Fourteen years ago today I began blogging. To celebrate, I’m having an easy contest, keep reading to learn more.

Here is a link to post number one. If you go to that link you’ll see that I speak about Julia Child. Ironically, I attended a birthday dinner last night with Kim Howard at Tarbell’s to celebrate what would have been Julia Child’s 111th birthday. My friend, mentor, and former boss, Barbara Fenzl was the guest speaker. Thank you, Mark Tarbell, it was a delicious and delightful evening.

The day I began blogging, Connor was a few days away from heading off to college. Not to be overly dramatic, but I didn’t know what I was going to do with my life. Having been a stay-at-home mom for over 21 years, I was feeling a bit lost. This blog was a great distraction and gave me something to look forward to each day, a purpose if you will. And I was dedicated! Posting nearly every day for 4 years!

My dad’s 89th birthday was last Saturday. Just as Easter was strange and different, so was this celebration. It was a far cry from the big Speakeasy Birthday Party we threw him for his 80th birthday. The photo below with Marissa and her Papa is one of my favorites from that day. Happily, I was able to find a way to make this year special with surprise guests.

My sister-in-law, Teresa, and her four sons all live in Idaho and Washington state. They moved there in the early 90’s, several years after she and my brother divorced. I arranged for all of them, along with Marissa and Jeff in Austin, to Zoom with my dad. His first experience with Zoom, was only the week before, on Easter Sunday when I brought him his food and he was able to see Marissa and Jeff. He was so happy and touched that everyone came together for this birthday, even if only virtually.

Since we still aren’t able to gather, I set up a social distancing dinner on his front patio. Connor and I brought the large swivel/rocker chairs from the back patio to the front and then we used a tape measurer to be sure that those two chairs, along with the loveseat and couch from the front were all more than 6 feet from one another.

I brought everything else from home, including the dishes, plastic drinkware, flatware, napkins, serving pieces, water pitcher, individual “tablecloths,” which were actually oversized napkins, and the vintage TV trays you see below. I scored those at Sweet Salvage several years ago. They are really quite hideous, but oh so nostalgic.

While the Zoom call was going on, Dave was picking up the birthday dinner I’d preordered from Beckett’s Table. It was the homestyle type of food my dad loves; Salad with Seasonal Vegetables, Meatloaf with buttery Mashed Potatoes, Roasted Cauliflower and Broccoli, Dinner Rolls with whipped butter, and Carrot Cake for dessert. I’m only sorry I didn’t get any photos of it, I was too busy eating! Although I was able to snag a photo from the restaurant’s Facebook page. My presentation was not up to this level!

I am typing this on the long flight from Philadelphia to Phoenix. The first flight from Ottawa to Philly was basically a puddle jumper, but this one is getting the best of me. It’s currently 10:00 eastern time (the time zone I’m now adjusted to) and I’ve been typing and formatting recipes for my spring cooking classes for the last 5 hours. I’m going cross-eyed. Actually, I can barely keep my eyes open. But I must! I can’t sleep on planes, so it’s either this or go cross-eyed playing solitaire on my phone. This seems more productive.

We still have 45 minutes left on this flight and then there is luggage to collect and an Uber ride home. My head can’t hit that pillow soon enough!!

That’s the end of my “woe is me” story. How about a yummy recipe? I made this guacamole knock-off on Sunday for our daily “booze cruise” on the pontoon around Deer Lake.

Many months ago, when I first tasted the Kale Guacamole at True Food Kitchen, my hopes were very high. If I remember correctly, someone else at the table wanted to try it.

Then it came and it was a revelation, so good! I looked up the recipe, expecting it to be mostly kale with maybe an avocado or two mixed in, but no, it’s mostly avocado with a little kale thrown in so that it can be called Kale Guacamole. No matter, it’s good and it sounds healthy. The poblano adds a nice little kick but the thing I love most about it is the addition of fresh citrus.

If you’re not sure what “1 grapefruit, supremed” means. Or if you have an idea, but aren’t sure how to supreme (or segment) citrus, go to this LINK and you’ll see how.

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Good food is very often, even most often, simple food.

– Anthony Bourdain.

