I have begun my transformation.  A recent email by my friend Margaret McCormick , the former food editor for the Syracuse Post Standard, alerted me to the fact the heirlooms are now on the stand at Schoolhouse Farms in Borodino.

Not for three summers has the crop of these treasures been so successful.   The abundance this year of heat, sunshine and just enough rain has the Schoolhouse Farmers bringing tomatoes to the classy stand on Rose Hill Road by the bushel.

I arrived yesterday to buy everything they had, but even my overdue appetite for this favorite veggie was no match for the yield.  Two large boxes later, I hardly put a dent in the supply.  There is plenty more for all who wish to take the scenic drive to the farm.

My supply of heirloom tomatoes

I am a feast or famine gal.  When something is in season I eat it until I can’t take it anymore and then it takes a full 11 months to want it again.  That’s how I handle the “dry” months when produce gets transported from Argentina and much of the flavor is missing.   Even local tomatoes fresh off the vine are dull compared to the robust flavor of heirlooms.  That’s because scientists have spent a century trying to create a super tomato; combining a version that resists disease with another that handles drought.  They take the end result and combine it with a tomato that produces good color, and on and on it goes.  The problem is, every tomato tastes pretty much the same.  Aside from the texture and size, a beefsteak tomato tastes like a grape tomato.

Heirloom veggies and Bram, Beryl, Morel and Finan Malcolm

Heirlooms are different.  They’re like purebreds, unique from one another in appearance and flavor.  Slice a variety of heirloom tomatoes, sprinkle with sea salt and let the taste test begin.  Once you start, it’s hard to stop, and if you don’t stop your blood turns to tomato juice like mine.

I don’t know of any supermarket or local farm with the variety of heirlooms as Schoolhouse Farms, on Rose Hill Road in Borodino.  Their roadside stand is open for business from 9:00 am until dark and there are other unusual vegetables as well; chocolate peppers, scallopini squash, okra, to name a few.   Richard and Rebecca and their four school aged children are knowledgeable and eager to share ways to use it all.   You can also find the Schoolhouse Farmers at the Skaneateles Farmer’s Market at the Community Center, Thursdays 3:30 till 6:30 and Saturdays from 10:00 till 1:00.

Heirlooms cost a little more, but they taste a little "more" too.

Next time I’ll include a few recipes for heirloom tomatoes, or any tomato for that matter.  But the heirloom harvest is so outstanding this year you’d be cheating yourself out of something special.  Get some before they’re gone for another year.

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Yankee Slugger Lou Gehrig

At first I didn’t notice the jelly feeling about my legs.  They were wobbly, like I had been skiing downhill without stopping, only I hadn’t been skiing I was only sitting down.

Then my skin felt crawly in places.  I swatted the ant that wasn’t an ant after all.  My skin was crawling on its own.  But it was the feeling my legs might not continue to support me that sent me to the doctor for an explanation I was certain would be simple and benign.   Side effects of a virus?  A household cleaning product I should stop using?  A little too many paint fumes?  Once I knew the source I also knew I could avoid it and these odd symptoms would go away.

It’s always a bad sign when the doctor is very chatty at the beginning of an exam and silent at the end.  The neurologist hammered away at all the pathways and found nothing particularly noteworthy.  We talked about the weather, friends we had in common and the news business.  It was only after he pulled out a machine which stuck blunt metal pins into my muscles that his demeanor changed.  With the first plunge of the needle into my left leg the machine emitted a crackling sound, like a geiger counter finding metal in the ground.  Did I injure my back, he asked.  The answer was no.  He stuck me again.  Same thing.  More crackling noise.  That test, called an EMG, is supposed to be silent.   The sound of static means nerves are dying.  When nerves can’t power muscles, the muscles waste away.  Paralysis eventually follows.

Isolated nerve damage such as a back injury will sound noisy in one place on the body.  When the noise occurs everywhere the diagnosis is often A.L.S. and that’s what we heard in the doctor’s office that day, the noise in me was everywhere.  The neurologist seemed so sad.  I on the other hand remained upbeat and confident.  At least it wasn’t cancer.   And then I went home and started reading about A.L.S.  I would have preferred the cancer.

There is no cure for A.L.S.  Its victims become weaker and weaker until they cannot move.  Eventually the muscles that power the lungs stop working and patients suffocate to death.  The cruelest part of the disease is the brain remains active and strong.  An A.L.S. patient is aware right till the end what is happening to him.

