Broccoli is the beneficial harvest of March

Simply Living

(First appeared in Orlando Sentinel March 29, 2010)

Think of harvest time and autumn comes to mind. But if you live in Florida, and if you grow broccoli, March can also be a bountiful month.

In our family, broccoli dominates. We devour green florets with the voracious appetite others reserve for sweet treats, salty foods or chunks of red meat. Seldom does a day go by without one or more servings of broccoli on the menu. Light steaming is our most common method of cooking, but the green tops also find their way into stir-fries, roasted vegetable concoctions, quiches, soufflés and sandwiches.

When broccoli is not growing in the garden, we buy it at the store, but fresh-picked vegetables are more flavorful than anything found in the produce aisle. Fresh-picked, however, is not always available. We planted our current harvest from seeds sown in early January. Broccoli is one of many edibles that do best when planted successively. Seeds can be sown every week from mid-August through early March. Follow that schedule and you will have broccoli ready to pick from early October through May. That's eight months of healthful eating. It's a wonderful plan if you can manage to follow it. Unfortunately, we never have.

Most years, we get off to a good start. We think about planting in August when the weather is too hot for anything other than thinking. Sometimes, like this year, we actually go a step beyond the thought process and plant seeds in the fertile ground. The problem is, we don't continue. One planting, maybe two, and our momentum is lost. Seeds germinate. Young plants develop. Flower heads form. But instead of putting more seeds into the ground as we know we should, we become sidetracked with other projects. We often don't put in another planting until several months later — as we did this year — when we realize we've fallen behind.

A member of the Brassicacae family, broccoli shares its heritage with such "love them or hate them" vegetables as cabbage, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, kale, collards, kohlrabi and horseradish. When cooked, broccoli emits a strong sulfuric odor, a smell strong enough to discourage many people before the first bite. And that first bite can be disappointing. Too often broccoli is overcooked, mushy and dark green instead of being fork-tender, crisp and brightly colored. A light steaming is all that's needed to provide nutritious eating. Broccoli is an excellent source of vitamin C and minerals such as potassium, calcium, magnesium, iron, zinc and copper. Research has shown that broccoli also contains several important cancer-prevention elements.

I'm sure that the plant's potential health benefits influence our family's eating habits. But even if broccoli wasn't a nutrition powerhouse, we'd still be growing and eating it. We eat broccoli because we like the way it tastes, and we have it in our garden because it is such an easy, productive plant to grow. A single mature broccoli plant requires about two square feet of space and takes about 60 days to go from transplant to cooking pot.

Although broccoli leaves and stems are also edible, the portion of the plant most commonly consumed is the flower head, which forms — quite beautifully — in the center of the leafy surround. Once the flower head has reached an acceptably large size, it is "beheaded" and eaten. But that's not the end of the plant's life. Small side shoots soon appear, extending the plant's productivity for several more weeks. A single round seed or a young transplant purchased at the garden center provides months of edible goodness.

I wonder if we'll ever manage to plant our favorite vegetable at successive intervals. Ever the optimist, I'm hopeful we will, but even if we don't, I won't despair. It's hard to feel disappointed when you can walk out your front door at the end of March and return moments later with an armful of nutrient-rich veggies. Autumn may still be months away, but I have no reason to wait for September. I'm cooking up a batch of fresh broccoli for dinner and celebrating harvest time today.

Vintage baby gear stands test of time

Simply Living

(First appeared in Orlando Sentinel March 22, 2010)

Shhh! My eight-month-old grandson is asleep in the Gerry Pack.

I love the Gerry Pack, an ingeniously designed baby carrier for kids up to 40 pounds. Ralph and I depended on the lightweight, aluminum-frame backpack when our four children were little. Now, as grandparents, we find ourselves depending upon it again.

Thirty years may have flown by since we first slipped Atom's mother, our oldest child, into the carrier's padded pouch, but the backpack works just as well now as it ever did at soothing fussy babies, lulling overtired toddlers to sleep and providing alert little ones with a secure and cozy perspective from which to observe the world.

The beauty of the backpack's design is that while the contented tot is toted about, the grownup upon whose back he is being carried is granted a rare and precious gift — hands-free mobility. When I use the Gerry Pack, my fingers are free to dance upon the keyboard, stir food on the stove, pick toys up off the floor or push the vacuum around the room. I realized shortly after our grandchild was born that while many things change over the years, certain pieces of essential child-rearing equipment remain constant.

Consider the table at which Atom sits when he visits. My husband first used the simple wooden table with adjustable seat, movable tray and wheeled legs when he was a baby. My mother-in-law, who recently passed away, not only saved much of the child-rearing equipment she used for her own three children, she somehow managed to keep everything in excellent condition. She gave us the table when our kids were babies, and it was in constant use from 1979 until the mid-1990s.

Recently, Ralph reclaimed it from the attic and cleaned it up so that when Atom visits, we have a comfortable, practical place for him to sit while eating.

During those visits, Atom plays with some of the many wooden toys his great-grandmother passed down to us. The same colorful playthings that entertained my husband and our children are now working their wonder on a third generation's inquisitive mind. Stackable wooden blocks that fit over a dowel have an ageless quality.

Atom is still more interested in eating books than reading them, but one day he'll realize how much pleasure is contained between the covers of books. When that day comes, I'll be ready with dozens of well-worn classics. I look forward to taking out the Harold and the Purple Crayon series, sharing with Atom the story of Ferdinand the Bull and introducing him to Robert McCloskey's Blueberries for Sal and Make Way for Ducklings. So many books now gathering dust on our bookshelves will soon provide Atom with portals into new and fascinating worlds.

Grandparenting may be a new phase in my life, but it came preloaded with memories and familiarities. When my grandson sits on the floor and plays with a basket of bottle lids, I remember his mother doing the same thing when she was a baby. When Atom is tired and nods off in the Gerry Pack, I flash back upon an earlier period of my life. I may not be able to carry a baby's weight for as long as I remember doing when I was in my 30s, but I can still support and soothe a fretful child.

Child-rearing trends come and go, but certain things never change. A child's need to be held will never stop, and expensive playthings will forever be tossed aside in favor of everyday objects. Toys may become fancier and more mechanically advanced, but that doesn't make them better. Wooden blocks and household items have an enduring quality that trumps technology And when it comes to books, well, as amazing as computers are, nothing can take the place of an illustrated hardback.

Right now my grandson is asleep in the Gerry Pack, but soon he'll awaken. When he does, my husband and I will be there to attend to his needs. The years may have taken a toll on my endurance, but my ability to love is as strong as ever. Love is another quality that doesn't diminish over time. It just grows stronger.

