Since I’m no longer a stay-at-home mom who can have the smell of fresh-baked cookies wafting through the house when the kids come through the door from school, I now have to plan ahead every morsel of food that they eat. Making my teenaged girls healthy snacks, in particular, takes some creativity. Besides, they’re old enough to manage their own.

But if I left my youngest in charge of her diet, she’d be in the hospital from malnutrition.

Baby girl hates to eat just about anything healthy. Her preference is to eat fried chicken and pasta every day. Snacks are the worst to plan for her because she hates fruit and is some-timey about salads. Don’t even talk about getting her to eat vegetables. The best way to get her to eat anything green is to hide it in pasta. She does like applesauce, though. But I’m always hesitant to buy it packaged because so much pre-packaged food includes sugar and preservatives.

Determined to help her expand her mind about food, I decided to introduce her to my applesauce, which is much different than store brands.

I also tricked her and added pears in an effort to get her to eat other fruits. Applesauce is simple to make, and she loves it next to cinnamon toast, which she can make herself.

Not Your Grandmother’s Applesauce (Serves

 Ingredients:

12 mixed apples:

3 Gala

3 Granny Smith

2 Red Delicious

4 Macintosh

5 Pears (mixed)

2 tablespoons honey

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon nutmeg

1 tablespoon apple cider

Directions:

Skin and core apples and pears. Cut into halves and poach covered until soft. Blend with seasonings and cider. Serve warm with buttered toast.

Garnish with: black walnuts, shredded coconut, and/or currants

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So, when I compare our circumstances to those of our ancestors, I realize that beating this unbelievable heat wave in this day and age should be a snap for most of us. I dislike intense, suffocating heat just as much as the next person, but when I think of them, my whining subsides immediately! Imagine what it must have been like to work in hot southern fields picking cotton, tobacco or vegetables, or cooking in hot kitchens while being malnourished, mistreated and most likely very thirsty.

We’re at least two generations past slavery, but circumstances are still really tough for some folks. And just in case you aren’t fortunate enough to have air conditioning throughout your house (or any at all), here are some tips that folks used  just a generation ago on hot summer days.

My mom says that she would visit my great Aunt Louise at her house in North Philadelphia back in the 1940s. There was no air conditioning and most likely only one fan in the house. 

“There were just the two of us ladies, so we often walked around in cotton slips (remember slips?) all over the house,” my mom tells me. Aunt Louise, who made a twice-daily ritual of opening and closing her blinds and curtains, would always keep them closed in the summer to keep the sunlight out. And there was always a fresh pitcher of fresh squeezed lemonade to quench their thirst.

One of the best things we can do for ourselves in the heat is drink water, water, water. Infuse the water with any type of citrus (lemons, grapefruit, oranges or limes), because they are all loaded with vitamin C.

So keep an abundance of citrus fruits around to  squeeze in the water. Citrus drinks are always worthy hot or cold, but on sweltering 100-degree days like we’ve been having for the past few weeks, a nice cool citrus drink is  essential.

For that one special drink, the following will tickle your fancy.

Burst of sunshine blender drink

Blend the following on high for five minutes in a very large blender:

1 quart of orange juice with some pulp

1 cup vanilla yogurt

1 cup fresh blueberries

1 cup fresh strawberries, raspberries or blackberries (or a mixture)

2 ripe bananas

1/2 cup ice

Garnish with sprigs of fresh peppermint.

Related posts:

1. Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink ?
2. When life gives you lemons …
3. Refreshing lemonade on a hot summer day

On another front, Philadelphia’s Mayor Nutter is making sure that neighborhood pools open up on time. Last summer, the mayor threatened to shut down more than half of the city’s 72 swimming pools and scale back library hours because of budget woes.  Philadelphians were outraged,  and Mayor Nutter and Recreation Commissioner Sue  Slawson responded by launching the Splash and Summer Fund campaign, a corporate and community fund raising partnership designed to keep 69 of the city’s swimming pools opened this season. According to the Recreation Department’s website, there are also plenty of other interesting activities to keep our children engaged, including summer camps and outdoor activities, free or for nominal fees. That’s a very good thing, because on a national scale young people face tougher challenges than they have in decades.

The 2010 Child Well-Being Index recently released by the Foundation for Child Development, reports especially troubling news for parents on the lower economic spectrum and paints a grim picture for this generation of children. In short, the report says poverty, obesity and violence will affect this generation with numerous social and health challenges, wiping out all of the social progress made on behalf of children since 1975.

The Recreation Department’s website lists 150 free recreational activities, ranging from chess tournaments to concerts. But there’s nothing better than a spark of imagination in our homes to compliment those programs. I refuse to tolerate the words “I’m bored” from my two teenagers, so I’ve been web surfing to find simple, low costs things for them to do. Here are some of their projects.

