The yellow plums looked good, and when I got them home I
realized that they were something that I’ve had before called a Dinosaur plum. Sometimes
the Dinosaur plums are purplish, but these were yellow, and I know from seeing
them in some of the fancier stores that they’re usually really expensive. I don’t
know how many were in the basket I bought, but there were several pounds of
them, and when I tasted them they were some of the most delicious fruit I’ve
had in a while and I always get great fruit at that market. Plums are something
that I really love anyway, and these were so good I could have eaten the whole
basket. As it was I ate two of the yellow and one of the purple ones that I had
bought another basket of. The purple weren’t the dinosaur plums, they were just
regular really delicious dark purple plums, but the yellow ones were so good
that the regular purple ones paled in comparison. I’ll still eat the purple
ones and enjoy them and I’m not sorry that I bought them, but the yellow plums
are the stuff that dreams are made of. Pure ambrosia.
When I looked up the word ambrosia, I found references to
the food of the gods in Greek mythology. There’s also a fruit salad with
coconut, pineapple, mandarin oranges, marshmallows, pecans and fruit cocktail.
How the “food of the gods” got to be a fruit salad with marshmallows in it is
really beyond my scope of understanding. I tend to be a purist when it comes to
food, and if fruit is good and fresh, I like it just like that. Marshmallows
are something that I used to eat when I was much younger, but all they are is
pure sugar. Fruit is high in sugar already, and if you add fruit cocktail, that’s
got syrup in it. Then add marshmallows and it’s a syrupy and in my opinion
sickeningly sweet mess. I love a good sweet desert, but again even then I’m a
purist. Ice cream sundaes are about as decadent as I get or maybe chocolate ice
cream on a good chocolate cake or a brownie. Lately I’ve gotten into the habit
of having ice cream with a chocolate hazelnut spread on it. It’s like Nutella
but it’s the store brand from one of my local stores so it was much cheaper and
it’s really good.
Another listing under the word ambrosia is the band from the
70’s. I remembered the name but couldn’t remember any songs, but there they
were listed on Wikipedia, bringing me memories from when I was a teenager
listening to the Top 40 every Saturday morning. My favorite thing to do on
Saturday mornings was to have bacon and eggs and potatoes fried in the bacon
fat while I listened to Casey Kasem’s American Top 40. Yes, everyone who knows
me as the nutrition lady, I said bacon fat, and yes, everyone who knows me as a
rock chick, I said American Top 40.
I still like bacon fat, though I don’t have it very often,
and there’s still a soft spot in my heart for groups like Ambrosia, even though
I never even really liked them back when I was listening to the Top 40. There
are memories that I have of times and places that are based in certain music
and food. Some of it was good and some not so good, but if the memories are
good, then the food and the music seem a little sweeter. Lobster rolls never
taste as good as when I’m on the beach in my favorite place in Rhode Island
because that’s where I had them the first time I ever had them, and when I do
have one and I’m not there I find myself thinking of that place. Thai food will
always be romantic for me because I had Thai food for the first time when I was
visiting someone I loved in Hawaii, and he took me to a restaurant that was
full of orchids. No matter where I have Thai food now, even when I make it
myself, I always think of that dinner and I’m right back to being 19 again. There
was a song I loved from that time, “The Boys of Summer,” and every time I hear
it, I smile. Play me anything by the Who with Roger Daltrey singing lead and I
want to put on my fringed jacket. Play me Bob Marley and the Wailers and I’m in
my brother’s truck, and he’s driving me back to college after summer break.
Play Jeff Beck and Rod Stewart’s version of Curtis Mayfield’s “People Get
Ready,” and I think of my brother back in the days before either of us knew the
Lord.
“People get ready, there’s a train a comin’, you don’t need
no baggage, you just get on board. All you need is faith to hear the diesels
hummin’, you don’t need no ticket, you just thank the Lord.”
In the last years of his life, my brother got to know the
Lord, and he said at that time that the worst thing that had ever happened to
him, and he’d been through a lot of bad stuff in his life, but the worst thing
he felt was not having had faith. I remember at the time thinking either he was
crazy or there must be something to faith and God that I needed to find out for
myself. Two years later I was born again, and I understand what he meant. All
you need is faith to get on board, you can leave your baggage behind, and you
don’t need a ticket, you just thank the Lord.
I thank the Lord every day, even in my troubles and doubts,
even when I’m complaining, no matter what is going on it always comes back to
thank you Lord. Because I know, no matter what, that the life I lived before
was not the life I have now. It pales in comparison. You could say it was a
perfectly good life – there were some very good things in it, some very bad
things too, but even now there are both good and bad mixed together. But it’s
me that’s different, what’s inside of me, the way I think, the way I talk, the
way I feel.
1 John 4:12-13 tells us, “No one has ever seen God; but if
we love one another, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us. This
is how we know that we live in Him and He in us: He has given us of His Spirit,”
and verse 4 tells us, “the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in
the world.” It is the Spirit of God that makes all the difference. Jesus tells
us in John 16:33, “I have told you these things so that in me you may have
peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the
world.” When life is sweet, we can enjoy it, and when it's not so sweet, we can still have peace. When we have faith, we can take heart, because we know that what we
cannot do, He can, and that is food from God.
Blessings,
Jannie Susan
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