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If you’re like me and every minute counts for that extra sleep in the morning and getting up is just too hard, well here’s something that may change your mind.

The latest reports are that breakfast is your most important meal and that expressions like “Breakfast like a King” “Lunch like a Prince” and “Dinner like a Pauper” are good advice.

One reason why breakfast is so important is that it can make the difference between good humor or a contagious crank.

Active people need a hearty breakfast meal packed with protein to start the day.

Lunch should be light and mellow and if there is to be no late dancing afoot, dinner should be the lightest of all three meals.

Once your breakfast starts to become a lively imaginative meal, the morning will be something to look forward to and those hot summer nights will be cooler with a light stomach.

There are many scrumptious dishes for breakfast and here are just a few:

PORTUGUESE EGGS

Cut the top off a ripe, juicy tomato; scoop out the seeds and core. Season inside with salt and pepper, add a few snips of fresh basil.  Break an egg into the cavity and bake in a hot oven until the egg is set.

This method poaches the egg in the juice of the tomato which is very tasty and light.  Several can be done in one pan.

RICE CAKES

One and one-fourth cup rice, boiled, still hot

½ stick butter

2 cups of milk

¼ teaspoon salt

Two eggs, lightly beaten

1 cup flour

Stir butter into rice; add milk, salt, eggs; mix well.  Sprinkle in flour and knead into a soft dough.  Divide into ½ inch thick patties and cook on a hot griddle until both sides are brown and crisp.

If the rice cakes are not crisp enough, they can be dried out a little in a warm oven.  Make four servings.

GIANT EGG ROLL

Two eggs

¼ cup flour

½ teaspoon salt

½ cup milk

Two Tablespoons butter

Crisp filling (recipe below)

Slightly beat eggs with salt.  Add flour and beat until smooth.  Add milk and beat again until smooth.  Heat butter in a large heavy frying pan over medium-high heat until it bubbles.  Add batter. Transfer to a 350-degree oven and bake for 25 minutes.  Gently loosen pancake with a flexible spatula and slip onto a serving platter.  Spoon the crisp filling inside and roll the pancake up like a jelly roll.

Crisp filling; ½ cup bean sprouts, ten green onions cut into julienne strips, ½ cup cooked ham or chicken.  Fill above ingredients inside the giant egg roll.  Be imaginative and have fun with unusual fillings

BREAKFAST SHAKE

¾ cup plain low-fat yogurt or 1 cup buttermilk

¼ cup low-fat milk

1 cup fresh fruit, like mango or pineapple-the riper the better

1 teaspoon sugar

½ teaspoon vanilla

Three ice cube or ¼ cup crushed ice

Place all the ingredients in a blender and process until well combined.  Serve immediately.

LOW-FAT BREAKFAST DANISH

1 cup low-fat cottage cheese

Cinnamon-sugar mixture

Four slices of bread

Divide the cottage cheese among the four pieces of bread. Spread the cottage cheese evenly then sprinkle with the cinnamon-sugar mixture.  Place under broiler for a few minutes till cottage cheese and cinnamon-sugar mixture hot.

Something strange happens to me when I spend a day without my…list.

Whassamatter?

Do you think I mean a grocery list?

Oh, no.  I’m talking about THE list.  You know, the one and only…” What-You-Have-To-Do-Today,” list.

Let me run you through a short lesson on list assembly.

Okay, let’s take today for instance. Today is Wednesday, Wednesday would be written in large, bold, block print (all capitals) at the top of the paper.

Then below that write “1.” followed by the most important thing you need to do that day.  Continue adding items, with each being a little less important than the previous one.

Well, there you go. OK. So the list is essential because without it I’am lost all day.  I have no direction.

My friend, Margo, finds it ridiculous that I use a To-Do list.

“For crying out loud, that’s why you have a brain,” she’ll holler.  “Just remember what you got to do.”

This from a friend, as she begs me to help her find her car keys, over the phone.

What can I tell you? Lists to me are like pet peeves to others.

You know how they collect them and then share them with you over and over like my friend, Margo. I’m sure she has broken the world’s record for the longest sustained continuous sentence of pet-peeve gripes.

Here let me go get my list and read it off to you. Margo’s biggest pet peeves: Hot jean zippers grabbed right out of the dryer, lipstick on your teeth, the grocery cart with wobbly wheels…I mean the list goes on and on.

Ah, but I digress.

I am awestruck by this sheer power of those folks who never write a list.  Margo can call it a hokey ritual but without my list I could not remind her to try this recipe.

It is as yummy as a box of chocolates, but it is also a low-calorie treat.

Enjoy.

LOW-CAL PEPPERMINT CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM CAKE ROLL

Spray a large glass (like you would use to bake lasagna) baking dish with nonstick cooking spray.  Line bottom with waxed paper and spray again.

