About pujakins

I am a poet and teacher of meditation, with a fondness for words and a husband I love dearly. I write a regular column in my local newspaper and another on the internet. My hope, both in my life and in my writing is to encourage people to see things in way that will help them to live happier, healthier lives.

Summer Is For Salads

Posted on June 23, 2024 by pujakins

Heartwings says, “Simple meals taste best in summer heat.”

In the summer heat, my appetite tends to disappear. In addition, so does my desire to cook. Not much affects Stephen’s appetite. However, he’s not the chief cook in this household. With little desire to cook and practically no appetite, I have to make sure I have food on hand that is easy for me to prepare and tempting to my diminished appetite.

One of our favorites is egg salad. It is easy to prepare if I have hard boiled eggs ready to shell and mash. As I have never mastered the art of successfully peeling eggs without mangling them, I never make stuffed eggs, however, I am happy to scoop the contents from their egg shells and mash them up with a fork. Then I add the following ingredients. Suggested amounts are for 6 eggs.

11/2 tsp Dried or fresh tarragon, 1 tsp granulated dried garlic, ½ tsp. mustard powder, or 1 Tbs. of your favorite prepared mustard, ¼ cup chopped celery, 2 or 3 Tbs chopped scallions, 2 or 3 Tbs, fresh parsley, and 1/2 cups mayonnaise–or to taste. Feel free to substitute, increase or decrease amounts and ingredients. Add salt and pepper to taste. Some people like to add 2 tsp. or more of curry powder. In which case, eliminate the tarragon. Serve lettuce with the egg salad.

Another summer favorite is seafood salad. I often bring this to potlucks. It is tasty, simple to make and nutritious as well as friendly to the budget. I usually have a package of the base, usually called crab meat salad or sometimes, Surimi. It is a combination of pollock and crab meat, cooked and sealed up; thus it keeps well. I begin by taking it out of the packaging and either taking the block apart or cutting it up-a purely esthetic decision. Next, I put it into a bowl and add the rest of the ingredients.

½ cup mayonnaise—more if you wish, or less; a half a cup of finely chopped celery, ½ cup finely chopped onion, ½ cup finely chopped red or yellow pepper, a tablespoon of dried or more snipped fresh tarragon, and 1 tsp dried, ground garlic. Add salt and pepper to taste. Mix well and serve on a bed of lettuce, or keep it separate and serve it alongside of the mixed seafood.

A good salad can be made with blueberries, strawberries cut up, pears or apples peeled or not, halved grapes, and/or dried cranberries, raisins, pecans, slivered almonds or walnuts. The dried fruit adds fiber and the nuts add protein. Cheese of all sorts can be chopped, slivered, or even grated, to add more protein.

Cottage cheese or feta also add protein.

Tomatoes are a summer standby, however Stephen and I are both allergic to them. My substitute is either Strawberries or blueberries. You can feel free to use any or all of the ingredients I have suggested, and change quantities of seasonings to suit your taste.

May you enjoy whatever food you fix, bless it and give thanks for your abundance

Blessings and best regards, Tasha Halpert

PS Please share your summer recipes, I would be happy to try them and will write you back.

A poet and writer, I publish a free weekly blog, Heartwings Love Notes for a Joyous Life. My Books: Up to my Neck in Lemons, and Heartwings, Love Notes for a Joyous Life are available on Amazon. My latest publication available there is my first chapbook, Poems and Prayers, and I have two more in preparation. You can sign up for my blog at http://tashasperspective. Com.

Heartwings Love Notes 2040: Gifts My Father Gave Me

Posted on June 16, 2024 by pujakins

Heartwings says, “Gifts may be actual and not physical, either or both.”

It’s time to celebrate fathers, and I have been thinking about my dad and how special he was to me, and also to the many people who appreciated his witty behavior. He loved to be entertaining as well as to entertain. Cocktail parties were his chief delight and he gave them often.

He was a generous person. One memory I have is of him sitting by the living room fireplace at Christmas time, wrapping the generous gifts he gave to the gardeners and caretakers of the estates he did business with. He was a horticulturist by nature, like his grandfather, and professionally, an arborist. He truly enjoyed his work and he was very good at it, able to size up a landscape and improve the views from the windows of the any home he was hired to work for.

One special gift he gave me was a love of trees plus the ability to spot what they might need done to improve them. He often took me with him, especially in the summer, when he drove around either supervising his men where they were working or estimating the work to be done for those who had hired him and the company he worked for. As I travel the roads of my town and its neighbors, to this day, I notice trees and find myself thinking of their needs.

