One of the nicest parts of living in Highland Park, New Jersey is the way the little borough celebrates events such as Veterans Day and Memorial Day. This year I was fortunate to be able to attend the Veterans Day Parade in Highland Park, NJ. The parade begins at the dough boy at the corner of Raritan Avenue and Woodbridge Avenue and goes down Raritan Avenue into New Brunswick.

The whole avenue is closed for a few hours as the ceremony takes place at the dough boy, and then the marchers head down the avenue towards New Brunswick.

Rabbi Kaminetsky (chaplain of the police department and rabbi emeritus of Congregation Ohav Emeth) read something – I think it was called a convocation? at the beginning of the ceremony. A talented teenager my daughter knows sang the Star Spangled Banner.

Mayor of Highland Park Gayle Brill Mittler spoke – her speech was posted online on the Highland Park, NJ Facebook page. Here is one piece of her speech: “If you are an employer, hire a veteran. If you own property for rent, seek out a veteran who is looking for a new home. Welcome our veterans back home with more than words and parades.”

Congressman Frank Pallone mentioned in his speech electing politicians that support benefits for veterans.

Freeholder Jim Polos spoke as well.

I really enjoyed this dog who seemed to a spectator at the parade; he and his master were hanging out with the veterans before the parade began.

There were lots of children at the Veteran’s Day Parade. I think they had school, and they came with their teachers for the parade.

This group of cheerleaders seemed to be having a great time at the parade. The Highland Park mascot is an owl.

I know the Jewish War Veterans were there as well – they were mentioned. You can see a post about the Jewish War Veterans from several years ago, when my son was in eighth grade.

There was a variety of people gathered – next to these young drummers, you can see older men wearing jackets and stars-and-stripes ties.

Here is Gayle Brill Mittler walking down Raritan Avenue – she and many others were handing out those little U.S. flags. It made the whole atmosphere festive.

Groups from New Brunswick marched as well.

It was neat to watch all those fire engines all lined up.

Have you ever seen a Veterans Day Parade? Do they celebrate and honor veterans where you live?

I’ve been making this butternut squash carrot soup a few times this fall. Learn more about its creation in the note at the bottom. If you are creative, you can serve it in a pumpkin along with a pea soup by its side. I didn’t do the pumpkin.

Squash Carrot Soup – Ingredients

• 1 butternut squash (or one half if quite large)
• 4 -8 carrots, peeled and cut in circles
• 1 leek
• 1 small onion or 1/2 large onion
• 1 tsp. allspice
• 1 tsp. cumin
• salt and pepper to taste
• olive oil or coconut oil for sauteing the onion and leek
• A few small leaves of fresh rosemary (optional)
• 1 tsp. chopped fresh ginger root (optional and recommended – I left it out because my daughter doesn’t care for fresh ginger, sigh)

Peel the butternut squash. If really large and you just soup for 4 people, you might consider using just half a squash. Cut in half, and pull out the seeds. Place in a pot; fill the pot with water to cover the squash. Let it cook. Meanwhile, slice and cut 4-8 carrots – even more if you have the energy. Note: this was originally a carrot soup alone – see note below. Add the carrot circles to the butternut squash with water that is cooking. Next: get a pan ready to saute the onion and leek. You can saute in olive oil or coconut oil – whatever you prefer. Chop the onion and leek finely first and add the oil to the pan. When the pan is hot (add an onion piece and watch it sizzle), add the onion bits, stir for a few minutes, and when the onion is tender, add the chopped leek. After sauteing for about 10 minutes, add the leek and onion to the pot with squash and carrots. Add the spices (allspice, cumin and ginger if using). Add a bit of chopped, fresh rosemary if using. Let the squash soup cook for about 1/2 hour. Then either use an immersion stick directly in the pot to blend the soup, or transfer the solid parts of the soup to a food processor, blend it and transfer back to the liquid. The advantage of the latter method is you can add less liquid if you want and have a thicker soup. I do the food processor method. Serve warm, although if you are quite hungry, it tastes OK room temperature, too. Enjoy!

Note: this was originally just a carrot soup. My neighbor told me verbally how to make it. She had made it along with a pea soup, and she served the carrot soup along the pea soup in a pumpkin. Yes, each of us had our own pumpkin as a bowl. It was yummy – even my daughter ate it. So this soup developed because my daughter wanted a carrot soup. However, the carrots I had when I first made it were organic and thin. I would have had to have peeled at least 20 or 30 to get a substantial soup. So I changed it to a squash/carrot soup so it would stay orange. My first attempt had two leeks, not enough carrots, and turned green. Green is a fine color for a soup, but not a fitting color for a carrot soup.

Soup Reaction – What’s in Your Soup?

Have you ever made a similar soup? What ingredients did you put in? Did you use any particular cooking methods?

Tech notes: if you look at the bottom of this post, you will see a link for both the category for recipes and tags for other carrot recipes or carrot topic posts. If you click on the recipes category, you will see a list of clickable tags in all the recipe posts. Starting now, at the end of each post, I will attempt to write a little about blogging that might help some up-and-coming blogger out there.

We were visiting my in-laws who live near (10 minutes by car) the Jersey Shore. I woke up early as usual (see moon above), and I went on a little expedition to the lake I mean swamp I mean wet, watery, swampy area that sometimes has birds near a golf course.

