First up, I want to share with you the Harmony Board that I created for the birthday dinner celebration for my dear friend, Lisa, on Tuesday night.

I’m spending my summer working on a business plan, website, social media pages, logo, etc. for Harmony Boards. Kim and I are going to her family home in Canada later this month to escape the heat and to brainstorm and plan the launch party for late summer or early fall.

Of course, I’ll keep you posted once we have the date locked down.

Secondly, while I was going through the photos on my computer looking for some pictures I took back in April, which I needed for my last post, I came across something I’d meant to share, but then forgot all about.

If you remember in THIS POST from May 2nd, which was about my backyard remodel I said,

“In a future post, I’ll share with you all the drama that occurred on granite delivery day. It was quite the thing.”

Do you think July 26 is too late to finally share it? Hopefully not, because here we go.

Photo credit: Lifted from Ronnie’s FB page

On the early evening of Wednesday, April 4, 2018 my friends and former neighbors, Mike and Ronnie Jaap, stopped by to see my backyard remodel. They were considering using the same company I was using and wanted to check out the progress over here. Afterward, we had plans to go out for dinner.

Earlier that day, in the late afternoon, a load of granite had been dropped off on the road on the south side of my house. The pile was in the street on the other side of my double gates. The pile had orange cones on all sides. This is common practice around construction projects and is allowed.

It was about 6:00 pm as Mike, Ronnie, and I were walking on the far north side of the backyard, talking about how happy I was with Garden Plus Landscape & Pools. Suddenly, we heard a loud crash and looked toward that double gate on the other side of the yard to see a huge plume of dust and dirt explode over the gate.

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This is the last of the creole recipes from Connor’s birthday, which was now more than two weeks ago. Plus, I still need to post the recipe for the dessert he requested, banana cream pie. Oops.

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Along with the Shrimp Creole that Connor requested on his birthday, I made him some classic Red Beans and Rice.

My recipe uses three types of pork; a ham hock, cured salt pork and andouille sausage.

The recipe calls for 12 ounces of cured salt pork. You’ll buy a 12-ounce package and trim off most of the fat. As you can see in the photo above, once you’ve done that, you’ll end up with about 8 ounces of pork to use for the beans. Discard the fat.

These red beans are even better if they are made the day before, refrigerated overnight, and reheated before use. Just be sure to reheat slowly and add water, if needed, to prevent them from drying out.

Oh, and I just use a simple electric rice cooker for my rice. Generally speaking, rice will triple when cooked, so 1 cup of raw rice will yield about 3 cups of cooked rice. I used 1 ½ cups dry rice for this recipe.

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Thursday, May 24th, was Connor’s 27th birthday. He requested a Cajun dinner with a banana cream pie for dessert.

He specifically wanted shrimp and sausage, so Shrimp Creole fit the bill perfectly.

I especially love the vibrant colors of Shrimp Creole. It just screams, “celebration” and makes any occasion a party!

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The 8th Blogiversary Contest has come to an end and The Lucky Three have had their names drawn out of a pot by a random Trader Joe’s employee.

Thanks to all 30 of you who entered.

Once again the prize is that each winner will receive $100 in cash to spend on a Shopping Field Trip. We’ll spend the day shopping and learning the in and outs and best buys at:

Trader Joe’s

Queen Creek Olive Mill

The Pork Shop

and

AZ International Marketplace

After I typed up all your names on a sheet of paper. I cut them into strips…

Then placed them in a pot, a saucepan actually, and drove myself and the pot to the Trader Joe’s on Frank Lloyd Wright Blvd, east of Scottsdale Rd.

I put the pot in a shopping cart and walked around looking for an employee that wasn’t too busy. I decided on the nice woman who was cooking up samples in the back of the store.

I let her know I’d be filming her and then posting the video on my blog, she kindly agreed and drew out the winning names.

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Yup, it’s that time of year! Another year older. It’s time to celebrate!

Before we get to the details of this year’s giveaway, let’s run down a few stats:

1904 posts (posting an average of 4.5 times a week)

5216 comments (granted, nearly 1/5 of those are me commenting back to you)

254,629 spam comments …. that I have scanned through before deleting (legitimate comments sometimes get tossed in the spam folder) to prevent your delicate eyes from seeing. Let me tell you, there is more graphic porn spam than anyone should have to see! If only the spammers used their time to do something good for the world … you get where I’m going with that.