He loved flowers and grew beautiful roses. I wish I had inherited that ability. My efforts to grow them have not met with success. I did inherit his love for flowers, buying them to bring their loveliness into my home when I can. My mother once told me that when they were newly married and he was an aspiring playwright, Daddy would spend the grocery money on flowers leaving them forced to have oatmeal to eat for supper. On special occasions, he would often provide my mother and me with corsages. She would get an orchid, while I got a fragrant gardenia, which I loved.

Above all, he was generous with his time and energy, serving in a volunteer capacity as treasurer to a variety of local organizations. He read for the blind on a local radio station, and I’m sure did other kind actions I never knew about. He was deeply religious, attended his Episcopalian church every Sunday, and took us to services on Christmas and Easter, which I loved, another significant gift.

No one is perfect. Neither was he. But the gifts he gave me far outweigh any negative aspects of his character. He set me an important example of the importance of being of service that has increasingly guided my life. Working on behalf of the greater good is what I call it. It’s about showing up for a need. Whether caring for the landscape or for the world at large, my father set a fine example.

May you remember your fathers’ gifts with joy.

Blessings and best regards, Tasha Halpert

PS Please, if you have stories to share, write to me and share them. I so enjoy hearing from my readers. Email me at tashahal, at Gmail.com, and check out my blog at http://tashasperspective.com.

Heartwings Love Notes 2039 The Joy of Friends

Posted on June 9, 2024 by pujakins

Heartwings says, ” In so many ways in our lives, friends are important.”

My childhood years were lived in a rural setting, without close neighbors or other nearby children. For all intents and purposes, I was an only child for more than eight years, until the first of my three siblings were born. It was as if we were two families in one, for I was too old to connect with them as playmates or companions, nor was I encouraged to do so. My mother was happy for me to entertain myself, and I did.

She played games with me sometimes, however, I spent most of my time alone. I read books avidly, sometimes going through one a day. My father would bring me a stack from the library each week, and my parents also had a good selection of the classics like the Count of Monte Cristo and Treasure Island. My favorite book was The Swiss Family Robinson, which I read over and over, imagining myself as part of their adventures as they lived ingeniously on a deserted island after a shipwreck.

Besides reading books, I played imaginary games and fixed up my doll house, creating furniture out of match boxes and other small items. Sometime around age nine, when I was in the third grade, I acquired a friend, and she and I often played together on weekends. She wasn’t around in the summer because she went to camp, while I was left alone again to wander the fields and climb trees. She was my first real friend.

Over time, I had others although they were often few and far between. Even the first half of my life as an adult followed the same pattern: One or two special friends that came and went as time and circumstance unfolded. One very dear woman was also a mother. We often combined our children and went to the beach or a movie together. It was a special time in my life. Then my life changed radically and I began to meet and interact with a great many people, and in the process, I began to make many friends.

After a first half of life with so few friends, it seems a wonderful thing to have an abundance. Some are and some are not still present in my life, and there are friends I have not laid eyes on for years. Yet that makes no difference; my affection for them has not diminished with time. I still wonder how they are long after they are no longer in contact with me. The lesson I have had to learn and surely have had many opportunities to do so, is that people do grow away into different interests, or even lifestyles. Yet although we have parted, and even if we are no longer close, these friends are still in my heart.

There is much truth in the saying, “People come into your life for a reason, for a season, or for a lifetime.” I have learned to find joy in all my friendships, whether long or short.

May your friendships be a source of joy in your life.

Blessings and best regards, Tasha Halpert

PS I welcome correspondence and encourage you to share your thoughts, feelings and suggestions. Do write to me at tashahal@gmail.com and make my day.

Heartwings Love Notes 2038 Precious Moments

Posted on June 1, 2024 by pujakins

Heartwings says, “Memories are fun to rummage through, and can be entertaining.”

I don’t use my cell phone often. Usually when I do, it’s to text one of a few friends to share with or for communication with family. So recently, when it rang with a number I didn’t recognize, I figured it was spam. I picked it up and found that it was a call from my grandson inviting us to visit on an app called Face Time. He lives with his wife in Saudi Arabia and he wanted to share his infant son, now four months, with Stephen and me.