I had once visited this area with my mother-in-law and my daughter. At the time I had an old phone, one with a poor camera. Of course, we saw a heron (see heron photo here). So this time I was prepared with my large fancy Canon, but no heron at all. Not even a bird. I could hear them, but they didn’t land. The day before I came with my daughter; we did see a colorful butterfly flutter around the plants in the distance. But that was Shabbat, and I had no camera at all. Often in life you have to just take what you can get – I noticed in my 2011 post I was complaining that my kale did not germinate. Well, this year it did! We shall see if any seedlings grow nicely into plants.

So looking around, what else was there to see? I did see this log – although it wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.

I looked in the water to one side, and these lily pads floated on top of the lake swamp.

I did see these little yellow wildflowers aligning the edge of the watery swamp.

Some lovely orange wildflowers were off to one side, further from the water.

Off in the distance I could see the sprinklers starting for the golf course.

One of my favorite places in New Jersey is Sandy Hook. Sandy Hook is a little peninsula (a hook?) at the top of the Jersey Shore. On one side there are ocean beaches with places for parking and restrooms. On the other side are little cove beaches. At the far end are a lighthouse and historical buildings.

We first went to the ocean side – it was crowded, and the waves were strong. We then decided to drive closer to the lighthouse, parked the car, and discovered the little cove beach at the top of this post. We swam, had lunch and discovered various beach items.

I wanted to climb to the top of the lighthouse, but my daughter did not. This is a lesson in patience – I make lists in my head of stuff to do when I have the opportunity. We did watch a movie in the little house next to the lighthouse all about piping plovers, and how they on the threat of extinction list. I suppose I would have to wake up early in the morning and go with another bird lover if I wanted to watch the plovers on the beach myself.

A good number of the buildings at Sandy Hook were once upon a time used by the U.S. military. Above is a mortar battery at Sandy Hook, built about 1898. You can learn more about Sandy Hook and how it was used to defend New York City on this National Park Service article.

I saw these horseshoe crabs (deceased!) on the beach, so I took a photo.
Some facts from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation website:

Four species of horseshoe crabs exist today. Only one species, Limulus polyphemus, is found in North America along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts from Maine to Mexico… Horseshoe crabs are not true crabs at all. Horseshoe crabs are more closely related to arachnids (a group that includes spiders and scorpions) than to crustaceans (a group that includes true crabs, lobsters, and shrimp). Horseshoe crabs are often called “living fossils” because fossils of their ancestors date back almost 450 million years–that’s 200 million years before dinosaurs existed.

A scene I found beautiful:

I did post about Sandy Hook way back in 2009.

Last week we had the great pleasure of seeing Midsummer Night’s Dream (yes, the play by Shakespeare) in Rutgers Gardens. The play was low budget with wonderful acting, simple modern summer clothes for costumes, and a Starbucks cup was a prop. I am not sure which character was which, but the above female whom I think played a male was the first actor on the stage. The first scene was outside the log cabin. We the audience had to move around with the actors from scene to scene within Rutgers Gardens. It seemed OK at first, but by our tenth time moving, it was a little bit too much up and down. I went with my daughter who had never seen Shakespeare before. I think she might enjoy the kind where you sit in one spot, and the actors wear costumes. When I grew up in a Boston suburb, we used to watch Shakespeare plays by the Charles River (I remember The Tempest, for example). And when my husband lived in Manhattan, he had the opportunity to see Shakespeare in the park.

This is from the first scene – I am fairly sure the woman on the right is the Duke. The guy in the back is Lysander (the other main male lead was Demetrius – I get the two confused. One was in love with Hermia, and the other was loved by her). My daughter was even more confused – she had no idea what was going on at all. But she was happy to see one of her theater friends there. She said everyone was laughing at certain parts, and she did not know why. We figured some of the audience knew the play well (one of my friends did), and others like us were fairly clueless.

This actor was Nick Bottom. I enjoyed his antics. I think he was supposed to be putting on a play within a play. We never got to see the end of this production because it started to thunder and lightning at the end. But we did see a lot.

The actress on the left is Hermia (note the Starbucks cup). The one in the blue who is on her knees is Helena. And in the back is much of the audience!

Here is the Queen of the Fairies (Titania).

On the left is the fairy Puck (he causes a lot of trouble, putting people to sleep and having them fall in love with the wrong people). On the right is the King of the Fairies. I am pretty sure that is a woman dressed like a man.

Here is Puck, who causes (or seems to) a lot of the mix ups and inconveniences. Spraying fairy dust is a dangerous art form.

I believe Puck is one who turns Nick Bottom (above) into a donkey. That’s a pretty good donkey, isn’t it?

This is the finally scene we were able to see. After this, it started to rain. Soon came thunder and lightning. Hermia (the one with a Starbucks cup who is in love with Lysander and loved by Demetrius) is on the left; and Oberon, King of the Fairies, is on the right. I had to use my flash on my camera because it was getting dark.

You can learn more about Shakespeare at Rutgers Gardens on the Rutgers Gardens website. The theatrical group is called re-Think Theatrical – I hope they do more.

Have you ever seen Shakespeare performed outside? Which play?