I hope you've all found a nice way to enjoy the long holiday weekend and celebrate our nation's founding.

I read an interesting story about how there's a movement afoot to make America the Beautiful the national anthem because The Star Spangled Banner is incredibly hard to sing, and most people forget the words. Plus it celebrates some obscure battle during the War of 1812 while America the Beautiful has some beautiful imagery.

From memeory...
Oh beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain
For purple mountains' majesty, above the fruited plain
America, America, God sheds his grace on thee
And crowns thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea.

I still remember when I was in grade school and the teacher asked if anyone in the class could recite The Star Spangled Anthem. There was silence in the room, and then I raised my hand. I recited the following, from memory then also:

Oh say can you see
by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming
Whose broad stripes and bright stars
Through the perilous night
GAve proof through the night
That our flag was still there
Oh say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'ver the land of the free and the home of the brave.

OK, this time, I don't think I have it just right. There's a line or two missing,....something about ramparts. Or perhaps that's another verse.

I used to know these lines cold as a kid because one of the ways I used to entertain myself was to sing all the patriotic sounds out loud. Yes, I was an annoying little kid.

I went to my mother's for lunch where I can always count on a healthy meal. We had a shrimp salad with celery, black rice with coconut oil and a small bowl of bean/tomato soup. I had a biscotti for dessert with my herbal tea.

I'm home now and preparing a favorite cold summer salad, which consists of:

whole wheat berries
chickpeas
goat cheese
golden raisins
scallions
chopped pistachio nuts,
all on a bed of baby spinach and topped with a dressing that's equal parts balsamic vinaigrette and honey.

However, in an effort to save some money on some of the pricier ingredients, I'm substituting Egyptian walking onions from my garden for the scallions, skipping the pistachio nuts entirely and using lettuce from my garden instead of the baby spinach. I'm also out of honey so will try some real maple syrup instead.

I much prefer using dried chickpeas to canned. I promise you, once you taste the ones cooked from dried, you'll never go back to canned, which taste like mush to me now. Plus, dried is healthier since you're not eating canned food, and nearly all canned food these days is lined with, you guessed it, BPA.

I'm on page 169 of my book editing.

After lunch with mom, I made a deposit at the bank, returned a library book, filled up the gas tank and picked up a few things at Shop Rite, including some yummy fruit popsicles and mmm, rice pudding.