Photo courtesy of griffithimaging.com

I want to give you a heads-up; next week I’ll be posting all about the wedding I helped with over Mother’s Day weekend. It’s been nearly 4 weeks since I last mentioned it in THIS post. That is because I was so much “at the moment” and honestly too busy, to take photos of the food or the gorgeous setting and set-up. That’s a good thing in the scheme of it all, but not a good thing when you need photos to blog about!

Thankfully, the wonderful wedding photographer, Jen Griffith of Griffith Imaging, sent me photos to share. So please come back on Monday to see all the beauty that was Cody and Chanté Howard’s wedding weekend.

Today, I want to share a great cooking tip that I thought most people knew about, but realized I might be wrong in that thinking when I found out my own kids didn’t know it … and they used to live with me.

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This may have been my favorite dish from Connor’s birthday dinner. I found the recipe on Saveur.com. It’s originally from Brigtsen’s Restaurant in New Orléans.

Baked in individual ramekins, this cornbread with jalapeño and shrimp is so much more than cornbread.

To make them hot and fresh: Just before serving. I cooked the shrimp mixture and set it aside, whisked together the flour/corn meal mixture, and set it aside. Then, combined the wet ingredients, covered and refrigerated that, all done in the late morning. Thirty minutes before we were to sit down at the table, I preheated the oven and put it all together. They were ready to serve at exactly the right time with very little last-minute effort.

And, of course, I served Harmony Boards for his dinner too. I’m creating and serving them every chance I get. It helps to practice before Kim and I make our new business venture official.

These birthday boards were fruit and cheese, with only a few slices of salami thrown in for good measure.

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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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I had not intended to take a week off from blogging. I had plenty of things going on, and lots of stuff to blog about. Honestly, I had too much going on and as a result, I was too exhausted to sit down and write about it!

There will be recipes this week – Posole, Moscow Mules, Perfect Steamed Artichokes, and more. Then on Friday, I’ll be off to San Francisco to “Say Yes to the Dress” with Marissa, along with her maid-of-honor and a couple of her bridesmaids. We will be dress shopping, eating out, and having girl-time all weekend long!

But for today, I shall share images and notes from my busy exhausting week.

On Friday night, Dave took me to Café Monarch for an early birthday dinner. The Café has a prix fixe menu that changes weekly. The only thing you choose is your entrée. I had the trout and Dave had the filet. The ambiance, service, and food were all pure perfection. I highly recommend it!

After dinner, we drove to Sky Harbor to pick up Marissa. Having my girl home, making it the perfect ending to a perfect evening.

Saturday morning brought a shock in the bathroom. While in the shower, I looked up. There above the bathroom door – a scorpion! I got out, dried off, and yelled for Marissa. It was beyond hilarious as we tried to decide how to kill it without risking it falling on us. There is a video, but it contains too much swearing and screaming to share. Rest assured, the thing is dead and we were not stung!

Later that morning, Marissa, Connor, and I went to El Chorro to meet with a wedding planner and to show Connor the wedding venue.

That evening, Connor went to work while Marissa, Dave, and I went to Steve and Tram’s annual Okbirthdayfest party. Steve’s birthday is October 9th, hence the “Okbirthdayfest” instead of the usual Oktoberfest.

But, as you can see, Birthday Boy-Chef Steve cooks up a traditional Oktoberfest menu. How about that gorgeous job Tram did on the chalkboard menu!?! Love me a chalkboard menu!

Chef Steve with his prized heat lamp-board of outstanding tender and delicious Sauerbraten!

Plus a very happy Marissa – holding sweet Zoey!

Guests were asked to bring their favorite cocktail to share. I brought Moscow Mules. Recipe later this week.

Sunday was our neighborhood Fall Fling. It was a blast! I spent the entire preceding week hunting and gathering items for the party.

All patios and nearly every flat surface were covered with party fixings. This is the part of event planning I love.

I love the party part too. Over 100 neighbors had a great time.

Even the setup was fun.

We had plenty of things to do for young and old alike.

As usual, I didn’t take nearly enough pictures. Darkness fell quickly on a cloudy night. The cleanup consisted of getting everything off the street and onto my driveway and patio.