In  Facebook, I  found one of the best safe driving campaign slogans I’ve ever seen. No matter what your religious beliefs, this one drives home a serious point. It reads,  “Honk if you love Jesus. Text while driving if you want to meet him.” I’ve challenged my children to create a safety campaign equal to or better than this one.

Scrapbooking is a fun, creative way to get children to document their activities.

Also found on Facebook : Camp CAYA sponsored by Karima “Life Coach K” Roepel. It’s a self-esteem building workshop for teen girls that helps them create their own personal Dream Boards, also known as Vision Boards. If you find Roepel’s class is full, encourage your girls to create their own dream boards. Kids love to dream and getting them to create a vision board gets them thinking about and preparing for their future.

Most public high schools have summer reading lists. Go a step further and choose a book for the entire family to encourage healthy discussions around the dinner table.

Philabundance  is launching the Sharing Your Garden project that encourages people to plant an extra row of vegetables to share. Kids love to watch things grow. Even just a pot on the windowsill can house vegetables to put on the table and to share with neighbors. Since obesity is such a big problem, we can keep our kids interested in helping with family meals by getting them into growing our own healthy food.

These activities encourage communication with our children, which also helps us parents to keep better tabs on their whereabouts.

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My Pesto Pasta is really simple to make, and it’s a real filler for vegetarians. When I’m making a small amount,  and don’t feel like hauling out the food processor to make fresh pesto, I buy a good brand of pesto sauce from Weavers’ Way Co-op, which recently opened up a third state-of-the-art market near me.  (Photo above shows fresh basil and baby spinach from photographer satakiele.)

Pesto is basically made from garlic, fresh basil, olive oil, parmesan cheese and pine nuts, and blended in the food processor. Pesto can be used on any type of pasta, but I also like to serve it with rice, chicken or slices of mozzarella cheese with vine-ripe tomato slices.

Bowtie Pasta with Pesto for 6

Ingredients

One bag of bowtie pasta cooked al dente (slightly firm)

½ cup of fresh pesto sauce

2 cups baby spinach

1 cup grape tomatoes, washed and halved

½ cup shaved parmesan cheese

6 cups of boiling water

Directions

Bring water to a rapid boil and cook pasta for 6-8 minutes (until al dente).

Turn off heat and add spinach to wilt it.

Drain pasta while it’s still hot, and add pesto and tomatoes.

Garnish with parmesan cheese.

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This peppermint  will take over my yard if I let it
but it’s great for making iced tea.

I don’t normally buy too much meat for my family, especially in the summer. We eat a mostly vegetarian diet with a little bit of flesh thrown in. I always buy my chicken from the farmer’s market because the animals are raised on local farms where they receive more humane treatment. Chickens fed on the ground are much healthier than those from commercial farmers because they are nourished outside and in the sunlight rather than being fed  from a feeder in a factory with thousands of others. Plus, factory-grown animals are always shot up with hormones to make them grow abnormally faster.

Also at the farmer’s market, the butcher is willing to custom-pound the meat, which helps to tenderize it before you cook it.

In the summer, I prefer mostly fish, and am starting to eat less and less of it - especially in light of the Gulf oil spill (and who knows how far that will travel).  I’m moving away from seafood as well. Farm-raised seafood, although it might not have the same pollutants found in the ocean, have  other problems such as bacteria. Plus farm-raised fish just isn’t authentic enough for my tastebuds and it doesn’t really taste enough like the ocean.

Which brings me to this: I love vegetables, especially in the springtime. There’s nothing better than a stir-fried or steamed medley of fresh veggies. I love buying my vegetables from the co-op or from local farmer’s markets for pretty much the same reason as for meat. They are much fresher and organic, and those farmers don’t use chemically laced pesticides. In fact, some vegetables are so fresh they still have dirt on their roots.

Every summer I try to grow a few more herbs. Last year I started with peppermint and rosemary, which are both great for seasoning many foods. Peppermint is a weed and it has taken over my garden. This year I added lemongrass and I’m also trying to grow tomatoes. With a small yard I can’t grow too much. But many people are turning their roofs  into roof-top vegetable gardens. I’m not there yet , but still I find that concept fascinating.

I’m at the beginning of growing tomatoes and the experts say I should grow something for them to climb up. Any suggestions?

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Ask anyone who has southern roots what they used to drink on a hot summer day and they’ll most likely tell you a tall glass of ice cold lemonade. It quenches the thirst like no other drink on the planet, and it has many health benefits as well.

