Lavender

I harvested lavender today. The bush I planted two or three years ago has tripled in size. It's wonderful! It was a joy to clip it and put it in my new Longaberger basket. (I use them - imagine that!) Now I need to hang the lavender to dry so I can use it later. I'm finding all kinds of wonderful-sounding recipes to try. Not that I'll ever try them...

I would love to have a whole field of lavender. It makes me want to learn French (more than my pathetic high school French) and go back. Sigh.

Goat Cheese?

I don't care for cheese. I know, this is just not right! (It's also not right that I'm allergic to garlic!) Cheese must be melted for me to even consider it. Pizza, lasagne, cheeseburgers... these are all fine... the cheese is melted!

That said - I found a recipe for tomatoes with goat cheese over grilled chicken. Wow. It was great. (although, I did steer away from the larger chunks of the goat cheese - saving those for dear hubby...) The recipe was in Food and Wine mag.

I guess I will now be forced to try more new recipes that include Goat Cheese!

My dear brother sent me our favorite summer dessert recipe. My Grandmother, Jeanne, made this every year during blueberry season. It's true name is "Blueberry Pudding" (pudding in the English sense - that it's a dessert, not a custard) but it's nickname is "Jeanne's Mess". She made it for DAR and Colonial Dames meetings, and insisted that the first time one tasted it, they eat it "her" way. It's essentially a white cake with blueberries in it (the recipe makes lovely mini-muffins), but "Her Way" meant that it was served hot, with butter, a liberal sprinkle of sugar, and a spash of cream on top. No stars for visual presentation, but oh my, very yummy! Soon, her friends began to request it, "Jeanne, would you please make that mess you make?" The name stuck.

She's been gone a year now, and you can bet that my daughters will eat it "her way" the first time, and probably every time after.

My Cuz's Tag Biz

So, I'm helping my cousin get her tag biz up and running. This is quite the adventure, as she lives clear across the country, and while we communicate very well via IM, there is a time difference, and by the time she gets her kid to bed, it's often nearly midnight here on the East Coast. THEN she wants to get started. Ack!

But if you need a great, custom designed tag for your dog, or a tag for YOU with your pet/kid/etc. printed on it (a really great dye system) look no further! Kings Kreations is the place to go! She did these great tags for C's dance group's show. I need to post them to the website and sell the few I have left. I did the art (shameless plug for my design services) and hey, I also did her web site (another shameless plug!) Tell her Deb sent you, and you'll get a discount.