This is what greeted me on Monday, my birthday, morning. Thankfully, my kids and my fantastic neighbors also woke up early and helped clean it all up.

An added bonus – my beautiful friend and neighbor, Karin, brought me birthday flowers! How sweet and thoughtful!

Before the day was through, I had flowers from not only Karin but also from Dave and from my beloved friend, Lori, all the way from Tokyo! xoxo

Connor took the day off work, which was a gift in itself. After cleanup, he and Marissa took me to The Biltmore Spa where the three of us had hot-stone massage pedicures! The perfect thing for weary legs and feet! We had a delicious early dinner at Pizzeria Bianco Town & Country.

To end my “mom and kids” birthday, after we dropped Marissa off at the airport, Connor and I stopped by the Salty Sow and tried a bunch of different cocktails and had quality mother and son time.

Tuesday brought a birthday lunch with my dad, an HOA committee meeting, and work that night.

Wednesday I spent most of the day trying to put away all the party stuff. As of today, it’s still not all put away! Maybe by the end of this week.

Peggy and Anne took me out for birthday dinner at Rusconi’s. We met at Peggy’s house, where grandson Cruz was visiting and Anne fell in love.

If you haven’t discovered Rusconi’s American Kitchen yet – get over there and thank me later!

As you can see, we loved every bite and wished it was in good taste and manners to lick the plates.

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Last week, Chef Kevin Binkley of Binkley’s, Café Bink, Bink’s Midtown, and Bink’s Scottsdale, was the guest teacher at Les Gourmettes. Kevin is once again up for the James Beard Award for the Best Chef: Southwest. Fingers are crossed!

Everything he made was, of course, amazing! The thing that I really enjoyed though was a simple, thick, tangy, creamy vinaigrette made without any vinegar. Strange but true and truly delicious.

Kevin served the vinaigrette over a salad of arugula, strawberry slices, goat cheese, and pistachios. I’ll be serving the same salad for our Easter dinner on Sunday.

Speaking of Easter Sunday, if you haven’t colored your eggs yet, hold off one more day because tomorrow I’m posting a new way to decorate eggs and a bunch of Easter Menu ideas.

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Yesterday I told you about our Wednesday afternoon activities in Barcelona. I neglected to mention our nighttime fun.

When we returned from the abbey in the late afternoon we enjoyed Jamón ibérico, cheese, baguette, apples, grapes, and wine in our apartment.

My husband, Dave, has a client, Cliff, who lived in Barcelona for several months earlier this year. Cliff, made many friends while living here and told one of his friends, Kevin, to be sure to entertain us and treat us well when we came to town.

We tried to contact Kevin a few times early in the week, but were unsuccessful, mostly due to our incompetence in using international calling codes, or so we thought. Turns out the real reason was due to the fact that Kevin’s iPhone was stolen and was being replaced during that same time frame. Anyhow, we finally connected, right at the same time that we were eating our “stay in for the night” impromptu dinner of ham, cheese, and fruit. It was about 6:00 at the time and Kevin asked to meet us at 9:30 or 10:00 for drinks and dinner.  Yes, that is the normal dinner hour in Spain!

We met up at IceBarcelona, a super awesome and cool (COLD!) ice bar on the beach. There’s a steep price to drink at the ice bar. Fifteen euros each allows you entrance into the ice bar plus a heavy jacket and gloves to use and one drink.

Everyone looks sexy in the same big coat!

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Chef/Restauranteur and longtime friend, Mark Tarbell of Tarbell’s Restaurant, was the guest teacher at Les Gourmettes on Monday and Tuesday nights. His menu was inspired, fun, and delicious. The first course was Frico with Smoked Paprika Aioli.

Frico, is an Italian savory food, typical of Friuli, in the northeastern tip of Italy, which consists of a thin crisp wafer of shredded cheese, baked or fried until crisp. The customary cheeses used include Montasio, Parmesan or mozzarella. Mark used Montasio cheese, but Parmesan is easier to find and works just as well.

I’ve sung the praises of smoked paprika or pimentón many times here before. I don’t know why I didn’t think of making a pimentón mayonnaise – brilliant!

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