Prepare one boxed package of light devil’s food cake mix.  Prepare cake mix batter according to package directions using 1 1/3 cup of water and three eggs.

Spread the batter in the glass baking dish. Microwave at medium (50 percent) for nine minutes, rotating dish at half-turn after four minutes; Microwave at High (100 percent) for 1 ½ minutes.

Let stand for five minutes. Meanwhile prepare a clean kitchen towel laid out flat and sprinkle generously with confectioner sugar. 

Loosen edges on the cooled cake pan and invert cake onto the towel.  Carefully remove waxed paper from the cake and sprinkle cake with confectioner sugar.

Start with the shorter end of the cake and roll it up slowly and gently in the kitchen towel to make a cake roll.

Place cake roll on a plate. Sprinkle cake roll with crushed peppermint candy on top of the confectioner sugar.

Serve slices with a scoop of low-fat ice cream and top with low-fat hot fudge.

It’s a pleasant, wet and rainy day, and I am standing in a semicircle of approximately 133 “you cut ’em” Christmas trees.

My husband is running with a sawblade in his left hand, a blue tarp in his right hand, and a translucent look in his eyes.  Evidently, he has spotted yet another tree that might meet his specific conditions.

My 7-year old daughter is lying on the ground at my feet, moaning deliriously that she is “tree sick.”  Her tiny limp body is lying quietly as she explains that after rows and rows of trees she can no long muster the energy to walk another step.

I don’t know about you, but when I go to ‘cut’em” I don’t waste a lot of time. I stride briskly to the most attractive tree standing and shout, “Here!”

Your professional Christmas tree cutter (husband), on the other hand, does not even think about cutting until he has conducted a complete tree study of the site-circling the selected tree warily, as though it were an alien space-ship, checking it out from every possible angle, squatting and squinting, finger in the air checking the wind, feeling the needles, analyzing the distance from the road to the truck, back to the tree…

And so, amid an atmosphere of unbearable tension, comparable to not being able to find your car keys when you are already late to that very important meeting, my daughter and I wait, and wait, and wait.

By now our daughter is trying to make snow angels in the mud and I am unbelievably letting her.  I see other families in the tree farm.  They’re staring intently at trees way off in the distance, but I think they’re staring at us.  We have been here so long.

I think about grabbing my daughter’s hand and pulling her up to her feet and taking her down the hill for our third cup of hot cider and her second candy cane, but too late, she has been entertaining the crowds by holding her breath as she runs up and down the tree rows.

The more time that passed with virtually nothing happening, the more excited I got about that cider.  I started down the hill when suddenly I heard a loud, long, whopping yelp that I recognized as my husband.

I turned to see him stand up, wipe tree pitch off his hands, and in a voice that would have made a gold digger stop, announced, “This …is the tree.”

There it stood in all of its glory-all 14 feet of it.

“That’s too big,” I said.

“Not so,” he said. “I will trim off the bottom.  You’ll see.”

“Don’t you remember last year?” I asked.  “It was too big, you did not trim enough.”

“Did so.”

“Did not.”

“Did so.

“Did not.”

“Did.”

“Not!”

Like anything else, success depends on the proper tools, so in the back of our truck is an assortment of many saws, blue tarps, gloves, rope and any necessity to fall Paul Bunyan’s tree.

“Quick, run back to the truck and pick out the yellowed handled two blade milliliter saw.  Oh, and by the way, grab me a cider,” he says with a big smile.

Rolling my eyes back in my head and shrugging my shoulders, I approached the tree surgeon punched him in the arm where he pretended to be knocked into the fir tree, and I headed to the car trying to consider the many, many complex factors involved in the “you cut ’em tree man.

This is, after all, a once a year experience.  And this tree-prepare to experience a heart tremor- was home cut.  How were we going to get it in the truck, let alone through the front door?  At least when I finally do get home I can make a nice hot cup of:

HOT SPICY APPLE CIDER

6 cups apple cider, 1 cinnamon stick, 1/4 cup honey, 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg, 3 tablespoons lemon juice, 1 teaspoon lemon rind, 1 can (2-1/2 cups) unsweetened pineapple juice.

Heat cider and cinnamon stick in a large pan.  Bring to a boil and simmer covered for 5 minutes.  Add remaining ingredients and simmer uncovered 5 minutes longer.

SIMPLY DELICIOUS EGGNOG

1 egg, 2 tablespoons sugar, 1 cup chilled milk, 1/4 teaspoon vanilla.  Beat egg and sugar together.  Beat in milk and vanilla.  Serve cold in a tall glass sprinkled lightly with nutmeg.  Serve immediately

Note:  This column was published in Sandra Haldeman Martz of Papier-Mache Press, anthology “There’s No Place Like Home for the Holidays”.  Where I was welcomed by two different Barnes & Noble bookstores that held a booksigning and reading. 

If John Wayne were alive today he could play the lead in Mark Cave’s life.

