Eclectic Lotus

Today, my grandmother is getting a  lumpectomy. She has stage one breast cancer. In the same day, my sister in law is getting a biopsy of a tumor found in her throat. She is currently being treated for stage two breast cancer. A dark day looms forward. . .

LOnce August is over, I mentally assign a fruit or vegetable to a month. Summer is usually all about infusion water, smoothies and noon alcoholic cocktails along with fancy salads. September is all about the Apple! I remember my childhood when we had an Apple tree in the back yard and we used to play in it and snatch off the apples and eat them. But apples are gear for salads, snacking and just additions to meals.I have yet to make an Apple pie but my neighborhood does a Apple pie baking contest. I make my own applesauce more during this month. I recently went to a wedding and had a sweet potato mash with ginger and Apple. Attempting this at home is not a easy task. I think I am missing the butter and I should not have added the raisins. You live and you learn right? So, here is to September that is still warm enough to finish our watermelons yet cool enough to enjoy some autumn dishes. Enjoy!

Yesterday, my sister in law's mother in law had a wake/funeral. (I know, that is a mouthful.) You would have thought it was a funeral the way they had food and drinks. Kids were running around all over the place at various ages. Near the door were the new mommies and daddies with they beautifully dressed babies. I went with my almost two year old son who was tired on the first place, my husband of course and my mother in law. Hubby dropped us off while he parked. We walked in and sure enough my mother in law stopped dead in her tracks and said something to me in Spanish but I couldn't hear with all the people in the room talking but I understood. "Don't take him close to the body. "   I'm not sure if this is only a Mexican tradition or it is elsewhere. When my husband's uncle passed away I stayed at home while he and my mother and law paid their respects. They say that the soul can enter the baby and live on. Being a Christian, I find this hard to believe...