For the next year I went through a catalog of testing; MRI’s, blood work, more EMGs.  I enrolled in the A.L.S. clinic in Syracuse, one of only two in the entire state at the time.  People in Buffalo or the Adiondacks must drive hours for their appointments here or in New York City.  I only drove five minutes from my home in the Syracuse University neighborhood which helped me to care for my four young children and to hold down my job.  I never missed a day of work trying to figure this thing out, nor a bedtime story for the kids, though for many months I was highly distracted from everything.

I’d like to tell you they made the wrong diagnosis and what I had was some other, more acceptable disease, or they offered up some treatment that worked.  In truth, as the year progressed, my symptoms got no worse and with A.L.S. the  symptoms always do.  At every appointment at the A.L.S. clinic in Syracuse I seemed to be getting a little stronger.  I eventually stopped going, mystery unsolved. That was nine years ago.

This week there is stunning new information about A.L.S..  Scientists now believe some of the cases aren’t A.L.S. at all.  In fact, the most famous A.L.S. patient, Yankee Great Lou Gehrig, might not have had the disease to which he gave his name.  Researchers now say that repeated concussions can prompt a disease of the brain that mimics amytropic lateral sclerosis, which explains why a disproportionate number of military veterans and athletes develop A.L.S. later in life.   Gehrig himself had several concussions, and his 2,130-game run remains the benchmark for playing hurt.  Today athletes are forced to recover from concussion before resuming play.

This does not explain all A.L.S. cases but it is the first time that some patients can point to a catalyst.  Once a cause is identified, the search for a treatment can begin.

On my last appointment with Dr. Burk Jubelt, the upstate expert on A.L.S., I was told I probably have some slow-progressing neurological something or other.  So much about the way nerves power the muscles is still unknown to science and there are thousands, perhaps millions of little afflictions like mine that become bothersome but not life-threatening.   I attributed my “recovery” to willing the disease away, or at least, willing it at bay.  I was quite accepting of my fate but I didn’t believe God would do that to my children.  Life expectancy with A.L.S. is three to five years.  Christian would have been 13 when he lost his mother.

Lucky for him I’m still around to nag him to take out the trash and empty the dishwasher.

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Here’s my list.

What would you add?

What would you eliminate?

1. Chili dog
2. Lobster roll
3. Foie gras on baguette
4. Ratatouille
5. Pepperidge Farm stuffing
6. Big Mac
7. Heirloom tomatoes with salt
8. Salt potatoes
9. White Tuna sashimi
10. French press coffee with real cream and sugar
11. Steak tartare
12. Petite Pan chocolate
13. Honey Crisp apple
14. Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia ice cream
15. Authentic Gelato
16. Nutella
17. Lays Potato chips
18. Prosecco
19. Hot Sake
20. Baklava
21. Chevre Crottin (aged goat cheese rounds)
22. French crepes
23. Jasmine loose tea
24. Rotisserie chicken
25. Any Chipotle burrito
26. Fresh Guacamole
27. Fried bread dough with powdered sugar
28. Cincinnati chili
29. Steamed clams with butter
30. Gin martini with an olive
31. Any recipe that include saffron
32. Poached Egg on buttered white toast
33. Cocoa Krispy’s
34. Quinoa
35. Miso Soup
36. Seaweed Salad
37. Dunkin Donuts “regular” coffee
38. Oysters on the half shell
39. Gallete de roi (King’s cake)
40. Prime rib, served rare
41. Raspberries, just picked
42. Bruschetta
43. White pizza
44. Fried clams
45. Bagel with cream cheese, lox, and capers
46. Caviar
47. Sausage sandwich with pepper and onion
48. BLT
49. Amaretto on the rocks
50. Pasta with marinara sauce

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I love to get lost in an old movie.  It doesn’t even have to be a good old movie, it just has to be old.

More than anything, I find those movies to be emotionally safe.  There’s no disturbing level of intensity, murders were more about the mystery of solving them than the gore so in a twisted way murder was  intelligent back then.

And people dressed better.   Every man wore a jacket and tie which made them appear older than I suspect they really were, but more handsome too.  And women wore dresses and heels.  Not the three-inch high, pointy-toed variety good for walking only to the car, but one or two inch heavier versions that let you cover entire city blocks.