Cave has the looks of a movie star and the heart of a cowboy.  His hands-on experience has led him to the premier position as winemaker for Paul Thomas wines.

“I started as a cellar rat,” the 6’5” Cave recalled. “Flipping wine barrels, scrubbing floors, washing out tanks and filtering the wine.”

Cave, 39, is still enjoying a day full of variety, but with the added twist of being accountable for the daily decisions of running a state- of- the- art production facility.

The stainless steel winery is a reflection of Cave’s own design and sits near Paul Thomas’s 220-acre vineyard in Sunnyside, Washington.

Paul Thomas Winery, one of the Associate Vintners group, includes Woodinville’s Columbia Winery and Covey Run.

Cave smiled as he stood on the garden terrace of the India House Restaurant in Seattle.  He was hosting a ‘winemaker’ dinner where his award-winning wines were being paired with the fabulous cuisine of Chef Tapan Bose, and new owner of the restaurant.

“Tonight we will enjoy some of our special wines, a 1995 Rattlesnake Red, a Pear wine and a 1993 Lemberger.”

“These wines complement so well the mouth-watering flavors of Indian food,” said Cave “…tomorrow, I may have to spend the day in meetings or I might have to fix a pump motor, or I could be in the vineyards kicking dirt clogs.”

According to Cave he will soon become a ‘slave to the grape’ in September when every day becomes 24-hour days preparing the grapes for wine.

Cave was hired in 1986 as an assistant to the winemaker and two years later became the winemaker for Paul Thomas wines.

Paul Thomas is a recognized producer of wines that reflect a combination of excellent fruit and expert winemaking that is why Tapan Bose, himself a wine connoisseur, creates food that is designed to complement Paul Thomas wine.

“Bose specialty, “Barah Kabab” (rack of lamb) is first marinated for 24 hours in olive oil, lemon, and fresh garlic.  Then it is covered in a paste of tomatoes, onions and yogurt.  After roasting it is brushed with ginger, cumin, coriander, and dry mango powder.

Originally from Calcutta, India, Bose is as animated as he is solemn. His enthusiasm for his re-molded restaurant, new chefs, new and updated menus reflect his energy and focused purpose.

“At India House everyone is treated as guests not as customers,” said   Bose.  Then, swinging his arms to take in his restaurant, he exclaimed, ”Look at this! A showcase of Indian art and architecture and I have an exhibition Tandoor kitchen!” The Tandoor kitchen used throughout India is a rounded-top oven made of clay.

“Our oven is always at 850 degrees and it is enclosed in glass for people to enjoy as they walk by,” he explained.

Bose instructed one of his chefs to prepare “Papadam” (Indian crispy bread). The chef took the dough and slapped it directly onto the inside oven’s wall and left it to bake. In seconds, it began to bubble and brown. The chef expertly peeled it off in one piece and then sliced it into quarters.

Meats are usually skewered and thrust into the oven’s intense heat.  A chicken half can cook in less than 5 minutes.

Bose’s recipe for “Diwane” (a mixture of cauliflower, potatoes, garbanzo beans, kidney beans, green peas, green bell pepper, eggplant, and frozen spinach.

Chop the large vegetables into bite-size pieces; add all the vegetables with a little water in a large frying pan (wok works well)steam until tender-crisp.  Add fresh ginger and finely chopped garlic.

Make an onion gravy by placing finely chopped onions in boiling water, boil until all water is gone and you have an onion paste left.  Add fresh tomatoes and a little vegetable oil. Set aside.

Next, make a tomato gravy with fresh and canned whole peeled tomatoes by reducing the liquid as you did with the onion gravy until you have a paste.

Combine the tomato and onion gravies stir into the vegetables.  Add to taste roasted cumin, coriander seeds, fresh turmeric, cayenne pepper and garam masala on top.  Serve.

The India House is the first Indian Restaurant established in the State of Washington and is open seven days a week for lunch and dinner, including a Sunday Champagne brunch.

INDIAN SPICES

GARAM MASALA: An aromatic Indian blend of spices usually features cardamom, cinnamon, cumin and cloves.  Usually sprinkled directly on food near the end of cooking or just before serving.

CARDAMOM: The seeds are dark brown and very fragrant and a significant component of Garam Masala. Ground cardamom can be less flavorful. The whole seeds can be found in the Mexican food section.

TAMARIND: An important ingredient in Worcestershire sauce is widely grown in India.  It is a seed and a sour-sweet pulp. Its concentrate is a popular flavoring in India much as lemon juice is in the states.  Used in chutneys, a spicy condiment that contains fruit vinegar, sugar and spices.

TURMERIC: A root that belongs to the ginger family. It is used often in curries and pickles.

CILANTRO: Is the Spanish name for fresh coriander. It is a member of the parsley family noted for its medium green color and flat serrated leaves, its sweet seed is the spice, Coriander.

Back before microwaves and MTV (remember records?) there was a newlywed who thought she knew the whole kit and kaboodle of life.

She lived in Georgia surrounded by strange places and new faces.

Her new job at the local daily paper was to write obituaries, weather and TV highlights.

When the Family page editor’s pregnancy left an opening, she found herself writing a daily food column, which she crowned “Overdone and Undercooked” the title coming from her unique newlywed cooking skills.

Back before yuppies (where did earth shoes and psychedelic painted vans go?)  There was a married woman motivated by the curriculum of her new college town, she surrounded herself in exams, parties, philosophy, parties and midnight snacks.

The local paper was thrilled to run the new “Overdone and Undercooked” that had recipes for beer bread and advice on how to feed a crowd of 50.

That is when she ran into an incredible phenomenon – sell all your worldly possessions and travel till your money runs out.

Back before “state of the art” and “Let’s do lunch” there was a wife who ate her way through Mexico, half the U.S. states and 17 European countries.

By Venice when the gondola started to tip precariously and all the swimwear had shrunk in Mexico she returned home and ventured that wearing all the culinary classics on one’s hips would never start a new trend.

But it did turn “Overdone and Undercooked” into a gastronomical gourmet event and she became addicted to eating and showed no signs of breaking the habit.

After a decade of marriage, she was used to him being messy and he was used to her being chunky.  Next came pregnancy and motherhood. Before motherhood she had told her best friend that the friend was raising her three sons all wrong.

She would never ever feed her kids Lucky Charms, or give ‘em a nuki (pacifier) use plastic diapers or forget to pick them up at school. Now tears welled in her eyes as the new mom fell to her knees and grabbed her best friend by her ankles, begging for forgiveness.

Back before rural towns became cities she was still living in her bathrobe, no makeup and picking up last year’s tinsel, when something life-changing happened.

The door slammed.  It was at 8 a.m. Silence. Her twins started grade school.

“Now,” her husband patted her shoulder, “You can come work with me.”

So for the first time in six years, she grew fingernails, shaved her legs and finished a complete sentence uninterrupted. The first client that was rude, she told them she was going to count to three.

Back before her town had a freeway tunnel the wife/mom/head chef/bottle washer saw her babies had turned into a pre-adolescent with a very busy social life and a request-that Mom’s name not appear on any more volunteer lists. As she watched her children learn basketball and the tuba, she realizes that they were happy healthy children and it was time…

She went to her closet and pulled out the special trunk and in there she dusted off her old friend. She realized that she knew squat about the kit and kaboodle of life, but she had become a better cook!

And she had something she hadn’t had in a while-time. And tremendous energy and enthusiasm for a desire to share with the world the joys and enjoyment of the pleasure of the table.

“Overdone and Undercooked” is a joy to share with you, my new friends.

Together, we will consume enormous quantities of home-cooked goods and pitchers of delicious drinks.

We shall start this new adventure, this rebirth together with the most appropriate recipe –infant food.

The woman of today is an intelligent customer.  She is concerned with value and nutrition and many have shunned the preservative ingredients of canned baby food.

That’s why I always enjoyed easy to make and serve Food Cubes.  Don’t laugh!  These are the best way to help your baby have fresh food.  Warmly heat and eat.  All you need is a blender.

Try this excellent recipe today:

MEAL IN ONE FOOD CUBE

1 cup cooked poultry, meat, organ meat or fish

2/3 cup vegetables or fruit, raw or cooked

½ cup cooked rice, noodles or cereal

One cup (or less) liquid cooking water from vegetables or fruit juice.

Place liquid in blender.  Add other ingredients. Puree to desired consistency freeze in ice cube trays at once. Can be kept frozen for 1-4 months equals three cups, 16 food cubes or 4-5 meals.

The dryer buzzer was going off. The dog was whining at the door to be let out, the phone was ringing and I was lying in a horizontal position on the bed with my stomach sucked in and my breath held trying to get my jeans zipper zipped.

The doorbell rang.  That did it I would not realistically fit into those jeans so I flung them off and grabbed my good old elastic waistband sweat pants ran down the stairs to open the door.

No one was there — only a flyer wrapped around the doorknob for pizza.

“PIZZA!” I hollered as I slammed the door after the dog darted out.  I murmured, under my breath as I found myself standing in front of the fridge looking at my favorite food in the whole wide world: CHEESE!  After chocolate there is only one thing better-melted cheese.

Here are a few facts cheese lovers need to know.

Cheese concentrates a lot of food value into a small package. It contains most of the nutrients of milk, though in different amounts.  Nutrients include protein, riboflavin and calcium.  The protein in cheese is of the same high quality as the protein in meat, fish and eggs.

Cheese keeps best in the refrigerator.  How long it will keep depends on the kind of cheese and its wrapper.  Soft cheese-such as cottage cheese and Neufchatel are highly perishable. 

