Thoughts While Cooking a Warm Lamb Salad

Warm Lamb Salad. Sounds mmm......I've shopped for the ingredients. Planned my start - as timing is all important in preparing good food….. and Oh! fresh ingredients. It's obvious I take an interest in favorable results. My thoughts wander as I chop fresh basil for the dressing, fresh rosemary for the meat. The local supermarket has come a long way in supplying every need. As I work I wonder, “What must it be like - to be famous?” If I had been a celebrity would I have married Elvis? Maybe I might have saved him from himself. Pricilla didn't. Mmmmmmm the rosemary is aromatic while the lamb is cooking. How would I handle fame? It is a closed door to me. I think of all the dead stars I have loved. I feel the grief. Such tragedy weighs heavily - amid red onions and baby arugula . I wish I could have known any of them without the chance of losing my enchantment from personal familiarity - or their shortcomings. I search the refrigerator. Wine for the cook! Sip…….then a blaze of insights as I pile the greens onto an serving platter. What does fame do to a person's mind? Some say it brings arrogance. Maybe the difference depends on how that someone handles power, money, or vanity. Or how much sway any of it has over them. Mostly, it must depend on the handling of disillusionment. Perhaps if Princess Di had stayed at home with her boys, she may have avoided a fatal accident-but that's a value judgement and maybe Marilyn might have been more careful of whom she committed adultery with -yet another value judgement. Hot lamb sliced and spooned over the greens. And with that my thoughts turn to Joe Dimaggio and his motives with the roses. Did he send them out of love and loss for her -or for what publicity it might have bought. So back to Elvis- If you are adored by millions- world-wide- how must it feel to be rejected by the someone you wanted the most? Deep thoughts to be having - over a warm lamb salad.