Last night's dinner which Mark and I prepared for friends: standing rib roast started in the oven, finished cooking over hickory coals on the grill; roasted vegetable--potatoes, carrots, shallots, garlic cloves and onions seasoned with rosemary, olive oil and thyme; salad of grape tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, chiffonade of basil, garlic and olive oil; and bruschetta on the side. Dessert involved a small scoop of vanilla ice cream topped with freshly made *cocoa syrup, caramel sauce, pecans or walnuts and fresh whipped cream. I love entertaining, in particular I really enjoy cooking for small dinner parties. I like being the hostess. Why we do not do this more often, I do not know. Small gatherings like this have just the right amount of good food, good company and entertaining conversation. I enjoy myself and am much more comfortable in more intimate social settings, forget loud and smoky bars for me, come join me for dinner. There are a number of books that should be at my door soon: A Natural History of Trees and In a Patch of Fireweed. I also picked up this book to help motivate and educate me. Mark and I are trying to get into the habit of taking a walk together on most days. I tend to take longer walks around the neighborhood when I have someone to walk with. I also ordered a pedometer as a motivational gadget/tool to get me walking more. Ever since I heard this story on NPR about the 'Amish diet' where they simply compared the number of steps taken in a day with average Americans and Canadians to Amish men and women, I've had a mild obsession with figuring out how much I walk in a day. The study just put pedometers on people using the number of steps taken as a measure of fitness, the average person in mainstream society takes about 2000-3000 steps in an ordinary day where as Amish men took about 18,500 and the women 14,500 steps in a day. Another interesting tidbit on the 'Amish diet'--they eat an average of 3,600 calories in a day and there is only a 4% incidence of obesity whereas our recommended under 2000 calorie a day lazy asses have 30% of our population considered obese. My estimates put me above the average person in steps taken in a day. Just the amount involved walking to and from the bus stops, going up and down the monster stairs at work, the amount of walking around I do at work and in the home, going for walks, or while shopping, I probably average 5000-6000 steps in a day. Once I have my pedometer log of my days, I will post numbers and averages to see how close my estimates are to reality. *The cocoa syrup is super easy and super yummy, much more tasty than anything store bought or prepackaged, and it's a recipe of Alton Brown, who I just love! I halved this recipe and put into a squeeze bottle.