Such precious moments are pages in my mental memory album. Some days they show up unbidden to help me recall a time and a place from the recent or even the distant past. One day I had an image of me in my skates, wobbling on a patch of frozen water in a wetland on my Great aunt’s property. I’m around eight years old and I’m wearing my snowsuit with its cute bonnet tied under my chin.

The feeling of the thick woolen snowsuit with its accompanying snow-pants comes back to me, the vivid memory expanding as I think about it. Nylon outerwear and lightweight winter clothing was in the future. Such memories are fun to enjoy and help me recall a childhood spent outdoors. As long as the weather was neither windy or too cold, I was appropriately dressed and sent out of doors to play among the trees and open fields of the property.

Recently I recalled how after there had been a great storm, a large section of a tree trunk, perhaps three feet in diameter and four or five long appeared in the wetlands we called a swamp, though by today’s standards, it really was not. I was delighted to see it and it became part of my fun, serving as a kind of home for small things. I played “house” a lot of the time. Then I found something really special. It was a pane of glass, not chipped, cracked or imperfect in any way, with blue and gold painted around the edges.

As I reflect on it now, it seems to me it was probably part of a picture frame, but then it was a magical item to be cherished and admired, a treasure given me by the sea. It became part of my log home and cherished accordingly. Then one day there was another great storm and when I went to where it had been, the log and the pane of glass were both gone without a trace. I was a bit sad, but soon went on to find other playthings. Still the items remain, standing out in my memory of my childhood spent outdoors in nature.

I know now how fortunate I was to have this special time growing up. So many children do not have that experience. Nature is such a fine teacher. Her school provides a lifelong experience that surpasses anything a computer or a cell phone can provide.

May you have recollections to enjoy from time to time

Blessings and best regards, Tasha Halpert

PS Love to hear your reminiscences, and hoping you would like to share. Please write me at tashahal@gmail.com, and sign up here at my blog to get more Love Notes at http://tashasperspective/pujakins.

Heartwings Love Notes 2037 Expect the Unexpected

Posted on May 26, 2024 by pujakins

Heartwings says, “Living with serendipity is helpful to personal growth.”

It is easier to anticipate the unfolding of the future when there is an example of it in your past. For instance, in my family none of the aging adults were physically handicapped in any way. My mother was physically agile, and vigorous in her nineties. She was also absent of mind. That started in her seventies, so it was no surprise. However, at my present age of eighty-eight her strength and agility were that of someone much younger. She was even still driving herself alone to Maine every summer.

None of my elders walked with a cane or even complained very much about their aches and pains. Thus, nothing prepared me for Parkinson’s and my slowly declining physical abilities. I am grateful that my mental faculties have stayed unaffected, and I still have most of my day-to-day memory as well as my long term one. I even have memories from before I was two years old. Although I am not complaining about my physical condition—in fact I am grateful for what I can still do, I do mind how I look as I hobble along. Vanity is ageless.

My back bends as I walk, and I step slowly so as to be careful not to stumble. I can’t do nearly as much as I used to be able to do even a year ago. I don’t mean to whine; however, I do feel frustrated. Had I known this would happen would it feel any different? This is hard to tell. However, the best way to deal with the unexpected is to stay in the present moment and keep moving mindfully.

It is impossible for me to live without at least somewhat planning ahead. What’s important is first, to be flexible when things don’t go as planned and second to have confidence that the alternative outcome will be as good if not better than the original one. One example might be my frustrating recent experience of trying to return an Amazon purchase. I gave up after my attempts were obviously becoming a waste of time. Then when I looked more closely at what I planned to return, I saw that it was different than I had thought and was glad to keep it after all.

Another example might be working with my current physical condition as a new learning curve. Challenges are important to personal growth. For a good reason important to me. Nature is clear on this point: Without exception, all life as we know it, when it ceases to grow, begins to decay. Even rocks, though differently alive, will wear away with wind and time. I will stave off decay as best I can. While I cannot make much change in my physical condition, I can keep working on my mental, psychological and emotional one.

Living with less certainty and more serendipity is a delightfully engaging practice. Once I might have resisted it. Now after experiencing the results of trying to do so, I welcome it.

May you find good ways to learn and grow.

Blessings and best regards, Tasha Halpert

PS How do you feel about examples and their effect? Do you have comments or suggestions from your experience? I’d love to hear them. Write to me at tashahal@gmail.com. You can also sign up for my blog if you like at my WordPress site: http://tashasperspective.com.

