I have been absent but I have not been idle. I have been enriching my soil. Or should I say life has been enriching my soil?. I blessed to visit Los Angeles in March. I attended the celebration of my mothers 90th year of life. Old friends, family members I had not seen in a long while and my moms new friends (new to me) gathered together. It was glorious. I then spent time with my son and his family. My baby granddaughter gave me pure unconditional love. She is one of my lights.

I returned home to join in a flurry of activity. I was able to spend time with my other lights, granddaughter and grandson. I joined in the flurry of resurrection production activities. In the midst of all this the choirs had to prepare for regular Sunday services. I was tired but overwhelmed with joy. I truly enjoy my fellow choir members. We laugh, we cry, we disagree, we work it out, we worship together, we minister together. It is glorious. Rich soil.

Before I went to L.A., I ordered a cookbook, Make Your Own by Javant Benson. I discovered him on YouTube. He is a vegan cook who uses no-oil, no wheat and no refined sugar. I had wanted to decrease if not eliminate my use of oil. I tried some of his recipes and liked them. He had done the heavy lifting, trying different ingredient combinations to produce tasty, healthy vegan food with no oil. I decided it was a worthwhile investment.Now that all the other intense activity is over I can focus on trying his recipes. The following posts will be about this journey. This week I have completed several recipes and I cant wait to tell you about the experience.

I have made familiar recipes my own when I wanted to vegan-ized traditional recipes. However, I still used oil. Tomorrow I will share my Make Your Own experiences.