WQW: Five Senses: Taste, Food, Recipes

Marsha at Always Write has a Wednesday-Tuesday challenge going on, this week’s sense being taste. Quotes and food are a great combination and there are thousands of quotes about food to be easily found on the internet. I like this one to start:

“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

I love fresh fruit, especially berries. I like them on my homemade granola, directly in my mouth, and in the case of blueberries, in my blueberry crisp, the latter a dessert often requested by family. Eating them in any form makes me berry merry. 🙂 (Or, if you’re in Britain, perhaps it makes you Mary Berry!)

This granola recipe comes from my uncle Jerry, well-known as a watercolor artist. That second link will take you to images of his work. But I think this granola recipe is just as much a work of art.

Jerry’s Granola

7-8 cups oats (not quick oats

1 cup each of these raw nuts: sunflower seeds, chopped cashews, chopped pecans, and chopped almonds (I recently used raw slivered almonds and loved the results.)

1 cup honey

1 stick butter

Preheat oven to 325 F.

Melt butter and honey together and pour over oats and nuts.  Mix well.

Spread in a sheet pan with sides.

Stir every 10 minutes until mix is browned a bit.

If you want to add raisins or other dried fruit, add once you’ve put the mix in a large bowl (or bowls) to cool.  Otherwise they’ll get too done.

Enjoy!  Oats are quite good for you as are nuts, so enjoy with the milk or yogurt of your choice or as is for snacking.

“Pull up a chair. Take a taste. Come join us. Life is so endlessly delicious.”
― Ruth Reichl

Our younger daughter spent some time in Japan years ago and quite some time learning Japanese. Okonomiyaki is a fantastic food taste from Japan, sort of a Japanese omelet or maybe more like a frittata. This one from Chicago’s famous Girl and the Goat was fabulous! You can read my post about it as well as find a link to a recipe here.

It’s really difficult to know where else to go with a food/taste topic as I’ve had so much great food and made some myself. Not that I create recipes but I’ve managed to find a few good ones over the years. I learned how to make homemade ravioli and my signature dish, my husband’s term for the meal you use to “seal the deal”, is probably spaghetti carbonara. In the mid-seventies between my junior and senior years in college, I spent almost an entire year in Europe. While in Brindisi, Italy on our way to Greece, the woman I was traveling with and I met two Italian men. I think they might have been expecting more from the encounter than they got, but I got spaghetti carbonara for dinner and my life was never the same. 🙂 (The highlighted link will give you more of the story but also the recipe.)

“All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn’t hurt.”
― Charles M. Schulz

I have to agree, although my choice is dark chocolate. One of the things I love about France and Europe in general is that desserts are just sweet enough to add to the taste but not overwhelm the way they often are in the U.S. Whipped cream is cream that’s whipped, not cream whipped with lots of sugar. Pastries in France are amazing (and of course the bread is too.) Or you can sit somewhere like this (we did)…

…and enjoy a regional salad like this (different location, though.)

For some reason, I’m now thinking about heating up the quiche I made last night and seeing what sort of salad a/o veggies I have to go with it. We have some lovely Portuguese red open and dark chocolate for dessert. Cheers and one final quote:

“Humor keeps us alive. Humor and food. Don’t forget food. You can go a week without laughing.”
― Joss Whedon