Also, I’m sorry to say that I have sad news to share.

My high school friend, the loyal blog follower, and frequent commenter, Nancy Bull, passed away suddenly on her birthday on May 31st.

Nancy was the grand prize winner in the 7th Blogiversary Contest last year. The prize was to come to my kitchen and cook your favorite recipe with me and then have that recipe posted here on the blog. Nancy and I had the best time making her family’s Chili Rellenos recipe together. When I snapped this beautiful photo of Nancy, I had no idea it would be the last time I’d see her radiant smile. Nancy used the photo as her Facebook profile photo. It is there on her page to this day. It is a reminder of how lucky and blessed I was to share that special time with her. Prayers and blessings to Nancy’s family. She is deeply missed.

I know Nancy would want me to turn this back around and get to the fun and happy stuff. She entered every contest I have ever had and she would want you to enter this one because it’s a goodie!

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This is the chicken that we enjoyed while my dad and Dave ate liver at Dad’s birthday dinner.

One note, in my hurry to get dinner on the table and while busily making the gravy, I left out the last step of boiling the chicken pieces to get them browned. As a result, the chicken I served looked a little anemic. It still tasted good and it was crispy but quite bland in color. Oops.

Since the last thing I want you to see as the lead photo on a post is anemic chicken, I made it again last night and did it right. That is what you see above. Below is the not-so-pretty, but still tasty, stuff.

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I had fully intended to post my Thanksgiving tablescape today but I can’t let the opportunity slip by without wishing my most loyal follower, most frequent commenter, my best friend, one of my two favorite people in the world, my beautiful (inside and out) daughter – a Happy Birthday!

Marissa Lynn, I love you to the moon and back! Ever since you’ve lived away from home, basically since your freshman year in college, my favorite thing about Thanksgiving has been that it is so close to your birthday. You always come home for Thanksgiving, which means I always get to celebrate YOU!

I’ll keep with the Thanksgiving posts and show a few photos of the Thanksgiving centerpieces I made. How gorgeous are these Velvet Queen Sunflowers!

They really do look and feel like velvet. I found them at Trader Joe’s and went crazy over them.

I used my orange and green pumpkin soup tureens as the vessels for the flowers. I then set those, along with their lids, atop wood slabs that were set on top of dyed and natural burlap runners.

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Happy Birthday to one of my dearest and most beautiful friends, Anne!

Anne is not on Facebook or Instagram or Twitter or any other sort of social media – I know, right?!?  But she does read this blog daily, so if you’re lucky enough to know Sweet Anne, please feel free to wish her a Happy Birthday in the comment area below.

To celebrate, Peggy and I took Anne to the wonderful Virtù Honest Craft in Old Scottsdale.

Anne and Peggy had the Seared Orata.

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Today is Connor’s 25th birthday. Dave, Connor, and I are celebrating at Universal Studio’s Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Los Angeles. We are having the best time! Our only wish is that our expert in all things Harry Potter could be here with us. We miss you, Marissa! The photos above are from Sunday.

Yesterday, Monday, we spent the afternoon on Hollywood Boulevard and at Warner Bros. Studio. The tour at the WB is pretty darn great. Not only do you tour the lot on a tram, but you get off and walk around all sorts of cool spots. My favorite stop was the props building and that is where we found the Oval Office set from The West Wing. Connor is very presidential!

And if your favorite sitcom of all time is Friends, then no trip to Warner Bros. is complete without a photo on the set of Central Perk.

Connor, I love you, adore you, and could not be more proud of you and the loving, kind, and generous man you are. xoxo

Getting back to the Friday the 13th Dinner Party – we are nearing the end. Tomorrow will be the main course and then only dessert remains.

The lucky ingredient in today’s dish is lentils. The legumes are considered lucky because of their coin-like appearance. Additionally, when cooked, lentils are plump, symbolizing growing wealth.

Lentil Salad with Wild Mushrooms and Caramelized Onions

• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 large red onions, peeled and roughly chopped
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 3 pounds fresh mushrooms; a mixture of white, crimini, oyster, shiitake, etc.
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1/2 cup capers, drained and rinsed
• 1 cup dry black lentils
• 3 cups chicken or vegetable broth
• 1 bag baby arugula
• 1 cup fresh pomegranate arils (seeds)
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh dill

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