This red wagon is for the birds

Simply Living

(First appeared in Orlando Sentinel March 14, 2010)

The birds are enjoying their newest feeding station — an old Radio Flyer wagon filled with birdseed. My children used the wagon when they were little, but that was a long time ago. Since then it has been in the junk pile, exposed to all the abuse that wind and rain can muster.

The old wagon is a sorry-looking thing. Its color has faded, and rust has pockmarked the handle, hubs and bed. Although its wheels still turn, the wagon's swift-moving days are gone forever.

When I rescued the abandoned toy from the junk pile, my intention was to use it as a planter, but that was before winter temperatures plunged into the teens and my wildlife concerns skyrocketed. I fretted over the birds – the cardinals, goldfinches, doves and occasional jays that frequent the feeders. I wanted to give them more food to help them along during the coldest months.

The wagon was my solution. Its long, flat, edged bed holds quantities of birdseed. An old piece of screening laid over the bed prevents smaller seeds from disappearing through the corroded metal, and the wagon's flat surface enables many birds to feed simultaneously.

Rarely does an hour go by without some birds or squirrels approaching the feeder. Squirrels love the easy access I've provided to a seed-based smorgasbord, and while I'd rather feed birds than supplement the diet of hungry rodents, I accept the fact that squirrels are an inevitable component of all bird-feeding operations.

The mix I use is millet, flax, sunflower seeds, safflower seeds, corn and thistle. Pretty little goldfinches come for the tiny thistle seeds while cardinals prefer the plumper sunflower seeds. Because the wagon's bed is roomy, even ground-feeding birds such as doves are willing to make use of my improvised feeder.

The converted Radio Flyer is the latest in a series of feeders made from reclaimed material. Over the years I have fed my feathered friends out of recycled milk cartons (both the plastic and boxy, wax-coated types), empty tofu containers, shallow cake pans, the hollowed-out shells of coconuts and half-round pieces of bamboo. It doesn't take much inventiveness to fashion an effective feeding station from items found around the home and yard.

I love finding new purposes for old items. There is so much stuff sitting in the back of closets and cabinets, filling up garages and overflowing onto yards. With a little imagination, chipped dishes, outgrown apparel, unwanted furniture and an abundance of other ordinary items can be refashioned in practical and attractive ways. I have turned old chairs into plant holders, retrofitted holey boots and conch shells into flowerpots, repurposed rusted-out wheelbarrows and converted a wood stove into an outdoor plant stand. When you begin creating garden art out of castaway items, you enter a new world of possibilities.

There are many Web sites that showcase the work of creative recyclers. The GardenWeb (www.gardenweb.com) is a popular online community that covers a wide range of gardening topics. It has an excellent forum called Garden Junk dedicated to creative uses of everyday items.

Similar to GardenWeb is GardenStew, another online community for plant lovers. Also called Garden Junk, the forum on GardenStew (www.gardenstew.com) calls itself a "discussion about creating interesting decorations and items of interest for your garden using everyday objects." Both sites provide ideas and instructions on how to convert bowling balls into gazing globes and teacups into bird feeders and how to create windchimes out of, well, just about everything.

I don't have a lot of time to spend browsing Web sites for ideas, but I do find myself frequently thinking about new ways to use old items. My most recent project — the refashioned Radio Flyer wagon — met all my personal requirements. It was extremely easy to convert. The conversion did not require any output of money. It looks attractive, works wonderfully and has the potential to last a long time.

Even more important, it brings me joy. Watching the birds — and, I admit, even the squirrels — flock to the red-wagon feeder makes me smile even when I'm feeling overwhelmed and down. I may be feeding thistles and millet to the birds, but they're providing me with a steady diet of hopefulness, happiness and amusement. That's what I call a recycling project that keeps on giving.

An exceptional mother-in-law beat the ‘meddling’ stereotype

Mary Boas last March on her 92nd birthday

Simply Living

(First appeared in Orlando Sentinel March 7, 2010)

Mothers-in-law are often the subject of derogatory humor. They are frequently characterized as interfering, overbearing, meddling members of the family tree. My mother-in-law, Mary Boas, who died Feb. 17, was not like that at all. If anything, she epitomized the opposite of those traits.

Born March 10, 1917, in Prosser, Wash., as the only child of older parents, Mary spent most of her childhood on her parents' chicken farm in Monroe, Wash., where, among other skills, she learned how to slaughter, pluck and cook chickens. Some of my favorite memories revolve around my mother-in-law's cooking. Her fried chicken, homemade fudge and beach plum jelly were some of the tasty treats she prepared for special occasions.

Mary's idyllic youth — living on a beautiful, rural property where she was the much-loved, pampered daughter of two devoted parents — gave her a sense of independence and a strong belief in her ability to achieve whatever goals she set. Although she grew up on a farm, Mary was raised in a family that emphasized education. Her mother, Anne Goff, was a teacher in a one-room schoolhouse, the same school that Mary attended throughout her youth. Although she had no siblings, she was close to her older cousin, Rachel, who went to college when the thought of higher education didn't even enter most women's minds.

Mary knew at an early age that she wanted to pursue an academic career. And she did. In 1940, she graduated from the University of Washington after earning bachelor's and master's degrees in mathematics. To further her education and teach, Mary left her beloved Washington and moved to North Carolina to attend Duke University.

Although leaving her family probably made the move difficult, it was at Duke that she met her future husband, Ralph Philip Boas Jr., a mathematics instructor. Mary and Ralph were married on Cape Cod in 1941, and Mary spent the early years of her marriage working toward her Ph.D. in physics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She earned that degree in 1948, the same year that my husband, the first of her three children, was born.

My husband and his siblings grew up in Evanston, Ill., with two parents whose lives were immersed in academia. For three decades, Mary taught physics at DePaul University in Chicago while her husband taught math at Northwestern. Mary was the author of the textbook Mathematical Methods in the Physical Sciences. The third edition of her book, which she revised at age 88, is still used in college classrooms today.

I met my husband's parents in 1970, about a week after I met their son. Ralph – my Ralph – and I drove from Boston to Evanston to spend Christmas with his family. Before venturing west, we stopped first at the home of my parents in Pennsylvania, where their reaction to our plans was anything but cordial. My mother and father took an immediate dislike to the man who was to become my husband and, after experiencing their reaction, I was afraid of how Ralph's parents would receive us. I needn't have worried. Ralph's parents were loving, kind and non-judgmental — traits, I was to learn, that remained constant throughout their lifetimes.