These well-mannered and well-coiffed individuals put themselves on planes with upholstery and little draperies and white doilies over the head rests.  There was leg room and flexibility and stewardesses carrying cocktails and real food on dishes that could break.

And how about that boarding process?  You bought a ticket, walked onto the tarmac with no greater fuss than a bus terminal and up the ten steps into the plane.  Full body scans for children?  Terrorists in black with cut-outs for eyes?  It’s kind of sweet to watch an old movie and see some sweating passenger in a suit pull out a gun and produce a look of horror among women in hats and white gloves who clutched little boys in sport coats.

Ah, the good old days of air travel.  Today it’s next to impossible to remain comfortable, civil and good looking when you’re packed like sardines in a can  for several hours. Check that.  The sardines are more comfortable.  They get to lie down.

Check out this illustrated story making the rounds from the New York Times.  If you’ve ever taken a long flight you’ll laugh out loud at some of the sketches.

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We went to a new restaurant on Erie Boulevard last night, and if a well attended Monday night is an indication of the demand for the rest of the week, this place is a winner.

Koto’s is a Japanese steak house combining my two favorite kinds of Japanese food: sushi and a hibachi grill.  Tom, Harry, Natalie and I opted for a regular table and sushi, but our seats in the elevated center gave us a full view of three hibachi grills so we vowed to return soon for the full experience at the grill.

Our sushi was delicious.  It was fresh, inventive, and the service was rapid and thorough.  The hibachi grill beside us was colorful, aromatic, lively and at one point, incendiary.  The comical chef put just a little too much oil on the grill and the resulting smoke set off the fire alarm.  Anxious owners scurried with cell phones as surely the Syracuse Fire Department wanted to know if everything was OK.  It was.  The downdraft fans were momentarily overwhelmed and let a little too much smoke waft toward the ceiling.  I’m sure they’ll adjust all the hardware in this two week old establishment to prevent the alarm from happening again.

The grill chefs were magicians with their knives and spatulas, and one in particular delighted the room with his careful toss of bite sized food right into the open mouths of the diners who were seated around the grill like theater.  I didn’t know these people but I was pulling for each one of them to get the food in their mouths and not the tip of their nose.  I don’t even know what was thrown; a scallop?  A cucumber?  I can’t recall because I was laughing at the spectacle.

The interior of Koto’s is updated and sophisticated, with lots of black and cream and lighting in jewel tones that changes without you even being aware of it.  The prettiest section is the room in the back which features dramatic white lighting on dry-stacked stone forming sections of the walls.  The back room handles dining room overflow and hosts private functions as well.

Japanese food is healthy and fresh, and doesn’t overwhelm the plate and the palate with volume.  It is artistic as much as it is delicious.  Give it a try.

Not usually a busy night in restaurants, Monday saw many diners at Koto's

Most of all, try the hibachi grill with a group of friends, or go by yourself and form a table with strangers.  You’ll be amazed and entertained and oh, you’ll leave with plenty of good food in your belly.

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I attended the loveliest, most elegant wedding this weekend in downtown Syracuse.

It began in the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception on Columbus Circle with an alter filled with contemporary floral arrangements of pink hydrangea and sprays of pink orchids.

The music moved people to tears.   As guests walked in, a female vocalist with an operatic voice sang Ave Maria, which usually gets me crying like someone died even on the happiest occasions because that one song more than any other reminds me of my mom.  When she told me late in life that she loved that song I was surprised because she never really got into music that much.   Every time I hear it I think of how I learned my mother had a tender spot for music which had escaped me for most of my adult life.  Had Ave Maria occured further into the wedding ceremony the tears would have fallen right on cue like they always do. The gentleman who sang throughout the wedding sounded like an Irish Tenor.  Between the two of them, I didn’t know there were voices like that in Syracuse, and that was just the beginning. The trumpet, the French horn and the magnificent pipe organ made the music worthy of  the highest praise all its own.

The bride looked like Cinderella at the Ball.  Her maids wore columns of aqua and eschewed the current trend of white-only bouquets by holding balls of riotous color; hot pink, brilliant orange and keylime green.   Turquoise shawls enveloped the pews reserved for family, the shawls anchored by a lone, giant  fuchsia hydrangea.

