Day 124, Year 7: Spring Forward
Date: Sunday, March 11, 2012
Weather: Sunny and Windy, High Temp in the Upper 40’sr
Location: Brewer Fiddler’s Cove Marina, N Falmouth, MA
Here we all are, propelled one hour ahead in time to Daylight Savings Time.
I love this ‘spring forward’ as it adds an additional hour of sunshine to
the end of each day. I was still out on deck mixing potting soil at 6:30
this evening just to show my appreciation for the extra hour.
After cutting Mark’s hair this morning, we took a ride over to Heather and
Jed’s. Heather had called earlier in the morning to tell us that she felt
like she might be on the road to recovery. She still hadn’t eaten much, but
her stomach was feeling a little more settled. I wanted to take her some of
the left-over Quinoa Pilaf I made for dinner last night. Since fennel is
supposed to be soothing to the stomach, I thought it might be good for
Heather. Sam and Jonah were just sitting down to lunch when we arrived, so
Mark and I took a long walk around the neighborhood while they ate and then
returned to walk around the block with the boys before their afternoon naps.
While in town, we got our empty propane tank filled, did some grocery
shopping, and bought a few more supplies for my on-deck garden.
I spent a good deal of the evening reading through “The Cancer-Fighting
Kitchen” writing down all of the recipe ingredients that I don’t have and
can’t get easily here in Falmouth. Since Claire and I are going on a hunt
for some of these items on Tuesday, I wanted to get my list in order. I was
amazed at how many recipes call for parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme.
Every time I read this list of herbs, I was transported back to 1968 to the
soundtrack from The Graduate. Scarborough Fair was the first song on Simon
& Garfunkel’s 1966 album named after the herbs, “Parsley, Sage, Rosemary,
and Thyme.” This modern song was based on a 16th century English folk song
and was subsequently included in the soundtrack for the 1968 movie. In an
1889 version of the folk song, the place name was different, Whittingham
instead of Scarborough Fair, but the herbs remained constant through the
years. Why these four spices were included in the English folk song is
anyone’s best guess. There are all sorts of explanations based on the
healing qualities of the herbs, but my favorite is that they were included
because they are the basic ingredients in stuffing. What I am finding,
however, is that these same herbs really do have wonderful healing qualities
and are listed as cancer-fighting ingredients in many different books. As I
am cooking some of these recipes, I often think of our sailing friends, Ed
and Lynne of Constance. They were believers in GGO-garlic, ginger, and
onion. No matter what they were fixing, these were the first three
ingredients. And they, too, are listed over and over as cancer-fighting.
So now we have GGO-PSR&T. And one more food note. I had another culinary
flop today. Yesterday it was the carrot cake that is just too moist and
today it was rye bread that looks and feels like a brick door stop. I think
for the rest of the week I will only bake tried and true recipes.
Mark is dealing with a new kind of low today and he can’t quite pin down the
cause. He feels fine but just doesn’t have much energy. The good news is
that the cold sensitivity seems to be gone for this chemo cycle and the
vinegar and warm water gargle solution seems to be keeping the mouth sores
at bay for now. Mark starts working at West Marine this Wednesday, and
again on Friday, so hopefully he will have the energy for that.
