Sunday morning at the Grant Park Farmers Market

First day of Fall

Good morning. Happy first day of fall!

Same bridge, same commute, different weather

Recognize this landscape? I took the same shot 6 weeks ago during an intense summer shower. It's true that only two more days of summer remain but one of the joys of living in Atlanta is an extended growing season. My peppers and tomatoes are fooled into believing it's late July!

Wishing you all the merriest of season changes. 

True Love Enchiladas

It's been a rough two weeks for me at work. Roles are changing and being redefined. I find myself silently repeating "the only constant in life is change", "you either bend or you break" and "life's lessons make me stronger". Those are (of course) interspursed with internal reprimations of "relax before you stress everyone else out" and "loosing your cool won't get this project done". The best I can offer now: I'm trying. I'm really really making an effort to go with flow and wait and see how things play out. I'm not the quitter I was ten years ago.  Even so, I had tears of frustration and fury streaming down my face before lunch. After a 12 hour work day I was so thankful to come home to one of my favorite Chez OB meals: enchiladas! These were made with chorizo and ground beef. The red sauce was homemade from dried chilis (YDFM). The gaucamole and salsa were homemade too (heavy on cumin and citrus, just the way I like it). He even picked up one of my favorite beers (Coca Mole). A needed reminder that there is more to life then work and career. Thanks Bou.

*Keep an eye out for our new (and completely unrelated) blog: BoudreauxsBigAdventure.blogspot.com. It should be up and running in the next 10 days. (No, we're not pregnant. That's not the adventure.)

End of summer garden update

Three of the four tomato plants have made a surprising recovery. In the next two weeks we'll have at least another dozen new tomatoes ready to pick. But as the weather grows cooler my enthusiasm for tomato sandwiches wanes while my ardor for the rose-like beauty of a mature cabbage grows. The seasonal changes in my garden never cease to amaze me.

Healthy, real food, we've been eating

Labor Day: Mini sausages on ciabatta rolls with a fun assortment of toppings (pickled cauliflower, homemade kimchi, carmelized leeks, avocado, etc).
Tuesday: Roast chicken, mashed potatoes, okra and tomato salad (it was a rough day for me so Oliver cooked up some comfort food - super thoughtful of him, thanks Bou).
Wednesday: Chicken salad (and some experimentation with filters on my camera).

Garden Update

To make room for the cabbage and lettuce I had to pull out three leeks. Aren't they pretty? With their ombre' coloration they're quite trendy too! Hopefully we'll be able to use them with dinner tonight. Oliver suggested caramelizing them to use as toppings for Labor Day hot dogs!

The following photos show everything in our front yard garden as of Labor Day 2012. There are still tomato plants and pumpkin vines in the "side yard". I'm looking forward to adding arugula as soon as I find more space.

Watermelon and Pumpkin

Since April our watermelon and pumpkin vines have gone from this:

to this:

All that time and not one single little fruit. Boo.  Lots of blooms. Never a little melon or gourd. So those guys are outta there! Today I plan to replace them with the cabbage and lettuce. Hello cool weather vegetable garden! I'm ready for some salad and slaw!

Labor Day Weekend in Atlanta

Labor Day weekend in Atlanta is crazy. Currently going on in downtown (where we live) and Midtown (3 miles north): Dragon*Con, SEC football kick off games, black gay pride, a free concert in Grant Park and a Braves games. A few miles east there is Drive-In Invasion and the Decatur Book Festival. This year was the fifth** consecutive year that I've attended the Dragon*Con parade. And while it was not the BEST it's ever been it was certainly the most crowded. Word is out - this parade is a must see. Many of the costumes were ones I remembered from past years. My favorite new trend is combo costumes. For example: Ghostbusting Blues Brothers, steampunk Disney princesses, kilt  wearing Stormtroopers and zombiefighting Muppets. I wish I had better photos to share; if you want to see more try doing a flickr image search for DragonCon 2012. 

**Click here to see my photos from 2011