Aging Exuberantly
When I think of aging well, my dear friend Suzanne Dunaway instantly comes to mind. She is an energy source extraordinaire! For as long as I have known her, she has been cooking, baking, drawing, painting, and publishing cookbooks that are filled with her voice and spirit. Kit and I lived next door to Suzanne and her husband Don in an urban canyon in Los Angeles in the late 1970s and early 80s. Half a century later, they divide their time between an apartment in Rome and house in Southwestern France and Kit and I are living in the Sierra Foothills above Nevada City, CA.
But we talk constantly via emails about books, politics, and especially food. This creative author/illustrator of two cookbooks lives and breathes cooking and sharing food that she buys in local markets in Rome and her village by the Mediterranean. When she sends a recipe, I hear the traces of her Texas childhood in her voice as if she were standing next to me in our kitchen. This extremely cold week in both of our worlds, she sent this recipe for French Garlic Soup to cure winter ailments—
“I love making soups in winter, and this one is a doozie for head colds or simply to feed your wintry soul. The garlic should be very hard and closed without the little green baby inside that start up in winter. But the lovely end of summer garlic called rose de Lautrec stores well in the fridge over a long time.
Ingredients:
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
1 soup spoon of butter
2 bulbs of garlic, the cloves peeled and crushed
2 leeks, sliced thin to the green tops
2 medium size potatoes, sliced thin
1 sweet onion, sliced thin
5 cups chicken broth
½ cup liquid cream
Salt and generous pepper
Directions:
In a large soup pot, heat the olive oil and butter and add the garlic, letting it brown just a little.
Add the leeks, onion, and potatoes, turning them all about to coat with the warm oil and butter mixture.
Add the chicken broth (it should cover the vegetables so you may need a bit more) and simmer the soup until the vegetables are soft, about 30 minutes on low heat.
With a hand mixer, whiz the soup until smooth and creamy, then add the liquid cream, salt, and pepper.
I make my own croutons and serve the soup with them, but all it needs is nicely toasted slices of good sturdy bread, and a chunk of your favorite cheese and little green cool salad on the side.
Tip on salad-making: I crumble feta cheese and grilled, crushed almonds over my lettuces before adding my vinaigrette. Makes a plain salad very snappy indeed.”
Author No Need to Knead, Rome, at Home, la cucina romana in your own kitchen
http://www.theamericanmag.com
http://www.suzannedunaway.com
http://https://anglophone-direct.com
When our exchanges are not about food, Suzanne and I share book titles and sometimes simply mail books to each other that we think the other simply must read. Last month I received three books in a mystery series by British author Richard Osman. Suzanne has not stopped raving about the septuagenarian and octogenarian cast of characters—four pensioners living in a peaceful upscale retirement village in England who meet up once a week to investigate unsolved murders. When a series of murders take place at their very doorstep, the four friends all pushing eighty show that they still have a few tricks up their sleeves. Welcome to The Thursday Murder Club. Order a copy today!
Margareta Magnusson, age 86 an author who lives in Stockholm has written a new book entitled:
The Swedish Art of Aging Exuberantly: Life Wisdom from Someone Who Will (Probably) Die Before You. While admitting that aging is hard, she has some advice for how to make life worth living, no matter your age. 1. Embrace kärt besvär(seeing every nuisance as something you must find a way to cherish). 2. Surround yourself with the young. 3. Say “yes” whenever possible.
By saying “yes” you are being curious and exploratory and being part of community.
This philosophy on ageing well reminds me of Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont—a movie and book by English author Elizabeth Taylor. First published in Great Britain in 1972, the book and its author are unsung gems. At its heart is Margareta Magnusson’s 2nd piece of advice on aging well— “Surround yourself with the young.”
The story in a nutshell goes as follows:
“On a rainy Sunday afternoon in January, the recently widowed Mrs. Palfrey arrives at the Claremont Hotel where she will spend her remaining days. Her fellow residents are a mixed bunch—magnificently flawed and eccentric—living off crumbs of affection and an obsessive interest in the hotel menu. Together, upper lips stiffened, they fight off their twin enemies: boredom and the Grim Reaper. And then one day, Mrs. Palfrey meets the handsome young writer Ludo, and an unlikely friendship is formed…”
Aging exuberantly is hard, but onward we septuagenarians and octogenarians go. Cherishing friendships old and new, sharing recipes and books, writing weekly blogs, embracing kärt besvär, surrounding ourselves with the young, and saying “yes” as much as we possibly can.
