Super Summer Shrimp (super fast)

Need a quick meal and something to do with all those garden fresh tomatoes?

This meal comes together in less than ten minutes - provided of course that you have all the ingredients on hand. I was able to chop it up, grab a bag of non-gentically modified "organic" tortilla chips and enjoy while watching a summer baseball game.


Eight cooked large shrimp
2 garden fresh tomatoes
8 large stems of cilantro
1/2 lime
one very ripe avocado
pinch of sea salt
1 tablespoon of olive oil
splash of Modena vinegar

Chop shrimp in to small, bite sized pieces and place in glass dish. Dice garden tomatoes and discard inside core leaving mostly the outer skin. Pull cilantro leaves off stems and toss with shrimp and tomatoes.

Roll lime on counter using the palm of your hand to "loosen the juice." Cut lime in half and take a teaspoon to "twist the juice" in to the bowl of shrimp.

Dice avocado and toss with mixture.

Serve with tortilla chips and a glass of ice water splashed with lemonade.

(I would double the recipe if you are preparing for two.)

Enjoy with a cool breeze...

Supermom101 accused of starving 15 year-old - 6'2" teenage son

This past weekend, Supermom101 was accused of not feeding her 15 year-old son for an entire week. According to a source familiar with the situation, "Supermom's son has been starving for a week."

Allegedly Supermom's husband got their son up and out of bed at 9:30AM Friday morning because he had to mow three lawns that day. This was the morning after his son's team had won the Babe Ruth Championship series the night before (they swept the series). "What's a kid to do?" the source familiar to the situation continued. "The night before they had won the Championship and maybe he stayed up late to watch the Red Sox's lose and now he has to mow lawns in the 85 degree heat with nothing to eat. It's just not right, man."

According to Supermom, she received a telephone call from her distraught son at approximately 3:35 PM Friday afternoon. "I had just returned to my desk from a meeting with the CEO and saw that I had missed two calls from home on my cell phone when my office phone started to ring and displayed the home number. They never call me at the office. I knew it was an emergency since the younger two were at camp and our oldest was off mowing lawns. I thought maybe it was my husband calling to say the dog had been hit by a car or our son was hit with a projectile while mowing the lawns." When I heard our son's voice I was concerned.

"Mom, you have not fed me for one full week. There is nothing to eat. I am starving and sick of spending my own money to eat. I'm sick of making quesadillas and why don't we have any food? Why haven't you been food shopping. There is nothing to eat." And then the phone went dead.

Superom101 reportedly started to laugh when the receiver went dead. When asked to elaborate she only commented, "Um well. The day before my friend had just spent a small fortune at the supermarket and her 15 year old son told her there was nothing to eat too and she had just put all the food in the refrigerator and he was staring at a fully stocked fridge. Is it because I'm not there to prepare it and deliver it to him on a silver platter?"

"Although I was a bit annoyed that he hung up on me," Supermom101 continued, "I called him back about twenty minutes later when I knew he had calmed down. I figured there was more to the story."

According to an expert on childhood development and specifically hungry teenage boys, "I question the parents judgement in leaving a 6'2" fifteen year old at home and expect him to mow three laws and make his own lunch. What type of young adult is Supermom raising when she and her husband are sending him mixed messages," the expert continued. "I don't want to imply that Supermom101 is being negligent but not having his food prepared for him and in the very least cutting the edges off his crust? The father should pay a landscaper to do his son's work and let the kid sleep until noon. What type of "teachable moment" is this young man experiencing when his parents are placing so much responsibility on him. What's next? Keeping his room clean and feeding the dog?"

Supermom101's husband could not be reached for comment. However, according to another source close to the situation, "His dad is the type to say, ya know, get up and get out and mow the lawns. And. I think it's really like unfair, 'cause maybe he was up late watching sports center and like the Red Sox's always lose to the Yankees and you want to keep watching the same Yankee's home run over and over because you can't believe they go extra innings and once again..."

P.S. Supermom's 6'2' 15 year old son looked over her shoulder when she was editing this post and his only comment, "no one is going to read it; so why bother posting it?"

The "Real" Cost of Health Care

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure

-Benjamin Franklin

There can be no real discussion on the "health care debate" without first discussing the obese, white elephant that's been sleeping on everyone's couch, eating genetically modified food products sprinkled with corn syrup and watching our high definition TVs. And what about those of us that have never struggled with weight issues, are busy chasing toddlers and thought "we were eating right" by following the recommended daily servings of the USDA's Food Pyramid and still ended up with breast cancer at the age of 37?

According to The Cancer Project (an organization founded by MDs that is advancing cancer prevention and survival through nutrition education and research) "approximately 80% of cancers are due to factors that can be controlled." And the main one is (gulp) diet. Yep! 1 in 100,000 women in China will get breast cancer during her lifetime and the number in the US is 1 in 7. (There is no dairy in the rural Chinese diet.) How can heart disease be rising, children diagnosed with diabetes at unprecedented levels and cancer rates soaring? And...we've never spent more on health care or research.

The recent health care debates, dialogue and discussions (in my opinion) are looking right past the elephant, straight through my kitchen and out past the back door. Why isn't anyone asking who or what is opening my front door and letting this elephant lounge around my home at my personal expense when I certainly wouldn't put myself or my children in harm's way. (Maybe my husband if you catch me on a bad day.) This elephant is showing up in our homes at an alarming rate and no one is asking why? He is consuming billions of dollars in research money to "discover" the latest and greatest technology to detect him and point out which end of the couch he's sitting on. We're spending billions of dollars on drugs to placate him, and we're removing him from our homes at unprecedented rates only to have him return a short time later. I wanna know why he showed up at my house to begin with and why is he sleeping on my couch? PERIOD!

Our medical system rocks when we are in a serious car accident or need emergency surgery for an appendectomy. There is none better in the world. But, again, in my opinion, and as a cancer consumer of health care that experienced several major surgeries in a very limited time frame, we have done a lousy job of addressing the white elephant of nutrition and disease. When you have a heart attack your cardiologist will tell you to change your diet and "eat healthier." As my brother would suggest, the next time you are in the supermarket lug around a twenty pound bag of dog food and ask yourself if you are carrying around that much added weight on your skeleton. A child has to monitor their food intake when living with diabetes. To lower one's cholesterol and blood pressure we are told to "eat right." while we are inundated with low fat natural food products that don't have an ounce of nutritional value but are endorsed by associations, industry sponored research and the "USDA's food pyramid."

So, what is a Supermom to do? Stay tuned...I'll post the rest later. This is depressing and it's too nice out.

What are you reading this summer?

I always come away from the local library feeling inspired and completely inadequate. Thousands of titles beg to be browsed and so little time... Would love to hear what you are reading this summer.



Friends have suggested:

Little Pink House: A True Story of Defiance and Courage by Jeff Benedict (The library was out but it's on order.)

Three Cups of Tea: One Man's missions to Promote Peace...One School at a time by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin (Started a few nights ago and it's intriguing.)

Supermom's favorite subjects include (in no particular order):

• Diet, disease and nutrition
• Historical fiction, including: John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Michelangelo
• Investment techniques and strategies
• True stories of ordinary people in extraordinary situations
• Artist techniques
• Inspirational and motivating

Would love to hear what's on your bed table this summer.