What I love most about lemonade is that you can drink it hot or cold, and blend it with many other fruits, like strawberries, blueberries, peaches or oranges. It’s delicious, helps to cleanse the palate and is great for our insides, too. It’s also my favorite drink, with or without …

Lemons can also be used medicinally to treat many ailments, like colds and infections. And they can be utilized as a natural disinfectant or a deodorizer on the body and in the house.

The other day, I ran out of hand soap and had garlic on my hands. I wanted to get rid of the smell fast to take a letter from the postman. I remembered my grandmothers telling me to use fresh lemon juice to get rid of the garlic smell, and it worked like magic.

Another drink I make is ginger tea, which is good for upset stomachs. Whenever my children have upset stomachs, I make them tea from fresh ginger root. I also use it to enhance my voice if I’m broadcasting on the radio or I mix it with Turbinado sugar, shea butter and olive oil as a foot scrub (but that’s another blog). The only time I didn’t use ginger was during my pregnancies (those days are long past), because it can be dangerous to the mother.

But both ginger and peppermint can also be used as natural remedies both internally and externally.

So in the midst of a heat wave,  a cold glass of natural lemonade is both soothing and refreshing. Just imagine how wonderful it tastes with both ginger and fresh peppermint.

Fatimah’s Peppermint-Ginger-Lemonade

Ingredients:

1 handful of fresh peppermint leaves washed and pulled from the stems

1/3 cup of ginger root, skinned and sliced lengthwise

Juice from 8 lemons (no seeds)

1 cup boiling hot spring or filtered water

½ gallon of cold spring or filtered water

2 cups of ice

½  cup of  raw honey or Turbninado sugar (or more to taste)

Directions:

Dissolve honey or sugar in hot water, add the ginger and boil for one minute.

Allow mixture to cool. Mix with lemon juice, cold water and peppermint.

Pour in tall glasses over ice. Garnish with peppermint leaves.

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That just goes to show you how  naive my upbringing had left me. I’d never even considered the need to research the history of refrigeration until now, because when I was a child, my mother’s kitchen always had modern appliances.

Although I’d certainly heard about the ice man from all three of grandmothers, I’d never actually seen or needed one because we had never owned an old-fashioned ice box.

So, where was an ice man when I needed one last week? He no longer exists in America, of course.

Will Smith Sr., by the way, stopped delivering ice several decades ago. When I interviewed him on my former radio show called “The Real Deal” ( heard on WHAT 1340-AM in Philadelphia back when it aired talk), we talked about his record company and not his ice truck, which he’d long ago put to final rest. But it was fun hearing his stories and learning about the father who had raised mega-super star Will “the rapper/actor” Smith.

But back to my story from last week.

I had just spent about $300 on food for my daughter’s college graduation party, and a lot of it required refrigeration - chicken wings, salmon, lamb, assorted cheeses, eggs and humus. I’d been planning the menu for months, and wanted to prepare most of the food the night before so that  I could enjoy her guests and not be sequestered in the kitchen during the party. And just as I was about to begin prepping the food, my refrigerator died.

All of a sudden, a pool of water was leaking down from the freezer, and it was 10  o’clock at night. We couldn’t call anyone to fix it, and we certainly couldn’t call any friends that late. So, we dug around the basement and pulled out the summer coolers, and my mate went to the store and bought 50 pounds of ice to protect the food. That carried us through the night and the next day. I had to work around three ice chests plopped on the dining room floor. We had to keep buying  ice all through the party. I spent the entire celebration cooking, after all, but it was well worth the effort.

Our daughter was happy, and thankfully no one got food poisoning. Me? I’m still exhausted but thrilled that we were able to figure our way out of that mess and yes, we called the repairman the next day.

And thank GOD he was able to fix the refrigerator that we own because the cost for a new subzero one starts at around $1,500.

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For me, both occasions will be a mixture of joy and sadness because while I love every minute of watching my children grow up, I also miss the days when they were really small, especially since it means they are moving further away from me.

Letting children go is hard, and the occasion is also bittersweet for me: my elder daughter is the first of my five children to graduate from college.

With five kids, three still in the house, this daughter has never had it easy trying to secure her education, and she tells me that getting it was harder than I could have ever imagined. Even though she paid for most of it herself, her education was always a family affair because for four years we all helped her in one way or another. So this week we celebrate not only her, but the fact that we all worked together to help her get through.

And  that sounds like a great reason to have a feast ! Although we’ll have a full-blown celebration for her at a later date, on the day she graduates we’ll have a small reception for her at home with immediate family, her close friends and lots of comfort foods. My daughter wants an eclectic menu with a Southern/Mediterranean flair. My shish kabobs aren’t traditional, since I don’t have a grill and my oven is broken, so I cook the meat,  onions, carrots, mushrooms and peppers  and then spear them onto the sticks and serve with dipping sauces on the side.

