For HEROES who may have also occasionally been CHUMPS...

Recent meal with another hero of mine, Latricia Davis, who is also a star on the Woodlawn basketball team as well as the Alabama Dream AAU team.

This tradition has become an irregular tradition after a year of coaching lacrosse and being in my 8th Grade ELA class, has since become trick or treating, visits to basketball games, and birthday dinners at New China Buffett. This time, before dinner I met Latricia at Wiggins Recreation Center in West End where she was keeping score for a small community team across town. With a large W on her shirt and the word INTEGRITY written below, I have never been more proud then to see her coaching along the younger students.

Through the course of our standard Chinese buffett and getting the updates on everybody, we discussed some of the worst moments along with the best, some not so good stories and some successes and I remembered some wise words from a classmate of Latricia's, "Circumstances separate the heroes from the chumps." I do not think I have ever learned as much as the year I worked with these students at Whatley. I still think about this statement along with more from Shelby Wilson, "it doesn't come in a day."

For Latricia, who gets surgery on her knee today, I'd like to offer up thanks for students who may have given me the hardest time or I may have gotten on their NERVESSSS a time or two, you all continue to impress me more and more as times goes by. I may have only been part of your life for 50 minutes a day, for one year, but the learning continues, and these are moments and lessons I will never forget.

Along with this, a new lesson, food is not something to mess around with and neither are chumps!

Mozambique Pasta and A Day Without Shoes

What do six survivors of paradise in the above picture have in common? A love for Mozambique Pasta on which we survived for one week in Mozambique.

While living in South Africa, I traveled for one week with a group to Imhabame, Mozambique and stayed in the above pictured, fancy thatched roof huts, barefoot the entire time, sleeping with fly nets all around me, and one thing that kept us all together Mozambique Pasta, courtesy of chef Katy Burke Randle :)

Mozambique Pasta

1 onion + 2-3 tomatoes, diced and sauteed over pasta

eggs (however you like and on the side)

Very quickly we found that these items were readily available, cheap and provided us with the perfect amount of sustenance for a week of farming palm trees and running on the beach at sunset ;)

It has been eight years and this is still a meal I never forget as well as continue to make.

Aside from my voluntary time of being shoeless and this very complicated recipe, here's another a real way to make a difference and stand up for children worldwide. On April 10th, Tom's shoes is challenging us all to go ONE DAY WITHOUT SHOES. Join the movement and take the barefoot challenge! Check the website, plan an event, and join today!

The best thing about North 32nd Community Garden Eggs...

What's the best thing about eggs from a Community Garden?

Farmer-drawn, penciled in dates for when the egg was laid!

And with this, an inspiration for Three Step Quiche...

Ingredients:

Eggs

Milk

Red and Yellow Peppers

Mushrooms

Lite and Firm Tofu

Thyme

Parmesan Cheese

1. Roll out crust (either store bought or homemade)

2. Chop veggies.

3. Place veggies, pour eggs + a little milk, sprinkle thyme and cheese.

Quick, delicious and nothing like holding the hen that laid the eggs and knowing the date for each egg.

Thank you Norwood's 32nd Street Community Garden!!!

Quiche crust here ----->http://myfrenchcuisine.blogspot.com