It is never easy when someone you love dies, and it is always difficult to lose a parent. I'm glad knowing that my mother-in-law, Mary Boas, lived a long and full life. I'm proud of her accomplishments, appreciative for the unconditional love she bestowed on her family and grateful for the many years we all had together.

Two years ago, my then 25-year-old son, Timothy, agreed to leave Florida and move in with his grandmother to be her companion and caretaker. Together they attended garden club meetings, went to concerts, fixed meals and, in general, enjoyed each other's company. I'm so glad the two of them were able to spend that precious time together, and I'm glad, too, that Mary remained in her own home — as she so fervently wished to do — until she died.

People can make all the jokes they want about meddling mothers-in-law. My mother-in-law was the exception. Even more than that, she was exceptional in so many ways.

Elusive bluebird joins property’s wildlife

(First appeared in Orlando Sentinel February 28, 2010)

I understand what Henry David Thoreau meant when he said, "The bluebird carries the sky on his back."

I had just walked past the line of mulberry trees into an open field between the woods and the house when a flash of blue — sky blue — caught my eye.

"My goodness," I thought, "it's a bluebird!"

For many years, I've lived in fairly remote, wildlife-friendly settings. Although I've enjoyed watching a wide range of feathered fliers, until now I had never seen a bluebird. Perhaps I had missed the birds, or maybe they were always there and I just hadn't looked hard enough. It could also be that until recently the habitat on our property did not meet a bluebird's requirements.

The Eastern bluebird is a member of the Turdidae or thrush family, the same family as wood thrushes and robins. Bluebirds and robins even look somewhat similar. Both have reddish-brown breasts, although a bluebird's belly has white plumage as well. At 7 inches, bluebirds are much smaller and more delicate-looking birds than either robins or wood thrushes. As its name implies, the bluebird has a predominantly sky-blue coloration — a beautiful, brilliant eye-catching color.

The habitat bluebirds prefer is a combination of fields and woods. Bluebirds like to live on the edge of woods — especially pinewoods — in which there is not much undergrowth. In addition to a small percentage of fruits and berries, these bug-eating beauties consume quantities of grasshoppers, caterpillars, crickets and beetles. Because insects make up almost 70 percent of their diet, they gravitate toward open farmland, fields and fence lines where food sources are plentiful.

The more I learned about these sweet little songbirds, the more I realized that the land I live on has many of the attributes bluebirds appreciate. We have woods, we have fields, we have many sources of wild berries and we don't use pesticides. The lake provides the shallow water that bluebirds like for bathing, we mow regularly to limit undergrowth and, when trees die, we generally leave them alone.

Bluebirds are cavity-dwelling birds that like to build their pine-needle-lined nests in the cavities of dead trees. Sometimes they take over an abandoned woodpecker nest, and often they perch on a dead tree's bare branches while searching for food.

I've always liked leaving dead trees in place. Some people think a tree struck by a lightning, felled in a storm or killed by disease is an eyesore, but to me each dead tree is alive with possibilities. If it is tall enough, ospreys and eagles will perch on snags and uppermost branches, while owls and smaller birds will drill holes in the decaying wood. In North America, 55 bird species — including bluebirds — nest in tree cavities.

But birds are not the only beneficiaries of a tree's demise. Mammals, amphibians, reptiles and invertebrates all reap benefits when trees stop living. Some find refuge in natural cavities and dens, while others seek security beneath rotting logs. Small mammals get relief from the heat in dead limbs and downed wood, while a tree's decaying matter provides a feast for spiders, beetles, worms and microbes.

It's those invertebrates that bluebirds are after. The birds I watched were busy flitting about from tree to ground in search of their insect prey. I followed them as they flew about and was rewarded by their cheery song.

Seeing bluebirds was yet another thrilling experience in a year that has so far been full of wildlife encounters. I'd like to think that our mindful management and nurturing of the land have helped secure a wide range of wildlife habitats, and maybe they have. It also may be that time alone is responsible for the abundance of recent animal and bird sightings.

As plants have matured, more wildlife is attracted. Whatever the reason that bluebirds have suddenly begun to appear, I welcome their arrival. Thoreau imagined bluebirds to be transporters of sky, but to my eye, these blue-feathered fliers are signs of the Earth's good health. When the land is in balance, life will flourish and pretty bluebirds will continue to carry the sky on their backs.

Rare storks visiting our lake are treat

Simply Living

(First appeared in Orlando Sentinel February 21, 2010)

On a recent morning, two wood storks were trolling for food in the recently submerged shoreline. Wood storks are not among the water birds that frequent our lake, so I was especially excited to see a pair exploring our shoreline.

The presence of these large waders at our small lake was probably the result of recent rains. As rain has fallen over the last couple of weeks, water levels have significantly risen, submerging several feet of grassy shoreline. Wood storks rely on shallow water to find food — small fish, minnows, crayfish, snakes and tadpoles — so the pair on our lake may have been exploring newfound sources of delicacies.

Finding reliable, non-polluted food sources is a serious problem for these long-legged birds with dark, featherless heads, long bills and black-and-white plumage. By the early 1980s, development and pollution had taken such a toll on wetland habitats that wood stork populations declined significantly. Although there were an estimated 60,000 wood storks in the Southeast in the 1930s, by the late 1970s their numbers were down to only 5,000 pairs. Because of this, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service added wood storks to their list of endangered species in 1984. Since then, the population of America's only native stork has increased slightly. Today, about 8,000 nesting pairs live in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina.

The two storks I saw were busy walking through the soggy shoreline alongside a white heron and a tri-colored heron. All four birds seemed to be enjoying the recently expanded shallows and, despite the long shoreline where they could have foraged for food independently, the foursome stayed together. Perhaps the company of other birds helped the storks by causing the fish to scatter.

Herons, like most water birds, hunt for food by spotting prey with their sharp eyes before catching it with their long, sharp bills. Wood storks take a different approach. They troll through the shallow water with their stout bills ajar in the hope that their prey will inadvertently swim into the openings. When that happens, their bills reflexively snap shut. Wood storks can close their bills in as little as 25 milliseconds, a speed unmatched by most other vertebrates.

I like seeing wood storks in our lake. Not only is it satisfying to think that these giant water birds – adult birds stand over 3 feet tall and have a 5-foot wingspan – can find food here, it is also exciting to observe at close range such a weird combination of ugliness and beauty.

From a distance, wood storks are lovely creatures. With their long, dark necks and white plumage tipped by black features, they're easily identifiable. But a closer look reveals some surprisingly incongruous features. Their long necks are bald and covered with bumpy-looking dark skin. Their pink-colored feet blend into black appendages as if the birds were wearing mud-covered leggings. From the neck up, wood storks look like gawky turkey vultures, while from the neck down their shapely, white-feathered bodies have the graceful look of herons.

Although I saw only two at our lake, storks are social animals that frequently seek food in groups and spend their evening hours resting together in treetop rookeries. To find food, pairs or small flocks will travel up to 80 miles, returning home at night to perch with their companions.

It's quite possible the pair at our lake didn't have to travel that far. I believe their rookery is just a few miles away. Several times at dusk, I've driven by a small marsh on State Road 19 where I've observed about a dozen white birds roosting on the bare branches of water-encircled trees. Because it is always twilight when I pass the rookery, and because I'm traveling on a busy road, I've had only fleeting glances. Now that I've noticed wood storks on our lake, I realize that those roosting birds might be storks.

I had fun watching the wood storks feed. As much as I relish any opportunity to observe wildlife, especially animals I seldom see, observing an endangered species on the land where I live is extra special. The tadpoles, snakes and minnows might not agree, but it makes me happy knowing that the rain we've been having lately is providing new feeding grounds for some of nature's most vulnerable creatures.

Surprisingly, tree-trimming didn't bug me

Simply Living

(First appeared in Orlando Sentinel February 15, 2010)

The utility company just finished cutting down dozens of our trees. The trees, mostly slash pines and oaks, had grown tall enough to interfere with overhead power lines. The power company removed them to prevent damage to wires in future storms.

Even though two crews of tree trimmers cut down almost a hundred trees, I had no problem with the project. I didn't object to their presence other than insisting that the workers, most of whom were smokers, not drop cigarette butts while they were on our property. More surprisingly, I wasn't sad to see so many trees felled.

I wasn't always so unemotional on the subject of trees.

When we moved to our property in 1992, trees were a rarity. On the entire 50 acres, there were only two huge oaks, four broad pines and a small stand of slender willows. The land was open, exposed and raw.

Although the property was beautiful in its emptiness, our vision was to create a forest, to return the land to the woodland that longtime residents told us it used to be.

During those early years, we attempted to reforest the land ourselves. Our first effort was to hand-plant 4,000 pine trees — back-breaking work that turned out to be a waste of energy. The 6- to 8-inch saplings needed a better start than could be provided by a bunch of amateurs armed with nothing more than a spade, a shovel, a desire to save money and a willingness to work.

We realized our mistake as we sadly watched most of the green sprouts shrivel up and turn brown. Determined not to make the same mistake twice, we hired a professional tree planter. Driving in straight rows across the open land with a machine designed for the task, the tree man managed to install 11,000 pines in less time than it had taken my husband and I and our children to plant the previous 4,000. More important, unlike us, he knew what he was doing. The majority of his saplings lived, growing over the course of 18 years into the forest we envisioned.

I've spent many hours observing my surroundings, focusing much of my attention on the growth patterns of trees. I learned that willows are not to be depended upon. Strong winds repeatedly broke willow branches and bent and uprooted their trunks. Maple trees can withstand weeks of wet feet, but pines planted too close to the lake have died when they've stood too long in water that has risen to abnormally high levels. I've come to realize how much hardier slash pines are than sand pines, and that all pine trees have roots that are easy to trip over because they grow so close to the surface.

I've come to appreciate the inadvertent efforts of wildlife in helping me reforest. I've watched chokecherries and wild persimmon trees appear out of nowhere, the result of seeds dropped by birds and scattered by wildlife. Pine cones are another source of volunteer plants. The seeds of future conifers are nestled within the sappy confines of these brown containers, waiting until conditions are right for them to break forth and take root.

And then there are bamboos. If we knew as much in 1992 as we do now about these beautiful, fast-growing, low-maintenance giant grasses, I doubt we would have planted as many pines.

One of the main things I've learned from observing my surroundings is how quickly the landscape can change. In the beginning, when trees were scarce, the thought of cutting down even one sapling was unimaginable. Now, a tree-cutting crew can spend 10 days on the property slicing down one 35-foot tall leaf-bearer after another, and I hardly blink an eye. Time has buffered my emotions. I've gained patience and faith in nature itself to do what it does best — reproduce, grow and reseed the land.

It also helps that we insisted the power company leave all the wood chips left over from its tree-clearing operation. We may have lost close to 100 trees, but we gained a lot of compost, and it's out of that compost that new trees will grow.

An exotic yet healthy food: seaweed

Simply Living

(First appeared in Orlando Sentinel February 7, 2010)

When I think about seaweed, I think of Cape Cod, where Ralph and I lived for so many years. During our time in New England, we regularly drove out to Nauset Beach to fill the back of our four-wheel-drive truck with eelgrass that had washed up on the shore.

We used the still-moist sea grass to mulch our gardens, and what a wonderful mulch it was! Eelgrass smelled good and felt nice underfoot. As it dried and eventually decomposed, the mineral-rich sea vegetable deposited nutrients such as iron, copper, zinc, boron and manganese into the soil. Those nutrients enriched the sandy soil, enabling us to grow large, healthy plants. Some of the tastiest raspberries, the largest heads of broccoli and the sweetest carrots I've ever eaten grew out of our seaweed-mulched gardens.

Our mulching-with-seaweed days ended when we moved to Central Florida. We lived much too far inland to drive to the beach, load up our pickup with washed-ashore sea vegetables and make the return trip home. Although no longer practical for mulch, seaweed remains a constant in our daily lives. Now, instead of using it to feed our gardens, we use it to feed our bodies.

"What's in the box?" I asked my husband a few days ago when I saw him carrying a large parcel into the house.

"It's the seaweed I ordered," he said excitedly.

The box, shipped from Maine Coast Sea Vegetables in Franklin, Maine, yielded an oceanic bounty. Ralph unpacked several packages of certified organic alaria, kelp, dulse, laver and sea lettuce leaf plus two shakers of salt-free, kelp-based seasonings. Also in his purchase were several bags of Sea Chips — unsalted corn tortilla chips, seasoned with sea vegetables, that my husband adores — and a few sesame-seed snack bars called Kelp Krunch that both of us enjoy having for treats.

"Wow," I said as I looked through the packages. "What are some of these?"