The reception was held at the Oncenter.  Yes, that Oncenter, with cinder block walls and cavernous spaces and lighting that turns the skin yellow-grey.  Think auto show.  Only on this day the Oncenter was transformed into something I’ve only seen on cable television.  It was a true platinum wedding.

To begin with, the gigunda space was shrunken into something more suitable and intimate with walls made from thousands of yards of white fabric, ceiling to floor.  Contemporary circular chandeliers visually lowered the ceilings.  Subtle lights of bright pink and vivid orange shone through the curtains to provide texture and depth.

The tables were topped with white cloths, and over them, organza overlays in turquoise with gold and bronze bugle and seed beeds.   Prolific floral arrangements in those gorgeous oranges and pinks filled the tables, and sitting atop eight of the round dinner tables, were towering floral arrangements like you see at the Academy Award’s Governor’s Ball.  The perfect balls of color, some three feet in diameter, were  formed by enormous white hydrangea, more giant roses in orange and fushia, and dots of chartreuse-colored orchids.  Sprays of pink orchids cascaded along arched stems, the erotic blossoms forming faces that seemed to smile at everyone.  The crystal vases supporting these works of art had to be four feet tall to allow diners to look past them to friends across the table and they added a vertical element to the large room.  The effect was like we were floating inside a white pillow.

From time to time we would interrupt our dinner conversation to comment on the music.  There were standards from the 1950s and 60s, but just as often, were songs from Jack Johnson, Keane, Coldplay and John Mayer.   The quality of the sound system and the tasteful performance of the disc jockey added to the class of the event.

Duel entrees of sea bass and tenderloin

Then it was over.  Or, so we thought.  At the end of the evening the brother of the bride took the microphone from a now-empty head table to thank everyone for coming, and on behalf of the bride and groom and their families, they wished us safe transport home……  until suddenly, the white curtain walls behind him spread apart to reveal yet another white-draped room!   A 10 piece band played KC and the Sunshine Band disco from the 1970s and from the back of that room there began a free form joyous dance of the bride and groom and all the wedding party in line behind them, ending near the entrance where the head table had been split and wheeled away.    The bride had changed from her Cinderella wedding gown to an ethereal white ballgown.

The groom and his groomsmen had ditched the jackets and this lovely bridal party beckoned us all to get up and come party.  It’s like we flew to Miami and we were now in a club.

Two martini bars flanked either side of the room.  Fiery stones on tables cooked the smores.  In the corners were furniture groupings of smart Mad Menesque  white tufted vinyl sofas and large square cocktail tables.  Above us, the ceiling held swags of white fabric with perfectly formed balls of cobalt blue hydrangea.  Tom and I danced far beyond what my feet could handle in my strappy gladiator sandals with 3″ heels. Ouch, but who cares?  It was so much fun!

See the new room opened up at right?

I share this because in Syracuse anything is possible with the right attitude.  Money helps of course, but this family probably could have produced a destination wedding to whisk every guest to a distant place, far from the bus transfer station on South Salina Street and the vacant storefronts and the civic malaise.   This self-made success story of a family kept the party here.  The Cathedral never looked or sounded better.  Elegant couples walked past the colorful artists and patrons of the Arts and Crafts Festival taking place just outside the carved oak doors.

And the Oncenter.  Oh, my word.  If ever you wondered if this town could pull off a fairy tale event, the proof was right there.   Until that wedding I’d have given you ten new Convention Centers for just one historic Hotel Syracuse, but now I’m not so sure. The grand old hotel could not have pulled this off.

They’re both lovely and they each have a place in our town.  I love learning I can be wrong.

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I’m telling this one to everyone I know, so I’d like to share it here where there are some readers I don’t know, at least not formally.  Once everyone I know has heard my joke, I stop telling it and forget it.  So here it is before I forget this one too.

At an International Farmer’s Conference, a farmer from Russia was speaking with one from Texas.

“How big is your farm?” the Texan inquired.

“It’s 200 meters by 300 meters” said the Russian.  ”How big is yours?”

“Well, I’ll tell ya.  I can get in my car at sunrise and drive all the way until sunset and never reach the end of my property” the Texan replied.

The Russian grinned and said “I had a car like that once.”

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My summer is pretty good.

I’m more addicted to the computer than ever.  My favorite sites are nytimes.com, boston.com, twitter.com, foursquare.com, weneedavacation.com, epicurious.com, time.com.

