Today is Mother’s Day in the U.S. and quite a few other countries, so I feel like I should put up a nice, light post. A photo of flowers would seem to be just the thing, or perhaps birds, but I am, unsurprisingly, at my mother’s and I have left the cord to connect my camera to my laptop at my place. As I mentioned the other day, we’ve been on a diet and exercise kick, so I just thought that maybe I’d report how that is going.

So, now we’ve exercised regularly for about two weeks and I’ve made most of the meals we’ve eaten for about one week. Part of the reason we started with this is because I realized that my mother seems to not know what’s in the food she eats. This became evident the other day when she suggested we have avocados as a snack. I said, “Let’s share one.” It turned out that she didn’t know that avocados are high in calories. She said, “I thought they were healthy.” This is a great example of the confusion between healthy and thin. I don’t think it is useful to talk about “good foods” and “bad foods” the way many people, including my mother, do. Avocados are certainly not “unhealthy”, however, they are high in calories.

Other things we’ve eaten lately:

Crab Salad Louis – This is one of my favorite meals. It’s something of an old-fashioned dish, and I don’t understand why it isn’t eaten more often. It’s a nice change of pace if you eat a lot of things like Salade Niçoise. I have a cookbook with a version of the Louis dressing which isn’t made with mayonnaise and is the version I prefer. It’s white wine vinegar or lemon juice, a small amount of chili sauce, mustard powder, salt and pepper, chives, olive oil and whatever other herbs you like. Obviously, if you’re on a reduction diet, go easy on the dressing.

As I mentioned the other day, I made Fish Veracruz style.

We had leftover crabmeat from the Louis Salad, so I made a recipe I got off of the internet. A boyfriend I had used to like making zucchini by taking a vegetable peeler and slicing off thin strips until there was no more zucchini left. I made strips of carrot the same way. I skipped the linguine mentioned in the recipe. I tossed the zucchini and carrots with lime juice, because I already had that in the ‘fridge. I blended that with the crab meat, parsley, basil cut into strips, and pepper. I skipped the salt. I forgot the pine nuts just because I’m forgetful, but they would probably be good. I had a little leftover Louis dressing, so I threw in a couple of tablespoons of that instead of the olive oil. Tossed everything to blend it. After putting it on the plate, I topped it with the grated cheese. It was pretty good. My mother said it would make a good buffet dish.

I also made a somewhat boring saute with diced chicken and some vegetables seasoned with some rosemary and lemon. That’s a typical meal for me when I’m at home alone because it’s quick and I only dirty one pan.

As I think is pretty self-evident, there’s no  special “diet” food. However, my mother is complaining about the expense, so I’ll have to look for more budget items in the future.

As far as exercising goes, I’ve mainly had my mother do gentle stretching exercises. She’s in her seventies, and has arthritis, so we’re not doing anything too extreme. We’ve gone to the gym and while I work out with weights she pedals the bicycle slowly.

Oh, yes, and her computer is up and running and she’s pretty happy with it. She still can’t read my blog, though, because she’s a former English teacher and I don’t want her to know about all the grammar mistakes I make. Ah, in my late forties and still afraid of my mother scolding me.