Most of the sea vegetables were familiar foods, but some, like Ulva lactuca (sea lettuce), were seaweeds we had never tried before. Dulse, alaria, kelp and laver have been part of our diet for more than 30 years. I especially like sautéing dulse in our cast-iron frying pan with a generous amount of freshly pressed garlic and a little olive oil. Within minutes, the sautéed leaves turn crisp and crunchy, making them a tasty side dish or a satisfying eat-alone snack.

I've used alaria — also known as wakame — and kelp as additions to soup, stews and stir-fries. When cut with a scissor into bite-sized pieces, the stiff, dried leaves soften quickly as they absorb liquid.

Laver, better known as nori, is probably the sea vegetable most familiar to Americans. Anyone who has enjoyed sushi has probably eaten nori, the black-colored seaweed used to wrap many sushi preparations.

In much the same way that eelgrass adds nutrients to soil, eating sea vegetables adds nutrients to our bodies. Calcium, magnesium, iron, potassium, iodine, manganese and chromium are among the 56 minerals and trace elements found in this most basic and natural of foods. Although harvested from the sea, seaweeds have surprisingly low levels of sodium.

"Dulse contains less sodium per serving than one slice of most commercial breads and one-half to one-third the sodium in one cup of cooked beet greens," according to the Maine Coast Sea Vegetables Web site (seaveg.com). Other sea vegetables have similarly low levels.

The lack of salt in seaweed is one of the main things my husband, whose blood pressure runs on the high side, likes about eating this underappreciated vegetable.

"It gives food a salty taste with hardly any sodium," he explains.

My reason for enjoying seaweed is not about its low sodium or high mineral count. I simply like the way it tastes and the different textures and colors it adds to foods. I also enjoy experimenting with and learning about underappreciated foods. Although seldom served in American cuisine, seaweed is hugely popular in Asia, where it has been a dietary staple for thousands of years. Around the world, people use more than 400 different species of seaweed for food, medicines, livestock feed and garden fertilizers.

From my own gardening experience, I learned how vital seaweeds are. Although I've graduated from mulch to munch, I continue to reap the benefits of this fundamental and multifunctional food.

It's natural to appreciate armadillos

Simply Living

(First appeared in Orlando Sentinel January 31, 2010)

I live on land dotted with holes. Gopher tortoises are responsible for many of the dugouts, but armadillos have done their share of dirt moving as well. Yesterday I watched an armadillo emerge from one of the underground burrows, and I followed him as he went about his business of searching for food.

Armadillos are weird little critters. The combination of leathery skin, a pointy snout, tiny eyes, large ears, a long tail and short legs results in a creature that looks more like a walking helmet or a pint-sized armored tank than the harmless bug-eater it is. These gray-colored dirt diggers are among the most recognizable and commonly seen animals in the Sunshine State. Unfortunately, because of the way they search for food, they are also among the most disliked.

Of the 20 species of armadillos worldwide, only one species lives in North America — Dasypus novemcinctus, the nine-banded armadillo. Its name refers to the flexible midsection of the animal's carapace, or shell, which has six to 11 movable bands.

Weighing 8 to 17 pounds and measuring just over 2 feet long from the tip of its sensitive snout to the end of its ratlike tail, the nine-banded armadillo is considerably smaller than its distant relative, Dasypus bellus, which roamed South America between 2.5 million and 10,000 years ago. Dasypus bellus was a 600-pound behemoth with a 10-foot-long body that stood about 31/2 feet tall. It looked like a giant version of the present-day armadillo.

Considering how annoyed many homeowners are by today's version of Dasypus, it's probably a good thing the 600-pound hole digger no longer exists. Armadillos are nocturnal animals that find their food by smell. Their diet consists primarily of bugs, supplemented by berries and occasional bits of carrion. Like their anteater and sloth cousins, armadillos have sticky tongues and long, sensitive snouts that can detect the movement of worms, ants and other insects moving underground.

Once they've homed in on their target, these surprisingly spry mammals quickly uproot their prey with their sharp, strong claws, leaving behind a trail of wedge-shaped depressions in the process. Homeowners often get upset when they realize that an armadillo has been digging in their yard. That's too bad because for the price of a few shallow holes, homeowners have gained an invaluable service.

One armadillo can consume 40,000 ants at a time. Armadillos also keep down the termite populations, can devour entire wasp nests and delight in consuming cockroaches, grasshoppers, larvae, spiders, worms and snakes. Their annoying digging aerates lawns. The aftermath of an armadillo foraging expedition can make a mess out of a patch of St. Augustine grass, but once the holes are refilled, the grass will grow better for having been aerated.

The armadillo I observed popped out of his tree-shaded burrow and immediately began looking for food. I watched as he busily wove in and out of one brushy spot after another. Because armadillos have terrible eyesight, I was able to stand extremely close to the preoccupied poker as he chased after underground delicacies. Even though I was always within a couple of feet, I couldn't tell whether the armadillo was male or female.

Female armadillos are unusual in that they always give birth to four same-sex babies — never more and never fewer. Baby armadillos, called pups, are born with open eyes and the ability to walk within just a few hours of birth. Unlike their parents, they don't have a hard shell. Pups have a soft skin that hardens gradually as they mature. As often as I've seen adults, I've never seen armadillo offspring. Perhaps now that I've identified a burrow as an armadillo home, I'll have a chance to observe some young members of this interesting family of bug-eating mammals.

I like sharing the land I live on with a bunch of crazy-looking, hole-digging, armor-covered critters with the ability to produce identical quadruplets. With a population in the 30 million to 50 million range, Dasypus novemcinctus is living proof that you don't have to be pretty to be prolific. A good nose, strong shell, sharp claws and a proclivity for bugs are helpful traits on the evolutionary trail. Sometimes the oddest creatures are among nature's most fascinating. The armadillo is definitely an animal I dig.

Narcissus unfold joys of spring

Simply Living

(First appeared in Orlando Sentinel, January 24, 2010)

My kitchen smells like springtime. The flowery aroma isn't due to some artificial air freshener, incense or cleaning product. It's the result of three bulbs and a bowl of sand. The sweet smell of narcissus is scenting the room.

The narcissuses were a gift hand-delivered by my son from his 93-year-old grandmother in Seattle. My mother-in-law is an avid gardener. During the winter, bloom-filled containers face the picture windows overlooking Lake Washington. Mary has a green thumb, a trait inherited by our 26-year-old son, who lives with her in Seattle.

Timmy gave me the narcissus bulbs a few months ago when he was home for a visit, but for several weeks I did nothing with them. The brown papery bulbs sat on the window seat inside the paper bag they came in. Unlike my husband, who grew up in a home where forced bulbs were a seasonal norm, my childhood home was devoid of interior gardening. Perhaps that's why my confidence for growing indoor plants has always been shaky. Nonetheless, I decided to give the bulbs a go. How hard could it be to force flowers to grow?