Dij’s Delights

Assorted fruit, red grapes and cheese platter

Bread, breadsticks and crackers

Crudités with hummus

Chips with salsa and guacamole

Angel-stuffed eggs

Barbecued lamb or chicken shish kabobs

Grilled salmon

Couscous with yellow raisins, scallions and dates

Pasta salad

Arugula with beets and shaved parmesan in a vinagrette dressing

Strawberry/peppermint lemonade

Cake with fruit compote and chocolate sauce

Teriyaki/ barbecued lamb kabobs

Ingredients

2 dozen wooden shish kabob spears

2 lbs boneless leg of lamb, cut into 1  ½ -inch cubes, marinated and dredged in flour

¼ cup virgin olive oil

1 clove finely minced garlic

Salt, pepper, onion powder, Sazon to taste

2 lbs medium button mushrooms

1 lb baby carrots

1 lb small heirloom tomatoes

Four yellow and red peppers, quartered X 2

Directions

Brown lamb with 1/2 of the oil on high heat for 7 minutes. Add garlic when nearly done and  turn on all sides, then set aside.

In separate pan, heat olive oil and  sauté  vegetables until they are just past crunchy.

When ingredients are cool enough to handle, put them on the sticks.

Serve near couscous with your favorite dipping sauces.

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These days, my 13-year-old daughter hates taking my carefully made lunches with her to school. The bigger problem is that she also hates the school lunches, which are so horrible. I wouldn’t feed them to my dog. Every once in awhile we let her get those prepackaged “pizza lunchables,” but again they are very unhealthy.

It wasn’t always this way, and I finally figured out that she hates our lunches because she’s at the age that she gets embarrassed eating sandwiches in front of boys. (Go figure). She prefers snack-type foods. But there’s just no way that I’m going to pack her a lunch of chips and pretzels, which are rarely found in my house in the first place. And she’s trying her best to rebel against our healthy regime. So now, I’m looking to other cultures for some inspiration.

One of my favorite restaurants is a Japanese one that offers ”Bento Boxes,” a combination of small portions of different foods. They do a $9 special for lunch. It’s a diverse menu that includes sushi, salad, fish, rice and Miso soup, all in individual tiny portions. The meal is perfectly balanced and beautifully presented, and I’m always well satisfied after eating one. This photo of a Bento-Box meal posted by Lorenia looks divine.

You can purchase the boxes themselves from $11-$350 online, and they come in various sizes and shapes. They can be made from lacquer, plastic or metal, or you can make your own using small containers, which is my preference.

Pack them with traditional Japanese food or make up your own combinations with veggie slices, dips and dressings, fruits or cheese, or leftovers from the night before. Your kids can help choose the menu. They can be diverse as you want them to be and most important, the children won’t get bored. They’ll be the envy of all of their friends.

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No sooner did I tell the universe last fall that I wanted to cook and needed dishes for my personal chef-catering business when Sherry, co-owner of weareblackwomen.com, gave me beautiful china and linens (one of her auction finds) for my first food gig.

Well, I received another unexpected windfall recently. My “cousin” Sis died suddenly and I inherited almost all of her belongings, simply because her son wanted them to go to someone who would treasure them. And that would be me.

What better gift to a kitchen buff than a crystal cake plate, four sets of dessert china or an assortment of crystal vases that I can barely lift? They are all beautiful things that Sis inherited from her parents, “Mom and Pop” Connors. Pop was a caterer and my dad worked for him while he was in college. Growing up, we’d make pop calls to the Connors’  house on Sundays after church. Mom Connors baked and always had on an apron.

I also distinctly remember a chocolate cake always sitting on her dining room table whenever we dropped in for a visit.

Growing up, my sisters and I would always give our own mother aprons for Mother’s Day, and before my windfall, I’d recently asked my children to do the same for me. I love aprons, and historically they’ve been used in many professions.

Inheriting Mom and Sis Connors’ aprons reminded me of how on every Mother’s Day I’m grateful to have my own mom around. I realize that Mom is getting up there in age and our times together are precious, so I don’t take one moment of our chats for granted. Just this morning, Mom called me all excited because my paternal grandmother, whom I refer to frequently in this blog as Muddie, had come to her in a dream. Mom said that Muddie told her how happy she was that I was catering, which for me indicates a big nod of approval from my ancestors. I always feel their presence when they approve of what I’m doing, which has happened countless times with Healthy Southern Comforts.

Oddly enough, about two weeks ago I had complained about never being able to find a clean apron when I needed one.

Now, thanks to Momma Sis, I have two dozen aprons, all hand-made and all very special.

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