What an exciting year so far in 2010. The city has been blustering with cold air and I have been so busy teaching and composing. I tell people I am busier then a person on a prune juice diet. This is a note I tribute to Melvin and Mildred Burkholder. Through the years there are people who touch your life in ways that if you would not have met them your life would be different. Needless to say, they were my Mennonite Babysitters as a child. They adopted me as one of there own children even though I did have my own family. They had a huge farm that I played on as a child having steers, pigs and thousands of chickens. In the summer they always had beautiful huge gardens and cooking all kinds of great dishes. This is where I get my passion for cooking from the days on the farm. Recently, they have moved to a retirement home and they had an estate sale. Wow it is something that you never see in NYC. Closest sale I can think of is Sotheby’s which this is completely different. There were these auctioneers that had a complete twang in their voice to sell the merchandise……. it is very interesting. I was like are there schools for this and what is that tuition? They had a great turnout and there were many Amish observing the sale. I took pictures because I new my friends in NYC would not believe it. So I got some really wonderful pieces of memories of there home. After the sale, I went to pay my bill and they gave the merchandise to me as a LOVE GIFT. Thank you so much for the fond memories Mom and Pappy B.