As it turns out, it wasn't hard at all. One day, with a burst of optimism, I took down a glass bowl from the shelf, went down to the lake and filled the bowl with sandy soil. I then took the three bulbs and pushed their pear-shaped bodies into the sand until about half of their brown surface was submerged. I filled a jar with water, gave the potential blooms a generous drink and set them on a windowsill in my kitchen, where I could see them daily and add water whenever the soil became dry to the touch.

It didn't take long before green leaves began to appear. Day by day, more leaves sprouted, grew taller, fuller and more and more verdant. When the leaves stretched over a foot tall, I began to wonder if greenery was all the bulbs would ever produce. Where are the flowers? I asked myself. Did I do something wrong? Should I have used dirt instead of beach sand? Was I supposed to refrigerate the bulbs before planting them in the container? So many questions popped into my head. So many doubts crowded out my budding enthusiasm.

Then the other day, as I was washing yet another sink full of dinner dishes, an unfamiliar but pleasant fragrance drifted my way. What's that? I wondered as I looked about. It was too pleasant to be coming from the compost bucket sitting on the counter and too floral to attribute to the ripening hand of bananas hanging nearby. I wondered if it could it be the bulbs. My eyes glanced quickly toward the windowsill.

Sure enough, that's exactly what it was. At the tip of two of the three bulbs were clusters of small white flowers. Although the blooms had not yet completely opened, the dainty petals already emitted a heady essence. I buried my nose in the cup-shaped flowers and inhaled deeply.

Suddenly I was no longer in my kitchen cleaning up the remains of the evening meal. I had traveled back in time to a place where daffodils grew wild. I was on Cape Cod. I was in the yard surrounded by fields of paper whites, narcissuses and daffodils. It was springtime, and it felt wonderful to be outside at last in the warm, flower-filled, sweet-scented air.

Back in my kitchen, I opened my eyes. The view from the window in my Central Florida home looked oddly similar to the long-ago view from my Cape Cod kitchen. The recent cold snap had zapped the color from the foliage. The same sense of one season giving way to another prevailed upon the landscape.

It's amazing that something as simple as a narcissus bloom can trigger such sensual and visual memories. I'm glad I unpacked the gift my mother-in-law gave me and took the time to plant the bulbs in a bowl of sand. The effort on my part was minimal compared to the rewards I received. It was proof once again that you don't have to inherit a green thumb to reap the benefits of a floral display. Gardening is a pleasure anyone can enjoy.

Wild turkeys join wildlife menagerie

Simply Living

(First appeared in Orlando Sentinel January 17, 2010)

On the first day of 2010, a flock of wild turkeys wandered out from under the banana trees and headed up the hill toward the citrus grove. I was in the kitchen looking out the bay window. At first I saw one turkey, but by the time I grabbed my camera and slipped outside, three more birds had appeared.

Wild turkeys, Meleagris gallopavo, are one of nature's success stories. Rather than declining in numbers, turkey populations have increased gradually over the past 80 years. That wasn't always the case. In the early 1900s, hunters had killed so many gobblers that the species was on the brink of extinction.

Things changed in 1937 with passage of the Pittman-Robertson Act, which imposed an excise tax on sporting arms and ammunition to help pay for wildlife restoration. Once preservation efforts were in place, turkey populations rebounded. Today more than 7 million birds wander the woods and fields of North America.

Florida is home to the Osceola, one of five subspecies of this native North American game bird. The four turkeys I saw appeared to be females. Males, called toms, have distinctive spurs on their legs and beards — tufts of modified feathers — growing out of their chests. I didn't notice either feature on the birds I observed, which led me to believe they were all hens. All four were a similar size, about 30 inches tall. Males tend to be larger than hens, weighing a good 10 pounds more than their 8- to 12-pound counterparts of the opposite sex.

It puzzled me that I saw only females. Because this was only the second time in 19 years that I had spotted turkeys on the property (and the first time occurred only a couple of weeks earlier), my knowledge of turkey behavior was limited. To learn more, I explored online sources such as the National Wild Turkey Federation and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. From those sites I discovered that before mating, female turkeys segregate themselves from the flock and gather in small groups. Because mating season for Florida turkeys begins in February, it may be that the flock of hens I saw was exploring our property in search of potential nesting sites.

Whatever their reason for passing through, I was elated to observe turkeys on our property. In the past few years I've seen more wild animals than ever before. In 2009, in addition to the usual suspects — armadillos, raccoons, rabbits, squirrels and possums — I observed coyotes, bobcats, foxes and otters. Ralph and I watched turtles lay eggs and a pair of sandhill cranes raise babies.

During our walks we've encountered numerous snakes, spiders and butterflies. One day a peacock wandered through our nursery, and every night an osprey roosts on a perch my husband placed in the middle of the lake. Water birds feed daily on fish in our lake, and songbirds flit from one flowering plant to another.

In early spring we enjoy the song of whippoorwills, and I'm always attentive to the cries of hawks, nightjars, killdeer and kingfish. We even have a resident pair of screech owls who (hoo?) annually nest in an old mailbox mounted beneath the porch eaves. I love the menagerie of critters that wanders through our property, and I was delighted to have a flock of turkeys join the parade.

When we bought the land in 1991 it was raw and barren. Over the years we've worked hard to repair damage done by a peat-mining operation. We've nurtured the soil, replanted the land and resculpted its contours. Our plan has always been to create an oasis for people and a sanctuary for wildlife. On many occasions we've wondered why we chose such a huge project, but then a flock of wild turkeys wanders by and the reason for our undertakings seems suddenly clear.

There are many ways to measure success. For Meleagris gallopavo Osceola, success can mean the resurgence of a breed once hunted to near extinction. To a landowner with the intention of preserving nature, success can be charted by individual gifts. On New Year's Day I received such a gift. You might say, "It's just a turkey." I say, "It's a treasure — another of nature's precious gems in my own back yard."

Palm fronds top beautiful bamboo gazebo

Simply Living

(First appeared in Orlando Sentinel January 10, 2010)

Until recently, I hadn't paid much attention to palms. I knew there were different varieties, each with its own characteristics, but that's about all I knew. I might have remained palm-ignorant if not for our newly constructed bamboo gazebo.

"I'd like to thatch the gazebo with palm leaves," I told Ralph at the project's beginning. "I've seen it done at a number of places, and it looks beautiful."

