Great Hot Fudge Sauce

Hot Fudge Sauce

one cup of sugar
2 tablespoons of cocoa powder
2 tablespoons of butter
one small can of evaporated milk
vanilla
salt

Put dry sugar and cocoa in a heavy saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly for about two minutes, until it just begins to melt.
Then add the butter and milk stirring constantly.
Turn up the heat and boil about a minute, still stirring.
Turn off/take off heat and stir in a dash of salt and a little vanilla.

Prelude to Spring

A big high five to the windy month of March. I feel it in the air. Birds are chirping in the early morning. The maples are sporting specks of deep red in their new growth. Cheerful daffodils wave as I pull into my driveway. Bright yellow flowers bedeck the graceful branches of the forsythia. The large canister of biscotti that I enjoy with coffee during winter is almost empty. It is sad to leave January but a relief to get past February. The spring it is a comin'.

La Langue Francaise

Now that I have made my airline reservations for Paris, I am beginning to believe I am finally going to this place I have visited only in my dreams. This trip as not optional. It is a must do. I cannot see myself entering old age without the French experience. Some of the words and phrases I learned long ago are seeping back into my vocabulary as old memories do, and tonight I found the word facile rolling off my tongue in conversation. When I was a teenager, ma mere occasionally tired of my overusage of poorly spoken French, but I was in love - with the language. I boasted to my husband how I loved the language and once was in a position to use it. He and I were in northern Vermont already and decided to drive up to Quebec. Why not! I couldn't wait to go into a store and use what I had learned in my favorite high school class. We were in a rural area and it was dark, but we did find one convenience store that was open. I got a couple of French magazines and some cookies with French names on them and went to pay. The clerk quickly spoke something foreign to me that I did not understand, and my mind went blank. Dumbstruck, I could not remember sil vous plait, merci, bon jour. Neither could I remember any English. It was like meeting a celebrity! I held out my hand with my American money in it, she took what she wanted and placed a few coins back in my palm. Poor stupid immigrant, I knew she was thinking. In an instant, I related to everyone I had ever seen in America who struggled with the language and the culture. I am going to try to prepare so that experience won't repeat itself!

The Sky

The grand backdrop against which all of life is acted out.

Orange You a Bird Lover?

Pardon the poor photograph. I took it last night close to dark. Several of these clever little bird feeders were hanging from tree limbs outside the adolescent unit where I work, made by the young patients. A week ago, the orange halves were supple and filled with bird seed. Now they have dried but are still quite usable. They are simply halves of oranges that have been scooped out and pieced through with a wooden skewer. A cord for hanging to finish.