food | Lessons from my daughter

Tonight I deserved some of my favorite food!

I try not to complain about my many aches.

My body hurts, all the time but not enough to stop me from moving along and finding my happiness.

For my 40th year (this year) I decided to start taking care of myself…

The physio helped my lower back than I went to a massage therapist for my arm and when my massage therapist said she wanted a chiropractor to have a look, I followed her recommendation.

I have visited the chiropractor 3 times this week. Monday, I came out of there with my left side from my ankles, to my fingers, to my ear and my head hurting. I was exhausted.

On Wednesday, I was tired but managed to get some work done after my 2nd appointment

This morning I woke up with a headache but went back this afternoon for more.

I think it’s working… I am not as tired and although my head and ear still hurts, the rest of my body is feeling different. Not necessarily better but definitely different.

So why my title?

After 3 visits at the chiropractor, tonight, I deserved some of my favorite food.

So tonight, we ate grapes

And a baguette, some of it sliced and some of it diced 🙂

Dipping oils. I don’t believe Emily ever dipped bread in oil or vinegar before but she gave it a try tonight. I love this about Emily. This little girl who wasn’t supposed to be able to learn to chew and swallow food on her own due to her cri du chat syndrome, eats a more diversified diet than most kids her age.

Emily will try anything and loved almost everything.

Tonight, her favorite was olive oil infused with white truffle 🙂 Quite a strong flavor, trust me!

I prepared some cheese (Boursin, Brie, Gruyere, old cheddar and marble cheddar) and veggies than made Emily’s favorite dip.

Many of my favorites 🙂

But a food fest wouldn’t be complete without an Angel food cake. Tonight, I didn’t want to bake it so I bought it already made and got some strawberries and whipped cream.

At this point, I got my secret ingredient out. The home made strawberry jam that my little brother’s mother in law made this summer….

Yummy!

And now to grab spoons and dig in!

What about you? What is your feel better meal?

Up until Emily’s year in first grade, we didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving.

Not because we didn’t want to but because I was born and raised in Quebec. We didn’t celebrate The “Action de Grace” the way Emily wanted to celebrate Thanksgiving.

Fall 2006…

Now that Emily’s teacher taught her all about Thanksgiving.. we found ourselves in an interesting spot… a couple of days before the actual holiday.

We had to invite family and cook some really specific food as per what Emily told me. I had to google some recipes.

Because Emily could tell us, using her words, we certainly obliged.

Lucky for us, we now had family near by.

We invited, Barb & Greg

And Jonathan’s parents

We moved the table in the living and set-up the buffet in the kitchen

I bought everything in the colors that Emily said we needed

I thought the table looked amazing but Emily had something else in mind

Even when she was only 8, she had lots of imagination 🙂 I have always loved that about her.

Before dinner, she made us go around the table and tell what we were thankful for.

So although today is not Thanksgiving, I am thankful for fall being around the corner and for my in-laws and family members living near by.

Above are 2 pictures that really shows the relationship between Emily and her grandfather. You can feel the affection they had for each other. We still miss him deeply and if you have a couple more minutes, I invite you to read how Emily decided to remember her “papie” here!