Hard cheeses such as Cheddar and Swiss keep much longer than soft cheese if protected from drying out. 

Leave the cheese in its original wrapper, if possible.  Cover cut surfaces tightly with waxed paper, foil or plastic to protect the surface from drying out, or store the cheese in a tightly covered container.

Any surface mold that develops on hard natural cheese should be trimmed off entirely. However, in mold-ripened cheese such as Roquefort, mold is an integral part of the cheese and can be eaten.  If mold penetrates the interior of cheeses that are not ripened by molds such as Cheddar and Swiss cut away the moldy portions or discard the cheese.  Freezing is not recommended for most cheese because they become crumbly and mealy when frozen.

Successful cheese cookery depends on brief heating at a low temperature. High temperatures and long cooking make cheese tough and stringy and cause the fat to separate out.  Also, some of the flavor is lost.

Cheese blends more readily with other ingredients and melts more if you shred or dice it first — one-half pound of cheese yields about 2 cups of shredded cheese.

Soft, well-aged Cheddar melts and blends with other ingredients more readily then less-ripened cheese and less Cheddar is needed because it has a more pronounced flavor. Process cheese also melts and blends readily but has a much milder flavor.

Melt cheese in the top of a double boiler over simmering water or add it to a hot mixture.  When making the cheese sauce, stir shredded cheese into the completed white sauce and heat only enough to melt the cheese.  When making a cheese omelet, add the shredded cheese after the omelet is cooked-just before folding.

Cheese can be melted under the broiler too.  Open-faced cheese sandwiches can be made this way. Place the sandwich so the cheese is 4 or 5 inches from the heat. Broil just until the cheese begins to melt.

Casserole dishes containing cheese should be baked at low to moderate temperature. To prevent cheese toppings from toughening or hardening during baking.  Cover them with crumbs or add the cheese just a few minutes before removing the food from the oven.

ROQUEFORT: Sharp, peppery, piquant flavor. Semisoft, pasty, sometimes crumbly texture. White interior streaked with blue-green veins of mold

STILTON: Similar to Roquefort yet milder with an open, flaxy texture and a creamy-white interior streaked with the same blue-green veins of mold as Roquefort yet it has a wrinkle, melon-like rind.

NEUFCHATEL: (New-sha-tel) Mild texture similar to cream cheese but lower in fat.

GOUDA: Mellow, nutlike, often slightly acid flavor semifort to firm. Smooth texture often containing small holes. Creamy-yellow or medium yellow-orange interior.  Usually has red wax coating and shaped like a flattened ball.

GRUYERE: (Grew-Yare) Nutlike salty flavor similar to Swiss but sharper firm smooth with small holes or eyes, light yellow.

The more I think of it, the more I’m convinced that my neighbor, Margo, shows all of the signs of (shhh, come closer) addictive behavior.

This is all hearsay, mind you.  The way I figure it, anyone who has enthusiastic reports of a day spent rummaging through a hodge-podge of rubble is in trouble.

Margo has the compulsive desire to buy…anything but only if she can barter you down.

Just the other day she came pounding on my screen kitchen door. “Don’t dilly-daily, time’s a-wasting!” she shouted, wild with excitement. It was 6 a.m. on a Saturday and she thought we would be LATE and miss all the bargains at 22 garage sales she had circled in the newspaper to see that day.

I’ve been told that serious pack rats cannot help but take home a bargain. Margo has several: a lazy Suzan that does not turn, fondue forks, hat pins, a ship in a bottle, a flower press and Go-Go boots.

Go-Go boots? “I will add ruffles and make them line-dancing boots,” Margo said, snapping her fingers with inspiration. (She confided in me the other day that she already lost one boot.)

Needless to say, it didn’t take much convincing to tell Margo about a great place to find QUALITY hand-crafted items which were right here in our own neighborhood.

The Woodinville Farmer’s Market.  It is open every Saturday at the C.O. Sorenson School parking lot until October.

This is not a slipshod event. This is a well-thought-out and organized group of serious craftspeople who have united to give Woodinville a class act.

“We hold jury over crafts presentations,” said Pat Talbot, board president. “We take the best of the Northwest and only they are allowed to participate after being judged.” 

Pat continued to tell me that Gretchen Garth, the board secretary, started the process of meetings, phone calls and commitments back in January. The event now has 75 vendors who pay $25 a year and $10 each Saturday and no commercial crafts.

Pat herself was hurrying to set up her booth as she talked with me and passionately describe the market and introducing me to vendors. Pat’s own booth held beautiful original dolls, bears and horses made from antique clothing.

Below is a variety of other vendors you can find on Saturday.

Cyndi White takes Calabash squash and hollows it out, colors the inside with leather dye and makes exotic and unusual works of art.