Heartwings Love Notes: Once a Mom Always a Mom

Posted on May 12, 2024 by pujakins

Heartwings says, “Mothers deserve to be acknowledged every day, not just one.”

Most of the time, once you have a baby, something changes. You are now a mom, with all that entails. A tug to the heartstrings connects you to the tiny being you now hold. It is a special bond, unlike any other because it can last as long as you live, and rightly so, because it surpasses distance and circumstance. It may be stronger for some than for others, however nature has probably designed it for us so the survival of the species is assured. It seems built in.

The day to honor mothers brings out remembrances of one’s own, as well as (hopefully) acknowledgement from one’s children. Having just this morning, the day before the official one, received a call from one of mine, I am still basking in the glow from it. I know I will hear more, as I did today. My dear family is good about keeping in touch. I feel most fortunate for this.

My own dear mother is now no longer in her physical body, yet she is still in my heart and always will be. Though like most parents and children we had our differences, for a long time now all has been forgiven. As we grow older most recognize that our parents do the best they can and we have benefited from their care even though we may feel that we suffered from aspects of it. Fortunately for most of us, wisdom comes with time and experience, and with hindsight we see the past in a different light.

Mothers often try to protect their children from what they see as bad or as harmful. This is based on their own experiences or what they have been told by others. It may or may not be relevant but as mothers, all we have to go on is what we believe at the time. And times do change. Once comic books were considered a bad influence. I remember there was a lot of talk about this. Now that is no longer an issue; other warnings have taken their place. Mothers still have the same desire to protect the young.

Does this ever go away? I think not. Speaking for myself I know my children must tire of my warning them to get enough sleep or to be mindful of something or other. A mother must allow for the continuation of the mother instinct as it persists regardless of our ages. No doubt, in my opinion this proves mothering must be built in.

The main thing, to my mind is to remember not to nag one’s children or to act disapproving if they somehow manage to ignore or not to heed our advice. Equally important is not to be critical as they learn things by making mistakes. It is truly said what is most important about making mistakes is to learn from them. Knowing she did the best she could, today I bless my dear mother, and I am grateful.

May you be a loving mom even if you have no one of your own to mother.

Blessings and best regards, Tasha Halpert

PS Tell me about your mom and what she did for you. I do so enjoy hearing from my readers. Write to me at tashahal@gmail.com, or better yet, sign up for my weekly column at http://tashasperspective.com

Heartwings Love Notes 2035 The Medicine Growing in Your Lawn

Posted on May 5, 2024 by pujakins

Heartwings says, “Eating your weeds is a health benefit of gardening.”

Whether you know it or not, you are most probably mowing and removing the medicinal herbs usually found in your lawn. Readers who are familiar with my columns in previous springs will be aware of my love for dandelions, however both the herbs known as purslane and plantain are probably unfamiliar. You think of these as weeds. The people selling weed killers will assure you they are. Those weed killers are as bad for you as they are for the weeds; they poison not just weeds, but pets, children and even people.

Dandelion greens are good in salad, and the bitter taste reminds us they are good for cleansing the liver and provide good vitamins—A, B6, K, as well as minerals. They can be eaten raw or cooked, which is usually how I use them, and mix well with other green leafy vegetables like kale, spinach, and chard. I often use my food processor to combine them after I have steamed them in very little water. I add olive oil and sometimes a chopped garlic clove for added healing qualities. I often do this ahead of the meal and reheat in more olive oil. This cooks the garlic, which can be too strong for many, otherwise.

Purslane is a tasty herb used mainly in salads, though it too can be steamed. It is a low growing plant, spreading out, with thick, reddish brown stems and flat fleshy leaves. It has a bit of a tang, especially when eaten raw. To quote from a recent article a friend sent me, from the internet, “Widely regarded as a weed in many parts of the world, purslane is in fact a nutritional powerhouse, packed with essential vitamins, minerals, and other valuable compounds.” I have often found it growing on the edges rather than in the main part of the lawn.

Plantain, pronounced with the accent on the first syllable, is a broad leaved, low growing plant. The veins branch out from the center stem, not each other. It has numerous health benefits whether eaten cooked or raw. I discovered its healing properties when I used it to staunch a shallow wound—it stopped the bleeding right away and helped it heal up quicky. A friend of mine told me that he had been in the woods and hurt himself. He found plantain, used it, and was greatly helped. I once recommended it to a young woman who had a long-term diabetic ulcer on her leg. Her parents called to tell me it had healed up soon after.

I recommend exploring these herbs for yourself and learning more. They have no side effects, nor do they cost you any money. Incidentally, dandelion roots help aerate the lawn, loosening the soil. I no longer have a lawn, so I do not have access to these herbs myself and I miss them. I can however buy dandelion greens at my supermarket, for which I am grateful.

May you discover good health whether or not you garden.

Blessings and best regards, Tasha Halpert

P.S. Do you have a garden? I have in the past for most of my life, though not any more. I do have a few plants in pots, however. How about you? Write and tell me your garden tales, it’s such fun to share. Write me at tashahal@gmail.com. You can sign up on my blog to receive my Love Notes weekly as well as see past ones: https://tashasperspective.com/pujakins.

Heartwings Love Notes 2034: And God Bless the Caterpillars

Posted on April 28, 2024 by pujakins

Heartwings says, “Nature is a wonderful teacher.”

My dandelion headed five-year-old was saying his prayers. He included the caterpillars in their jars on the window sill. We had filled the jar with what we hoped was the appropriate leaves for food and twigs to climb, and each night we prayed for them. The time was 1968, and my son was one of five, active, bright, friendly, loving children.

The caterpillars munched, spun cocoons on the twigs, and were quiet. We waited in vain for butterflies to emerge. Together we concluded that caterpillars did not do well in captivity and perhaps it was better for them to go free. Lessons on many levels were learned from the experience. I don’t know whether my son remembers the caterpillars, but he is now a grown man with a strong sense of curiosity, a fine capacity for observation and a desire to do some good in the world. The eager child lives on in the man.

One day the family visited someone who had guinea pigs. Naturally the children were fascinated and the pet shop that sold us our first pair agreed to buy back progeny. I was delighted at the opportunity to give the children a first hand lesson in biology, and all went well until we elected to do a breeding experiment. Unfortunately our breeding program coincided with a glut of guinea pigs at the pet shop. My living room filled up with boxes holding a total of fifteen furry squeakers and any time the refrigerator door opened, a chorus of squeals filled the house.

In the process my oldest daughters found out first hand that one cannot always rely on original solutions but must plan for contingencies, and of course they had graphic experience in where babies come from! Now that they have their own children, they have fostered the same sense of adventure in their offspring and have carried on the same love affair with nature.

Nature is a great teacher of many things, and the care with which it is arranged has a significant message for us. We are part of the cycles of emergence, growth, and return to the whole. We circulate life energy the way a tree does. Once we believed we were in charge but this conviction is eroding with our recognition of the results of that belief. Our attunement to the part we play in the natural order of life seems to me to be more important than ever to our growth as healthy, positive human beings.

Parenting seems best learned by experience. Children are resilient, and with goodwill and good luck most of us will succeed in raising well-adjusted children. Doing what we most enjoy with our youngsters often results in happiness for all, but observing and participating in the processes of nature can easily and quickly return us to the joys of childhood as well as bring us pleasure in the present.

Looking together at snowflake crystals, searching for seashells, tenderly weeding small gardens—the days of my companionship with my children are cherished memories. I learned as much from them as they did from me. Too, nature is a great teacher and I am grateful to her for the lessons I learned as well as the beauty I have seen and enjoyed. I am proud, too, of my children for their positive attitudes and approaches to life, often learned at Mother Nature’s knee. And I say with my son, God bless the caterpillars, God bless them all.

May you find your pleasure in nature’s bounty.

Blessings and best regards, Tasha Halpert

PS Thanks for reading this. Please write to me and share your experiences of joy and happiness. I so do like hearing from readers. Email me by hitting reply or by writing me at tashahal@gmail.com. My blog on WordPress to sign up for my weekly writing is https://tashasperspective.com/Pujakins.

Heartwings Love Notes 2033 Beauty Everywhere I Look

Posted on April 21, 2024 by pujakins

Heartwings says, “It is well to appreciate whatever beauty appears as it does.”

Every day now when I open my bedroom curtains, I see the advance of spring. It is a grand treat to watch the advance of the season. The buds on the trees near my back porch are all in different stages of development. When I go for my exercise walks there, I observe the small, delicate baby leaves day by day as they unfurl from the originally tightly closed buds. They are visible on a bush growing close to one end of the porch. From the other end, there is a wondrous row of tall trees in various stages of unfolding.

