“It didn’t feel the same. You weren’t doing it to me. And Stephen was fucking the world. Maybe that’s selfish, or egocentric, but that’s the way it was. And that was so long ago.”

“Marnie,” Allie calls. “Juliet.”

“And here we are. Here we still are.” I grab a bottle of wine and sing as I walk back into the party, “Thought we needed more refreshment.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

And the party spirit fills me again.

NUTS

I confess a weakness for nuts of all kinds. They’re my favorite snack, and since the discovery of their health benefits, it’s easy for me to rationalize their consumption. Too easy! Cookies laden with nuts are guaranteed to be some of my favorites.

But as much as I love eating nuts, I must admit I find black walnuts a little suspect. Growing 130 feet tall with a spread of 75 feet, the American black walnut is often regarded as the national tree of the USA. I have several growing in my yard and they are feathery shade trees, but it’s difficult, often impossible, to grow certain plants near them. Before I buy any plant, I research to learn if the plant can thrive. Redbuds and bleeding hearts flourish; lilacs and peonies expire. The nuts stain your hands, can be used as a dye, and the wood is quite valuable. The nut is smaller and has a tougher shell than the standard walnut, which grew wild over a broad area from southeast Europe through Asia almost to China. Wild walnuts have been gathered and eaten since prehistoric times. The practice of pressing oil from them is mentioned in ancient Greece. Romans were prepared to pay high prices for good walnuts and had a tradition of throwing walnuts at weddings. Early settlers in New England brought the walnut here in spite of the fact that there were already several good native species. Walnuts are an excellent source of plant protein and also omega-3. Walnuts aid in the lowering of LDL cholesterol (the bad cholesterol) and the C-Reactive Protein (CRP), which is a marker for heart disease.

Pecans, named by the Algonquin Indians, and the most important nut indigenous to North America, come from a hickory tree related to walnuts. Both pecans and blueberries are native to North America and were major foods for Native Americans. The deciduous tree lives and bears fruit for up to three hundred years, growing as tall as 130 feet with a spread of 75 feet. Some old wild trees continue to produce nuts, but most are grown on cultivated trees. Antoine, an African American slave from Louisiana, propagated pecans by grafting a superior wild pecan to seedling pecan stocks. His clone won an award at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876 and his tree stimulated the pecan industry. Pecans are an excellent source of protein and unsaturated fat, and lower cholesterol.