Galina Rein is a porcelain artist well-known in her native St. Petersburg, Russia.  She lives here now, and the detailed pieces of porcelain are exquisitely eye-filling in their delicate beauty.

Lillian Waterhouse started going to estate sales and collecting antique linens.  She now turns them into decorative Victorian pillows and many other creations from these heirloom linens.

Dolly White makes special order birdhouses for the inside or outside of your house.  Made from cedar that she has whitewashed and stained, they are fun, whimsical, and reasonably priced.

Billy Joe James, a woodcarver who is as jolly as Santa, makes unique Christmas ornaments and walking sticks.

Don Julien, vice president of the market, grows and sells his beautiful miniature roses.

Dorie Zante of Woodinville’s Zante Farm has shared her produce and smiles since 1977.  She will tell you when to pick rhubarb and how to test a melon. She is a true gardener’s friend.

Jane Kaake of the Northshore Senior Center sells raffle tickets and copies of Vintage NW a published book of stories by senior citizens.

The Tonnemaker family brings fruits from the Royal City orchard every Saturday.

Tamara Jones, who left a well-paying job to fulfill her needs to be creative and self-employed, displays one of a kind pins, feathers, necklaces and more.

David Overland, who just turned 13, picks berries and sells them along with the cedar flower boxes his dad helps him make.  With his red-stained fingers to prove it, he proudly states that he has made up to $50 on some Saturdays.

Another 13-year old, Krista Olsen, sculpts clay and makes beads that she turns into fun accessories called Krista Kreatures.

Youngsters talented in making or growing can have a booth. Call Grant Davidson, market manager.  Getting kids involved in the market is a high priority.  There are no membership fees and booth fees are pro-rated by age.

They also have buskers. Buskers? A busker is a talented and energetic entertainer.  So you do magic? Puppet shows? Eat fire? Call Linda McCune.

Face the facts ladies. Did your husband recently forget your anniversary, birthday, holiday?

I felt I could live a fulfilled life if every holiday, etc. were recognized with at least a gift.

My husband has convinced me you do not stop breathing without one.  No one knows what a husband’s life expectancy is, however I have a feeling they get shorter with each holiday

The pressure of gift-giving releases such anxiety that some husbands produce crummy 50-cent card or perfume with the price tag still stuck on the bottom handed to you in the drug store sack.

It would be near tolerable if they would not display such a contrary opinion about the whole thing. When I declared war because he forgot to give me a gift on Mother’s Day, he quickly snapped I wasn’t his mother.

When that one time birthday came around and I desperately needed a turbo-charged sports coupe convertible, he had my wedding band enlarged.

My eyes welled with self-pity when I remembered our first Christmas together.  My stocking filled from top to bottom with white votive candles?  Huh?  The one gift under the tree was a pair of slippers size 14.  I  wear an eight.

Obviously, this man needed training in the school of gift giving to wives.  Inasmuch as I’ve tried, I have been unsuccessful, so I decided to address this issue at my all-women’s health spa.

There is a group of us that walk in the door and right past the stair steppers, bikes, weight machines (anything that makes you sweat) and into the swimming pool.

It is here that we float around on our backs in the swimming pool and count the cracks on the ceiling while we contemplate single life.

Candy, who wears a swim cap (can’t let that chlorine touch the expensive color in her hair)spoke first.  “In my house I have eased off the pressure, right before a holiday, I shop for myself and get myself a treat.”

“That is so lame,” said Sarah (the only one among us who didn’t wear a one-piece suit) “You do not command any respect that way.”

“C’mon,” I laughed. “I spend weeks shopping for holidays, preparing feasts and dropping hints.” I looked over the crowd and shrugged my shoulders.

“Hear, hear!” shouted Gail (she still wore her maternity swimsuit, her youngest is 12). “Well, I was so incensed at my husband insensitivity that I have finally done something about it.” There were laughter and much splashing from the crowd. “I made him take a compatible test in a magazine to see why we see things so differently.”

“Was that last month’s Redbook?” Jenny yelled from across the pool. She was trying to do a lap. “Hey, did you see those great recipes for soup? Talk about instant gratification, soup is like a hug for yourself.”

“Making soup is too much work!” said Candy. “I don’t like the mess of making stock.”

“No way you guys it is so easy believe me,”  I said. “Start with a base of stock or broth usually from chicken or beef. I purchase wings or backs at pennies a pound to add to the chicken scraps leftover from cutting up a whole chicken then throw these in the freezer until I have enough for stock.  Then take a large stock pot, fill it half- way with water add the frozen chicken parts.  Throw in a large onion (if you don’t peel it adds color and more onion flavor) a couple of peeled garlic cloves, the top of celery leaves and throw in carrots, a few potatoes.  I boil all of the above and reduce the heat cover the lid and simmer for an hour or so till flavors have mingled.  I let it cook then pour it through a strainer.”

