I'm a hoarder. It must come from having lived through the depression. Oh wait. I didn't live through the depression. I did have grandparents who said things like, "If we wipe off these paper plates, we can use them again." Or, "Here, let me have that wrapping paper. We can use it next Christmas." So I hoard. I buy things I love and then never use them for fear of running out.

And I love Limonata. Oh how I love it. It reminds me of Schwepps Bitter Lemon (my favorite childhood drink aside from Coke...I am a southern girl after all!) which I can't find at all anymore. When we were in California, I could get it at Beverages and More(!), but no where here. So on to Limonata. We can only get it in the can at Trader Joes (and our nearest one of those is just over 30 minutes away), so when I get it, I hoard it. For a too brief time I was the only one in our family who drank it. Callum didn't like anything "fuzzy" (his word for carbonated drinks), and Neel only drinks wine, coffee, martinis and scotch. So slowly, slowly, I would work my way through the three six packs I'd bring home from TJs every few months. This was a special occasion drink. I'd save it for a nice dinner when I didn't want wine, or a Friday lunch on my own while I watched CSI Miami. Ah, what a treat.

Then something terrible happened. Callum tried my Limonata one day and liked it. What the hell was I thinking?! Now he likes it and wants it. On all occasions. Even ones that aren't special treats. Like a regular every day lunch for crying out loud. For awhile I staved it off by sharing. Half for him and half for me. Then he wanted his own. Upstart. I said no. A lot. Only for special occasions, and lunch, just this plain old boring lunch of tuna salad and mac and cheese is not special enough. My question is this: am I raising him to be a hoarder just like me? Is he doomed to either never use the things he buys (like the Valentine's Day candy corn that I still have stashed in the pantry...not because I didn't like it or because I got tired of it, but because, well, what if I run out? Before the next Valentine's Day?) or to treat every occasion as a special occasion (like lunch on a Friday in front of CSI Miami).

These are some important parenting issues to ponder, but today we just relaxed. I'm calling it the first day of summer vacation because we've been gone and the end of last week was nothing more than recovery. Not that we're not all still recovering. Everyone is on a sleep-til-you-wake-up policy (that means 5:45 a.m. for me and 8:45 a.m. for Neel), and then we stayed in our jammies for a lot of the day. Callum and I had Book Club (he read me some Pooh, and I read him some Lloyd Alexander), and then we decided to make Neel a really nice supper.

It took all day.

The recipe is from Ina (Barefoot Contessa, at Home).

Callum chopped the cucumbers after I cooked the beets.

This part was concerning. Where we added the broth and sour cream and yogurt. And it didn't look at all like borscht.

But we soldiered on, adding the carefully diced cukes and beets, hoping things would start to pink up.

Callum used my favorite kitchen tool ever, my mezzaluna, to chop the dill.

After chilling for several hours, during which we had to check it regularly and stir it a bit, just to make sure the beets were still doing their work, we got this!

We set a nice table.

And what's this? This plate of deliciousness? I got this recipe from NPR. Their "From the Kitchen" segment did an article about cherries and this salad is from that article. Go check their site, but it's pretty simple really. The dressing blends cherries, mint, olive oil, rice wine vinegar, some edemame and salt and pepper. Mix the dressing with a cup of edemame (we used a little more actually, and that worked better), put it in the center of a plate ringed with smoked salmon. YUM.

For all of his hard work, Callum got one of these. First day of summer vacation, a special occasion indeed.