Happy Mother's Day to My Poor Sick Mom

My mother was sick in bed today, so we cancelled the dinner plans for Mother's Day. Instead, I went to visit my parents at their place in the mountains. On the way to visit my parents, Yeon gave me a huge bucket of strawberry plants for them.

Dad put the strawberry plants in planters right away. His soil is rocky and he hasn't graduated to raised beds yet. Mom told me to make sure to thank Yeon for the plants; she was very touched.

For my mom, I planted 15 peonies that she had just gotten in the mail, and I made her a pretty bouquet with azaleas and white bleeding hearts. Poor mom. I hope she starts to feel better soon.

My father has been eating TV dinners for the past week while my mom has been sick. I picked up a sirloin at the market yesterday to bring to my parents. The last time we had one of Danny Rohrer's sirloins, Dad was so happy. I boiled some eggs at my house and brought them along for devilled eggs. I also brought some asparagus from Summer Creek farm, and a bunch of radishes I picked from the garden this afternoon. Dad also talked me into making potato salad.

While I was cooking, I gave dad the radishes to eat with some salt. That's how he likes them. They were really impressive this time; I had some pearlescent purple ones that had gotten quite big.

Dad grilled the steak, asparagus, and radish greens. I asked him to grill the radish greens because Yeon did it, and I am a follower. Though they tasted very healthy, I was not a huge fan. The greens were strong and I think I would parboil them next time before doing anything with them. But the texture was fine- kind of like a stringy kale. You should have seen dad's plate. I don't know why he heaped it so full, since he and I were at the table alone and he could have as many helpings as he wanted. But I guess he wanted to see all of it on his plate at once. All four devilled eggs, for example. Dad said, "it's a good thing I worked outside all day," I guess so he could eat so much. Anyway it was a heck of a lot better than TV dinners I am sure. Dad did say, "there isn't enough cholesterol on this plate." And I answered, "thank goodness you put butter on the asparagus".

Mom couldn't eat anything. I woke her up every once in a while to make her drink water and take medicine. Life isn't fair.

Shannon