You've Gotta Have Friends.

My teenage years were spent working at Six Flags over Texas (SFOT) every summer. SFOT was the great equalizer because everyone wore uniforms. REALLY. UGLY. UNIFORMS. One year we had to wear cowboy hats, cowboy boots, browns skorts (obviously not the boys) and these ugly brown plaid shirts. They were made out of some material that ensured there would be absolutely no circulation. If you put a bunch of these uniforms on the roof of your home in place of solar panels you could provide energy for the entire neighborhood. If you wore make-up it melted off by morning and you also ended up with really bad hat hair. Most of the park was covered in black asphalt and you could just feel the heat generated all the way through your boots. And...it was the best job EVER!

Yes...we were hot.hot.hot!

It's really difficult to describe how great this place was. I met so many people and made life long friends. We worked hard, worked long hours, and survived the heat wave of 1980! That was the first "Beat the Heat" mantra - now it means something different. Stupid LeBron James and Dwyane Wade. Anyway, I digress.

Somehow, 8 of us formed a really close bond. When we were 17 and 18 (4 were 17 and 4 were 18) we convinced our parents to allow us to go to San Antonio together. We were dubbed the 'San Antonio 8'. Thirty five years later we are still together! Six of us are still local and 2 are out of state.

The San Antonio 8 - now

The San Antonio 8 - then

At some point in my 20's I tried to read the book Passages by Gail Sheehy. It was incredibly boring so I never got anywhere near finishing it. I think part of the reason I couldn't read it is because in my 20's I really hadn't experienced these "passages." The local 6 got together for dinner the other night and I realized how many passages each of us have experienced together. By saying this I am making up my own passages or phases of our lives. 

I looked at each one of these lovely women and thought of all that we had been through together. In our teens we weathered many broken hearts and were always there for each other when these break-ups happened. In our 20's we started getting married and having children. We've been through the loss of siblings, loss of a spouse, and loss of parents. We've weathered divorces and 2 of our own moving far away. Some of us are now experiencing the difficulty of helping an aging parent.

These girls KNOW me. They know my past (and they're still my friends!) They know things that no one else knows about me. In fact, I have to keep Beth happy because she is the only one that can help me reconstruct my late teens and 20's. 

On an episode of The Big Bang Theory, Penny asked Bernadette and Amy when they thought you became an adult. That's a tough question. I'm thinking maybe it's when you go from talking about boys to talking about cleaning products for the toilet (and yes - we have had that conversation!) Now we are talking about our bifocals! Time passages!

I can't think of a better group of women to experience the next phase of our lives.

Here we are posing in the same position as our first SA8 photo.

I hope the day will be a lighter highway
For friends are found on every road
Can you ever think of any better way
For the lost and weary travellers to go

Making friends for the world to see
Let the people know you got what you need
With a friend at hand you will see the light
If your friends are there then everything's all right

It seems to me a crime that we should age
These fragile times should never slip us by
A time you never can or shall erase
As friends together watch their childhood fly

Let's Eat : Garlic-Roasted Cauliflower

Haven't you always loved cauliflower?

Yeah, me neither. White. Not that much flavor. Odd-looking. Too bulky to fit into the vegetable keeper. Traditionally overcooked and covered in some kind of suspiciously fake-food cheese sauce to make it more appealing. Something to definitely pass over at the salad bar!

Well, I've changed my mind about cauliflower. Once I tried Garlic-Roasted Cauliflower from Ina Garten's "How Easy is That?" cookbook, it was all over. This recipe has amazing flavor, thanks to the garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, fresh parsley and toasted pine nuts. The first time I made it, my husband and I ate an entire head of cauliflower. The next time, we let the kids taste it and nearly fought over the last few pieces.

Before roasting --

And the finished dish! I can almost smell it...yum.

Maybe the best part of this recipe is how easy it is to make. A little chopping and a little tossing is all it takes. Here's her recipe, modified to reflect the way I make it:

Ina's Garlic-Roasted Cauliflower, Sharon's Way

1 head of garlic
1 large head (or 2 small ones) cauliflower, trimmed, cut into large florets
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
3 tablespoons pine nuts

1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 cup minced fresh parsley
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice 
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

2. Separate the cloves of garlic and peel them. Cut large cloves in half.

3. On a sheet pan, toss the cauliflower with garlic, 3 tablespoons olive oil, 2 teaspoons salt and 1 teaspoon pepper. Spread mixture out in a single layer and roast, tossing after 15 minutes and adding the pine nuts at that time. Continue cooking for 10 minutes or so, until the cauliflower is tender and garlic and pine nuts are lightly browned.

4. Scrape the cauliflower into a large bowl with garlic and pan juices (I do not normally have any pan juices, but Ina thinks I should!). Add remaining 1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil, parsley, pine nuts and lemon juice. Sprinkle with another 1/2 teaspoon salt, toss and serve hot or warm.

Now a regular vegetable in our repertoire, cauliflower has been forever transformed from "ew" to "ah!" -- my whole family is actually excited when it's on the menu. Which helps to prove my theory that there really aren't bad vegetables...just bad ways to fix them. Roasting is a delicious way to fix so many vegetables, and I hope you'll try this one!