The way to a man’s heart may not be through his stomach, but you couldn’t prove it by me

Either Napoleon Bonaparte or Frederick the Great is supposed to have said, “An army marches on its stomach” -- if the former, probably in French and if the latter, probably in German, but definitely neither in English. Anyway, it has been a busy month in Lake Wobegon for the Rhymeswithplagues, and a lot of our activities involved food.

Here are a few examples.

We drove over to Alabama to see and hear two of our grandsons perform in Jacksonville State University’s honor bands because hearing the best of the best is always fun. The younger boy, Sam, played trumpet in the university’s middle school honor band:

The older boy, Sawyer, played French horn in the university’s high school honor wind ensemble, in which just about every player was first chair in his or her high school band section back home:

After the absolutely brilliant concerts, we enjoyed some delicious Mexican food at Baja California, a spacious restaurant carved out of a corner of the old Walmart building in Jacksonville. My dish was called “chicken and rice” but that doesn’t begin to describe the taste treat I experienced.

We were invited to celebrate Mother’s/Mothers’/Mothers Day at our younger son’s home. He prepared a wonderful meal of (in his own words) “Roasted Pork Loin seasoned with chopped garlic, salt and pepper, and a blend of herbs (basil, oregano, and rosemary) straight from the garden, served on a bed of quinoa, with kale, tomato, and feta salad, both drizzled with a Balsamic reduction sauce and a side of roasted cabbage wedges” that tasted every bit as good as it looked:

Here are the happy participants (minus the members of the younger generation who had to hurry off somewhere) with full tummies after the feast:

We attended the 25th annual Greek Festival in Marietta (a 3-day event at Holy Transfiguration Orthodox Church) and brought home some of our favorite Greek foods -- Oregano Chicken, rice, Greek-style green beans (fasolakia), stuffed grape leaves (dolmades) with lemon sauce, and wonderful kataifi (think shredded wheat drenched in syrupy honey with a filling of crushed almonds and walnuts). We set the food on the patio table and it disappeared before I could show it to you. Here’s proof:

We made another trip to Marietta to attend the high-school graduation of our second-oldest grandson, Matthew, from the Mt. Paran Christian School, and enjoyed a wonderful lunch afterward (we each had a scrumptious Reuben sandwich) with Matthew’s family at the Marietta Country Club, with all four grandparents in attendance. We presented him with a small monetary gift and also an afghan that Mrs. RWP diligently created, row upon row, over the past three months with colors representing his future alma mater. I did the math. Mrs. RWP cast on 341 stitches and then crocheted 182 rows, so Matthew’s afghan contains 62,062 love-filled stitches. Here it is in mid-creation:

After church on Sunday we ate lunch at Golden Palace Chinese Restaurant (me: hot and sour soup, Mongolian beef; her: egg drop soup, shrimp with asparagus and snow peas; both of us: the obligatory hot tea, egg roll, and fortune cookie) and drove back to Cobb County again to attend the graduation celebration for Matthew that his parents had arranged at their subdivision’s clubhouse. A noisy, happy time was had by all. Food appeared in abundance, but once again it kept disappearing before I could photograph it.

On our 52nd wedding anniversary we went out again, this time for seafood. We began with crab-stuffed mushrooms, shrimp with a delicious coconut dipping sauce, and shrimp cocktail. Then we got down to business with a trio entree of garlic shrimp scampi, lobster-pasta bake, and something else that I do not recall at the moment.

All in all, it has been an unbelievable month, gastronomically speaking.

Instead of displaying my weight, my bathroom scale now hands me a card containing the words “One at a time, please.”

Here is a quiet moment in the midst of the month’s activities: