Homemade Strawberry Vinigrette

Here's a wonderful way to get rid of that red balsamic vinegar that you bought ages ago and did not like.

Boil 5 frozen strawberries with a tablespoon of white sugar and 4 tablespoons of the vinegar. Once the berries are soft, transfer to a food processor and pulse until the berries are puried into the mixture. Return to pot and bring to boil again, reduce heat and leave to simmer 4 minutes. Pour into glass container and let cool completely. Serve with your favorite goat cheese and cranberry salad. I add dried apricots, sunflower seeds, endives and lettuce to mine. Yum!

The Visitor

"In a world of six billion people, it only takes one to change your life."

excerpt from the movie, The Visitor

There are some movies that come and go and others that stay with you. Some that you see for fun, for a laugh, or to waste time. Then, there are those that take you away, absorb you in and remind you of things that you would have rather forgotten. "After a while you forget, you think you belong." But do you really? Do you really belong? Or is it just a smoke screen? Something you tell yourself in order to carry on? You really think you belong and you build your life around that belief. You live for years. And then, it all ends. In one sudden, unassuming move, it all washes away. You are removed from that which you had put together. You are taken away, no questions asked and no answers. You are suddenly back, back to that place from which you had tried to escape. Back to persecution, back to abandonment.

What on earth am I writing about? Watch the Visitor. Pretend you are an immigrant. Put yourself in their shoes. See how you feel. See what you think. What do you think?

I think life is full of surprises. Some good, some not so good. Some - like me - are forunate. Others, not as much. I will never get deported, I am a citizen now. But there are others, many others who will never have a chance at that. Who will always live with the fear of being randomly stopped in the metro station and find themselves in a detention facility on their way back to where they came from. And many of them, (I cannot generalise to say all of them) are innocent people, here to try for a better life, are here looking for safety and security. They will never know.........Or worse, they would have only started to know, to feel, to live, in time to be sent back, to be deprived, to be denied......... Why?