"But will it last?" Ralph asked rhetorically.

He was sure it wouldn't. I insisted it would. I explained how the Seminole Indians had been using palm fronds on chickee huts for hundreds of years. Thatched roofs, I had learned, not only stayed dry in downpours but often outlasted conventional roof coverings during hurricanes. I didn't succeed in convincing my skeptical spouse. Ralph refused to believe that a roof covered with leaves would work. After a while, I began to have doubts myself.

To seek alternatives, I went online and came up with two possibilities: a custom-made canvas cover and a Tahitian-style rain cape called a palapa. Both options had merits as well as disadvantages. The canvas cover wouldn't have the natural look I was after, and it was expensive. The palapa was aesthetically pleasing and a bit less pricey, but it wasn't durable. We'd have to replace it every year or two.

The more research I did, the more confused I became. I didn't know how we'd cover the gazebo until Ralph and our builder, Robbie, got talking.

"A long time ago, I thatched a roof out of palm fronds," Robbie told Ralph, "and it lasted for more than 14 years."

Robbie's revelation did what I was unable to do — convince my dubious spouse. The next morning, Ralph was eager to experiment with palm fronds.

"Why don't we try doing it out of palm leaves?" he suggested.

Suppressing the urge to shout, "That's what I said in the beginning!" I quietly agreed.

The next day we took a walk around the property looking for palms. Although our trees are predominantly oaks, pines and bamboos, a few palmettos dot the landscape.

We noted where the palmettos were growing, cut a few fronds and brought them back to see if Robbie could use them. That night Ralph made some calculations. To cover a 14-foot-diameter roof, we'd need about 700 palm fronds. On our property, we have less than a dozen small palmetto bushes. Clearly, I needed to discover some new sources.

After Robbie gave us the go-ahead, I began searching for suitably sized palmetto fronds. What I discovered was a wide variation in both stem thickness and leaf spread. Some palms have broad stems, while the stems of others are too slender to secure with screws. Still other varieties have stalks with needle-sharp spikes or sawlike teeth. Because I was looking for a pain-free experience, I concentrated on spike-free scrub palmettos.

Sabal etonia is a low-growing palm with fan-shaped leaves that spread about 3 feet wide. Native to Central Florida and prolific in undeveloped areas, the palm has a thick stalk that extends through the middle of the leaf section, providing a thick, sturdy arm quite suitable for securing to roofs.

It took about 20 hours to gather, set in place and secure all the palm fronds we needed to cover our roof. The finished product looks beautiful, smells wonderful and even sounds nice in a breeze. During a recent daylong downpour, the thatched roof effectively shed water, proving to skeptics like my husband that a leaf roof can keep an area dry.

I'm delighted with how things worked out. In my house of bamboo and leaves, I've found an easy peace, an escape from the stress of everyday life. When I'm sitting beneath the gazebo's thatched roof, I feel like I'm inside an upside-down bird nest, as interwoven with nature as the palm leaves are with one another.

In the course of a few weeks, I've been transformed from a person who ignored palms to someone fascinated by this lowly plant's many attributes. When I drove to town this morning, I kept noticing how many palms I passed. My eyes may have registered beauty, but my mind was of a different bent. It was cataloging sources for future frond-foraging trips.

40+ years and still jumping

Simply Living

(First appeared in Orlando Sentinel January 3, 2010)

Many people own trampolines, but I wonder how many families are as committed to their trampoline as we are. Our backyard bouncing station came into my husband's possession during his teen years, and it has been with us ever since.

"My sister and I used to take gymnastics lessons," Ralph recalls. "Our favorite part of class was always the trampoline portion."

Trampoline time in gymnastics class was limited, but Ralph's parents overcame that obstacle when they purchased an 8-by-14-foot regulation-size trampoline for their children to use at home. The same metal-frame structure sits in our backyard today. Recently, Ralph replaced the trampoline bed, which has needed replacement only three times in more than 40 years. With its taut new bed, the structure is just as sturdy, reliable and full of bounce as it was in the 1960s.

"Do you realize the bed I just replaced only cost $10 more now that it did 20 years ago?" Ralph said this morning. "That's pretty amazing when you think of how much more expensive most things are today than they were in 1990."

What's just as amazing is how quickly my husband was able to put his finger on the two-decades-old invoice from All American Trampoline and Swing in Ogden, Utah, and that the company is still in business. Not only was Ralph able to produce hard copies of those previous invoices, he also has the company's printed catalog in his files.

"The price of the trampoline bed increased by only 6 percent since 1990, but the shipping cost increased by 50 percent," he said, studying the two invoices.

While my husband marveled over the company's frugality, I found myself fixated on the longevity of our relationship with a piece of exercise equipment. That trampoline has been a part of my husband's life longer than I have. Like the aluminum rowboat my parents gave me when I was 13, my husband's trampoline is one of his oldest and dearest possessions.

It also may be one of his bulkiest possessions. An 8-by-14-foot trampoline is a cumbersome piece of equipment, but that never stopped us from toting it from one residence to another. Since 1970, Ralph and I have moved the trampoline seven times.

Not only did we continually dismantle and reassemble this goliath of exercise equipment, we took the installation process a step beyond what most people do. We dug a deep hole at most of those locations and sank the metal frame into the ground. It takes more work to do it this way, but the extra effort goes a long way toward preventing injury. An in-ground trampoline is much safer to jump on than one perched several feet above ground.

For more than four decades, our backyard bouncing equipment has provided us with entertainment, exercise and unexpected benefits. I always knew it would be a source of fun for the kids, and I wasn't surprised to discover how much our whole family enjoyed the bed's springy surface as a place to rest, read or watch the stars. What I didn't anticipate was discovering how beneficial regular bouncing could be for my health.

Even a very light workout of simple up-and-down jumps for 10 minutes a few times a week improves flexibility, coordination and balance. It also strengthens muscles, provides an excellent cardiovascular workout and does wonders for weight loss. I'm sure my husband had no idea back in 1964 that the gift his parents gave him would one day be part of his 58-year-old wife's exercise routine or aid in his own quest for increased stamina and a stronger heart.

When I think back about all the inanimate objects we've owned over the years, few rival the trampoline's longevity. It has outlasted every car, piece of electronics or appliance we've ever bought. Is it possible to feel committed to a piece of exercise equipment? Let me be the first to jump in to say: Absolutely!