When I am at my desk in the front of our apartment, I can see that the trees outside on the street where I live are now growing green. Only days before they bore only bare branches. Every spring I am reminded of how I would see the maple trees outside the windows of the high school I attended in Boston, grow green and leaf out as they expanded with the warming days. Then I would travel back home on the train, to where the buds on the branches of the trees around our house were still tightly closed, marveling at the difference.

Spring beauty is all pastel budding trees and flowering trees and bushes. Wherever I drive I first see the brilliant forsythia as it begins the floral procession, providing a special kind of sunshine on a cloudy day. That is followed by the abundant blossoms of the magnolia trees that burgeon in the yards and by the roadsides. Every spring I have to struggle to keep my eyes on the road as I drive.

Traveling the highway is another special treat, though mostly in the past for me. Most of my driving these days is local, and only in the daytime. Still, I do feel fortunate to be able to watch the development of the season as it moves across the land, even if it is from my window. One of the special things about New England is the wonderful and dramatic change that comes with each season. I even like the storms, as long as I can stay in and watch them from inside my home.

Summer heat and humidity will be along soon enough. It sounds like heresy to say it, yet I must admit it is my least favorite season. I tend to feel listless and uncomfortable in the summer, and I am very grateful for our air conditioner, as is Stephen. I am always happy when fall, my favorite season, arrives and starts to transform the landscape. My appetite picks up as does my energy. In spring that starts to dwindle and it almost vanishes in the summer.

Still, that is to come, and for now it is time to enjoy what this season has to offer. I am grateful that I can appreciate the loveliness everywhere I look.

May you find beauty to see wherever you are.

Blessings and best regards, Tasha Halpert

P.S. What do you find that gives you joy in the seasons? Please do share with me either here or at tashahal@gmail.com. I so enjoy hearing from readers. You can also read this and past Love Notes on my Facebook page and my blog, https://tashasperspective.com/Pujakins

Heartwings Love Notes 2032 Learn by Doing it Wrong

Posted on April 14, 2024 by pujakins

Heartwings says, “If the cook enjoys the cooking, the food often tastes better.”

As any of my long-time readers know, I had to teach myself to cook. My mother didn’t like to and didn’t really want me in the kitchen. She lacked the patience to teach me and was usually too busy with my three younger siblings to have the time to do much besides put simple meals on the table. She hadn’t learned to cook from her mother, having grown up with a father in the diplomatic service, so that servants were a necessity.

As a new bride, with cookbook in hand, I set out to feed my new husband. I made some simple mistakes, and soon learned from them. Some of them were good learning experiences. One of my first was the belief that we ought to have meat at least twice a day, at both lunch and dinner. My husband’s ROTC salary was small and had to cover all our living expenses, so we ate a lot of the cheapest meat I could find, which was hot dogs.

We ate a lot of them, boiled, as my mother had cooked them. Fortunately, my new husband was fine with that, and as we were only eighteen and twenty, we did just fine on our simple diet. Our new baby daughter ate along with us. To save money, I began experimenting and soon learned to make casseroles. Our family grew and so did my range of expertise. My husband preferred simple meat and potatoes meals. My two little girls liked casseroles, and that was encouraging. My sons imitated their father. However, I instituted a “three bite” rule. They learned not to automatically reject what I served.

Baking came later. I spent a long time learning to make good muffins. The mixes available were not very good, and frankly, I’ve never wanted to use a mix if I could use my own ingredients. My early muffins suffered from my attempts at baking cakes. Lots of beating is the standard for good cakes. Quite the contrary for muffins. After many batches of non-rising, tough, though edible muffins, I finally found this out.

As the years have gone by, I have also had other important lessons. For instance, there is a type of pie pan made with holes in the bottom that is meant only for baking the crust of a pie to be filled after it has been baked. I learned this when as I was sitting with my dinner guests, the blueberry pie filling I had put into the unbaked pie shell began dripping onto the floor of the oven. This was a shock. Fortunately, my guests were understanding.

Cooking is both a science and an art. Even as a child, I enjoyed it, though I am the only one in my birth family to do so. Once, I contemplated making a mud pie cookbook. As an adult I wrote two simple cookbooks: one for cookies, one when we became sugar free and vegetarian.

May you enjoy your adventures with food.”

Blessings and best regards, Tasha Halpert

P.S. Do you have recipes or cooking adventures to share? Please do let me know what you know, I so enjoy hearing from readers. Please write me by hitting reply. Sign up at my blog for more at https://tashasperspective.com/Pujakins.