I watch less TV than ever.  I used to keep the little kitchen countertop 13″ TV on throughout the day to keep me company.  Now I listen to the birds in my backyard, most of whom devour the sunflower seeds at the feeders suspended from Home Depot wrought iron plant hangers screwed to the window trim.  The birds eat better than I do some days.  This year I added a hummingbird feeder and the little guys stop me in the middle of a conversation in the kitchen and believe me,  it is impossible to stop me in the middle of a conversation so these birds must really be something.

I’m enjoying the social media sites, twitter and foursquare.  It’s funny how you can keep up with friends and people you’ve never met simply by checking in to these sites regularly.

I’m swimming as much as I can; off the boat we keep on Canandaigua Lake this summer, but sometimes in the Thornden Park pool.  I just wish we could bring some kind of lawn chair onto the pool deck to relax and read between laps.  Towels on concrete just don’t cut it. Rules, rules, rules.

My new free default exercise is jumping jacks.  They were laughably easy in gym class during grade school, but now they gang up on me.  Go ahead and see how long you last.  You won’t be laughing anymore. I do them with 5 lbs. weights in each hand for additional punishment.  Great bang for the buck and they’re as close as my solid garage floor.

My daughter leaves for graduate school downstate in a couple more weeks.  Having her with me this summer to share conversation and girl jokes, helping with dishes and joining me shopping or for a glass of wine at the end of the day is something I’ll treasure all my life.

The boys are around and great too but they’re different from girls.  Duh.

The rental season at my Cape Cod house is strong and families are calling to report they had a great week and they enjoyed my artwork on the walls.  I painted my own paintings because I couldn’t afford real artwork done by others.  It cracks me up these families don’t seem to know the difference or at least they don’t care.

I’m amazed at the stuff I’m pulling out of my house to sell on ebay for extra cash.  Just when I thought I sold all the stuff I haven’t used or worn for two years, there’s always more.  The old saying “I wish I had a nickel for everything I bought and didn’t use” is trumped on ebay where you can get much more than a nickel.

In spite of this splendid summer of sunny days and warm temperatures, of children around me and flowers that thrive, of cooking that gets a little better all the time, I wish I had more time to read books, to spend time with friends, to write handwritten notes to pals around the country, to visit my elderly aunt Marion in the nursing home in Massachusetts.  I wish had willpower to resist potato chips.  I wish I liked my coffee with a little less cream and a little less sugar, but alas…..  I wish cheese didn’t taste so good.  I wish I liked yogurt more than I do and whole wheat bread which I gave up trying to like years ago for tasting like a wad of sawdust in my mouth and ruining a perfectly good sandwich.

I wish the varicose vein running down the back of my leg would disappear instead of get worse, but at least it doesn’t hurt and thank goodness it’s in the back of my leg instead of the front because I don’t know what I would do if I had to see it every time I look in the mirror.  God placed a whole bunch of stuff happening in the back of women that they should never know about.

On the whole I’m doing pretty well this summer.  I’ve had one small flare up of poison ivy and I don’t have the body chemistry that attracts mosquitoes.  The lawn stays green with no effort. Things could be much worse.

And you?  How are you doing this summer?

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I came across a website sponsored by the people who manufacture Pilot brand ball point pens.  It’s pilothandwriting.com.

Essentially, with five minutes of your time you can create a font of your own handwriting.  This is scary for most Americans who seem to have lost the art of decent penmanship.

Through all those years of answering viewer mail at WTVH  TV, I could tell the approximate age of the letter writer by the quality of the handwriting on the envelope.  My own personal, informal and highly unscientific study of handwriting concludes any individual born after 1950 is better off typing.  Whether students were beaten, degraded, whipped with a belt or held after school for the weekend, the method of teaching handwriting back then worked.  The lettering is beautiful and you can even read it.

On pilothandwriting.com you create an account, then download a template which you fill in with numbers and letters, much like the old handwriting exercises in grade school.

Then, you take that piece of paper and scan, photograph or hold up to a webcam for the website to record.  I chose the webcam option and it was quick, easy and incredibly cool.

In a couple of seconds your individual lettering is processed into your account and you are ready to type a letter or document that looks just like your own penmanship.  Once it’s done, you mail it.  I mailed it to myself and the sample is below.

So take all that spare time of yours; you know, the time you should spend obeying the boss, cutting the grass or washing the car, and start playing with pilothandwriting.com.  Let me know what you think.

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