Seed of an Idea: Cookbook of "Mommy Recipes" illustrated with family photographs

Charles, it is totally awesome that you are illustrating recipes!!

Mel asked me to make her a baby shower gift of handwritten mommy recipes .. illustrated with photos from our past .. eg. you and John eating spaghetti with my Mom's recipe for meat ragu. I am really excited by what a nostalgic project this will be. My stash of photos keeps yielding possibilities! MomPom xx

Mozzarella Salad

This is the simplest salad in the world. You cut up some mozzarella, tomatoes and basil, mix them in a bowl, and pour a half olive oil half balsamic vinegar emulsion over the top. Voila! You're done!!

There is one tricky part though. You have to acquire a plot of land in a beautiful Mediterranean climate, turn your back yard into several wood-divided beds of rich and fertile soil, plant some heirloom tomatoes, wait until they're perfectly ripe, and pick them! If you don't have time for all that, you can visit the Narayan family farm (Fremont, CA) in the middle of September, and they'll have some waiting for you.

Fruit Soup

Fruit is delicious. So if you add a ton of fruit to a pool of fruit juice, it turns out pretty well. That was the line of reasoning a little mommy followed one morning in her kitchen when she dreamed up this banger of a recipe. My favorite fruit soup is as follows:

Fruit:
2 large grapefruits
2 large peaches
2 fuji apples
1 pint of strawberries
1 pint of blueberries
a big bunch of grapes
*note: none of the individual ingredients are absolutely essential except grapes.

Broth:
Bathe it all in mango juice. I usually use Odwalla, but whichever kind tastes fresh and has a thick and pulpy consistency.

Goddess Dressing

Homemade goddess dressing is so good that we have magnet-attached the recipe to our refridgerator door. In fact, it's so good that it once got Lakshmi the Salad Monster out of a grave salad slump. It's delicious on any salad, though my favorite is a fresh fig salad with goat cheese, heaped with sunflower seeds. Here's how the dressing goes:

1/2 cup of tahini
1/2 cup of apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons parsley (preferably fresh)
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 tablespoons honey
1/2 cup olive oil

*Once we were all out of tahini and were scrambling to replace it. Peanut butter, it turns out, does the trick. Ever since we started adding a large spoonful or two.