Swapping used books is a win-win situation

Simply Living

(First appeared in Orlando Sentinel December 27, 2009)

I've jump-started my New Year's resolutions by joining an online book-swapping site called PaperBackSwap.com. For years I've been meaning to do something with all the books our family has accumulated. Hundreds of hardcover and paperback novels and nonfiction books fill our assorted bookshelves. The overflow titles are precariously stacked on the floor or tucked away in boxes in the attic.

It's not that we don't like books — it's that we like them too much. Although Ralph and I find it difficult to part with even the most esoteric titles, there comes a time when enough is enough. You look at the untidy mess of dust-catching tomes and ask yourself why you still have every book you've ever owned. Why, for example, do I have two copies of Sue Grafton's A is for Alibi? How much longer need I hold on to Edinburgh City Guide now that my daughter has been back from Scotland for seven years?

Accumulation is easy. Getting rid of stuff … not so easy. But that's about to change now that I've discovered a win-win way to merge my love of books with my need to purge.

At PaperBackSwap.com, readers like me can offer books for trade, search for titles they'd like to receive and do it all from their computers. There's no membership fee, and you just pay postage ($2.38 for most paperbacks) on books you send to others. For every book sent, you earn one point. Points can be used to "buy" other books (one point equals one book), accumulated to buy audiobooks (two points for each audio book) or donated to charitable causes such as Books for Schools, which provides eligible elementary schools with one new book for every point donated.

Before joining PaperBackSwap.com, I did my homework. I spent several hours researching other book exchange sites, read user reviews and watched the how-to videos offered by some of the top sites. PaperBackSwap.com received consistently good user ratings, and I found it to be the easiest-to-navigate, best-designed site of the batch. Its book selection is also impressive, with more than 4 million books available to trade.

In the two weeks since I joined the club, I've posted 35 books and I've sent four to people who have requested them. PaperBackSwap.com makes the mailing process simple. When someone wants one of my books, I receive an e-mail from the Web site notifying me of the request. If I agree to send the book, PaperBackSwap.com creates a mailing label that doubles as a wrapper. All I have to do is print the label, add stamps and put it in the mailbox. Postage is pre-calculated, so I don't have to go to the post office and stand in line.

Trying to reduce the amount of unnecessary items we have around the house is a worthwhile goal. I'll be overjoyed if someday the bookshelves that line our walls contain only books I really want to own instead of the hodgepodge of miscellany they currently hold. It would also be nice to have a few audiobooks to enjoy and copies of some of my favorite titles to give as gifts and to share with my children and grandchildren.

Although New Year's resolutions often start out strong before fading away, I doubt if that will be the case with my book-swapping plans. I have far more than 35 books to post, and I look forward to adding titles as the months go by. I'm also excited to think that the books I post will be going to people who are happy to receive them. Thanks to the virtual library at PaperBackSwap.com, I have entered a new world filled with reading pleasure. If that's not motivation for a successful New Year's resolution, I don't know what is.

Traditional pie -- minus all that unhealthy stuff

(To see recipes, please scroll to the bottom of the page)

Simply Living

(First appeared in Orlando Sentinel December 21, 2009)

Lately I've been in the mood for pie, so I've been baking up a storm. Sweet-potato pie and blueberry-peach pie are my favorites, but sometimes I experiment with other fruit combinations. Our son Toby really liked the cherry-peach pie I cobbled together when he was home from college. And not too long ago, when I had an abundance of overripe pears, I made a cherry-pear pie with a chopped-nut top crust that had Ralph begging for more.

Pie is such an easy and foolproof dessert to make. Even though I don't use any of the usual ingredients — no sugar, white flour, butter or shortening — my pies taste delicious, consistently earning requests for second and third slices.

Instead of using white flour, I bake with either whole wheat or spelt flour. I especially like the slightly nutty, sweet flavor of spelt flour, which creates a crust that is flavorful without being heavy. White flour (also euphemistically called wheat flour) is a refined food that has had two of the most nutritious parts of the wheat grain removed — the bran and the germ. Even the enriched version of white flour is sadly lacking in nutritional value, since it includes less than a quarter of the grain's original nutrients.

By contrast, spelt flour, a grain in the wheat family, is chockfull of nutritional value. It is high in protein and rich in B-complex vitamins, and it contains a carbohydrate that boosts the immune system. Although no one in my family is allergic to wheat, people who are often find the proteins in spelt easier to digest.

In place of butter, lard or shortening, I use extra-virgin olive oil. If you think olive oil is good only for salad dressing, think again. One-quarter cup of olive oil added to a cup of spelt flour and moistened with an eighth of a cup of ice water yields a delicious, flaky crust that has none of the artery-clogging fat of butter, contains no cholesterol and no chemical additives and is an excellent source of mono-unsaturated fats, vitamin E and beneficial antioxidants.

When I'm feeling ambitious, I make a special pie crust created by my friend Selena. Selena's crust combines a cup of flour — I use either spelt or whole-wheat flour — with a cup each of rolled oats and finely chopped nuts. (I like to use a combination of unsalted, raw almonds, walnuts and Brazil nuts.)

After the dry ingredients are mixed, Selena adds a half-cup of both olive oil and maple syrup, but I substitute two teaspoons of calorie-free stevia for the maple syrup. After the dry and wet ingredients are well blended, I press two-thirds of the mixture into a pie pan, with the remaining portion set aside to spread on top of the desired filling. Unlike my flour crust, which does not require precooking, Selena's crust works better when baked in a 350-degree oven for 15 minutes before filling.

Stevia, the sweetener I like using in Selena's pie crust and for almost all my baking, is a plant-based product with no bitter aftertaste. A member of the Compositae family of herbs — the same family as asters, sunflowers and daisies — stevia is not an artificially derived chemical and doesn't raise blood-sugar levels. What it does do is add sweetness to food without adding calories. In its powdered form, stevia (also sold under the name Truvia) looks identical to sugar, but it's far sweeter. One teaspoon of stevia is equal to a cup of sugar.

One of the things I like best about baking with wholesome ingredients such as whole-wheat or spelt flour, stevia, rolled oats, unsalted raw nuts and extra-virgin olive oil is the lack of guilt involved. You can make foods, eat them and feel good about the entire process. There's not even guilt the next morning when you bite into a slice of leftover pie for breakfast.

Yesterday Ralph and I made short work of the two remaining slices of our sweet-potato and blueberry-peach pies, which means it's time to replenish the proverbial larder with another batch of tasty treats. Eating healthfully doesn't have to be about giving up favorite foods or eating a bland, flavorless diet. You can have it all — including pie — if you're willing to learn about more nutritional alternatives, experiment with different ingredients and open yourself up to new tastes and textures.