like I'm living in a storage unit so I bopped over to Lowe's for some plastic storage containers, and got 4 at a great price. Then I went to Walmarts because I've been doing without all my cooking gear these past 18 months (all in storage over a thousand miles from here) so I bought some pretty kitchenware. (By the way you can balance buying made in China by also finding some great made in USA dinnerware, like Corelle, a long time favorite of mine. I picked up 8 of their bamboo design plates). I've been a long time fan of Corning and their fine art division Steuben Glass. Corelle is an innovative GLASS product (I remember when it first came out in 1970) and regular readers know that I'm a big advocate of glass as a chemical and metal free substance to use for beverages and dinnerware.

http://www.corelle.com/index.asp

It's only when I pulled back into my apartment parking lot (such as it is) that I remembered the eclipse since I had a clear view of it already underway. There are some clouds which gives it a nice misty look, but it's still easily visible. Since we don't have winter down here it's comfortable to stand outside and watch, which I've been doing the past 30 minutes or so. Got a little chilled though so I came back inside to have a warm piece of toast. Think I'll take another look and see how it's doing "up there."

(It was entirely clouded over so I ended up gabbing with neighbors who just returned from some good Mexican dining!)