“I refrigerate the strained broth until the fat hardens enough for easy removal. Then you have several cups of broth that you can freeze — an easy base for a light or rich cream soup. You know another really quick soup that kids love is to take pot roast or round steak, about the size of a saucer, cut it into bite-size pieces (easier to cut if partially frozen) put it in a pot with a little water and cook the meat.  Then to the meat add one large chopped onion, let it cook till it is soft.  Add a cup of water and bring to a boil.  Add to the boiling water one large peeled carrot and three peeled small potatoes chopped into small square shapes. When the potato is fork tender (doesn’t take too long) add one can of beef broth to the vegetables and meat and maybe a little more water; simmer for the flavors to mingle.  Serve with a salad, buttered roll makes a great lunch or supper.”

“I have a great Clam Chowder recipe,” Sarah said excitedly. “You take one or two slices of bacon cut in small bits (kitchen scissors work great) fry in a large pot.  Chop and peel a medium size onion and add to the bacon in the pot cook till soft. Drain the bacon fat. Peel and dice two medium potatoes add to the onion and bacon in the pot add two cups of water.  When potatoes are done, turn off the heat and let cool.  Pour entire mixture into a blender.  Add canned clams and clam juice and blend.  This makes a thick creamy soup with no heavy cream calories.  Return blended mixture to the pot, add two cups of milk and a cup of small baby shrimp (in a can) Heat till almost boil, but do not boil, add salt and white pepper to taste.

‘What were we talking about? That’s right, husbands…!”

Eileen Mintz and Norma Rosenthal are wish makers.

They are as fluctuating as light.  Charismatic and solemn, they accelerate around the room like a beacon.  They are high energy yet focused.

One generates confidence and experience but always in a contained way.  The other enthuses incorrigible. These two who seamlessly blend both of each other’s personalities make people delighted.

In just four years, these two moms have created an award-winning business that has allowed them to meet food greats, such as Julia Child and Wolfgang Puck.

Their business, Mintz/Rosenthal public relations and consulting, specializes in representing hotels, restaurants, chefs, and wineries. 

What is surprising, Mintz and Rosenthal have never had to solicit for business.  People call them strictly because of their reputation.  Mintz and Rosenthal have the gift of self-promotion and have it in splendid excess.

“We like to call ourselves wish maker,” Mintz says, “We love every aspect of our jobs, and we think and breathe the restaurants we represent 24 hours a day.”

Added Rosenthal, “We are great listeners, and when a restaurant owner tells us they want more customers, after really listening, we find out what they really want is to be in Gourmet magazine.”

“I feel as if we are sleuths, and each client is a chance to solve a puzzle,” said Mintz, who has a collection of over 900 cookbooks.

And they are incredibly passionate about their work, each other, their families, their favorite foods and well we could go on forever.

You can see by the way they light up a room unabashedly joyful.  Everyone, they meet seems to come away from an experience touched in some small way.

Even their mission statement reads just like something a mother would write. “Together, we have made a conscious decision to look for joy and happiness in life.”

They first met as volunteers on the board at their synagogue, but it was not until they found out they had both entered a cooking contest that they discovered their joint passions: food, people and fun.

“I loved Norma’s vivaciousness and creativity,” Mintz recalled.

‘And I loved that meeting Eileen gave me an opportunity to have an exciting career and not just feel like a housewife,” Rosenthal added.

When these two get together, there is no feeling of compromises- kind words and kind hearts- never a look, nod, word, always a harmony.

With their devotion as wives and mothers while balancing a work schedule that would exhaust most, they still volunteer for many social causes.

In a world that holds uninhibited idealism as somewhat suspect and more than a little annoying, Mintz and Rosenthal are refreshingly the real thing, and Seattle’s chefs can be thankful their wishes have come true.

Eileen Mintz’s Matzo Meal Bagels

½ cup of liquid oil

2 cups of water

1 and ½ cups matzo meal

½ teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons sugar or less if you desire

 5 large eggs

Dutch oven size pan for the stove top

Boil oil and water together. Add matzo meal, salt, and sugar.  Mix quickly with a wire whisk until well blended.  Pull off heat and set aside.  Stir until liquid is absorbed.

Cover the pan slightly and let the mixture stand until almost cool.

Using a hand mixer or a stand-up mixer add eggs carefully only one at a time.  Beat until light and fluffy.  Set aside.

Lightly grease two cookie sheets.  Drop from a spoon (about golf ball size or a little larger if you like a bigger bagel) onto the cookie sheet.  Wet fingers and push down to put a hole in the middle and help to form the bagel shape.

If desired to use as sandwich bread, smooth out to a square, press down and forget the hole.  Bake at 400 degrees about 40 to 60 minutes.  Makes 9 to 12 bagels.

Here’s a question: You are a published mystery writer.  But for 50 years you lived an unsolved mystery.

What do you do?

Like an old-fashioned homily, you turn a lemon into lemonade.

Bette Hagman had to grab the bull by the horns and be tenacious.  A solemn testament to her adaptability because Hagman suffers from a disease called Celiac Sprue, which is only cured by diet.

At 75, and looking smart in a white turtleneck sweater, blue jeans wrapped with a silver-buckled belt and a June Allyson hair cut.  Hagman is in demand as a speaker and adds more traveling to her already hectic schedule.

She is a member of “sisters in crime” an organization of mystery readers and writers.  However, it is her famous cookbooks that have unlocked a mystery for thousands of people.  As a Celiac, Hagman, cannot eat wheat, rye, barley, and oats because they contain gluten.  The immune system thinks of gluten as a foreign substance and attacks the intestines.

“This is my 25th-year anniversary of great living,” she says.

She pauses.

“Actually, I was a lousy cook, and it was embarrassment that was my final motivator,” recalls Hagman.

When she discovered that grocery stores didn’t sell any bread, pasta, pizza, cake or cookies without wheat, she tried to survive on rice cakes.

Hagman says with a sharp twinkle in her eye that there were times when if not for the love of her husband and daughter, she doubted she’d pull through.  She wanted to eat like a ‘real person’ and in doing that discovered that she would have to make up her own recipes.

Her first book took nine years to write.  But now just hand her a bag of gluten-free flour—no several different kinds—, and she can create anything from crackers to bread to cake or pizza.

Her sunny expression turns grim.  She recalls the years of mystery and misery that reached back to the early 1970s when she had withered away to 81 pounds.

Doctor after doctor had told her it was all in her head.  But never mind all that. Put the risks and worries aside Hagman was already instilled with the feeling of complete helplessness.

Always a ‘sickly child,’ she spent many days in bed, close to the bathroom.  Her immune system was turning against her own body.

She had never mentioned to the doctors the frequent bowel movements that led her to malnutrition and fatigue. (She had lived with this for so long, she thought it was normal.)

Already in her early 50’s and after a lifetime of not knowing what was happening to her-Hagman finds out that her mysterious illness has a name: Celiac Sprue.

Always hungry and never satisfied is one of the signs.  As a Celiac, you can eat mountains of food and still be literally starving to death because your body cannot get the nutrients out of the foods that you have eaten.

Nonetheless, she says, these were the beginning times that she had to learn to rise to the challenge.

“You can be completely overwhelmed by the restrictions in this diet,” Hagman says matter of factly.  ‘Yet you feel so lucky.  Finally, you know what is wrong, and you don’t need surgery, not even medication.  All you need is to avoid eating gluten.

Finding food that did not contain wheat was like going after ants with dynamite.

Hagman wonders aloud what life would have been if she had not met Elaine Hartsook.  Dr. Hartsook, a research dietitian at the University of Washington.  She was the original founder of The Gluten Intolerance Group of North America.

The group, still going strong after 23 years, meets the third Thursday of each month at Bellevue’s Overlake Hospital Medical Center.

With the help of the University of Washington’s diet kitchens, Dr. Hartsook created yeast-rising bread from rice flour and xanthan gum.  The late Dr. Hartsook spent her life’s study on people with gluten intolerance.

Hagman at the time was a writing teacher at Lake Washington Technical Colleg, and it just happened that six students in her classes had also discovered they were Celiacs.

All in the same boat, they started to exchange recipes.  Hagman had nothing to contribute.  She turned out inedible mess after mess and was feeding her omnivorous garbage disposal.

Considering herself a writer first, kitchen duty a necessary evil, she continued exchanging baking disaster stories with her students.  As to why she wrote a cookbook, Hagman has a heart felt answer.

“I was forced to cook if I wanted to enjoy eating, and in so doing got hooked on experimenting.”

Hagman quickly runs her fingers down over her chin and neck.  Her movements are fast, her energy unflagging.  Her first cookbook; The Gluten-Free Gourmet: Living Well Without Wheat.”

Is more than just a collection of recipes for in all of her books are short chapters on using the difficult flours of rice, tapioca, potato, bean, and sorghum.

There are hints on how to eat out, travel and even try to explain to friends why you can’t even taste, let alone, eat that wheat filled cake or cookie even if it was baked with love.

In a more serious tone, she lists “hidden” dangers that lurk in things like potato chips-which are dusted with wheat flour to “make them taste better”- the modified food starch (wheat flour) added to things like split pea soup to thicken it and reduce cooking time, confectioners sugar in Canada, which contains wheat flour.

So, a word of warning – don’t even eat the icing of the cake in Canada.

Hagman’s books, ‘Gluten-Free Gourmet: Delicious Dining Without Wheat” and “The Gluten-Free Gourmet Cooks Fast and Healthy,” have sold more than 112,000 copies.

But she does admit there is one thing missing: the time to write the great American murder mystery novel.