Grilling

I'm rather fond of my husband. He's funny, smart, athletic, takes care of the dogs and the house and me (in that order), managed to kick cancer in its backside last year, and is just basically my favorite person to hang out with. (Of course, he has an evil sense of humor, so I should probably not say such nice things about him or it will go to his head and he'll find some way to torture me with it later.) Even if none of these things were true, if he was stupid, lazy, and boring, I might still have considered marrying him for his grilling abilities.

Grilling - or rather, sitting around while Greg grills and then eating what he produces - is my very favorite summer activity. Above and beyond every single other activity I have listed thus far and could even invent later on, this would be #1. There is no way to beat the healthy deliciousness he makes, and to top it off, I get to hang out with him and the dogs, read my Kindle, drink some summer-in-a-bottle, and just generally enjoy the warmth in a very laid-back way.

In no particular order, allow me to share some of this summer's highlights.

Catfish tacos. The catfish has been seasoned with a blend of a Wegmans marinade, some of his homegrown Kung Pao peppers, and magic. It is topped with a tomato/avacado/lettuce/lime/heaven blend. On the side we have white zucchini and homegrown green beans that he grilled in Adobo seasoning and some red spicy stuff.

 Grilled summer squash, grilled corn (he does it in the husk on the charcoal grill and I can't believe I ever thought that boiled corn was the best thing on earth after tasting this!!!), catfish (done cajun this time). Just so you can see it before it reaches the plate. :)

As usual, our summer squash blend and corn (grilled in the proper way), and that lovely tortilla contains buffalo chicken, tomatoes and lettuce from our garden, and light bleu cheese. Let me tell you about the sauce. That sauce is the product of about two years of Greg growing hot peppers obsessively. I don't know which ones are in there, but I know it contains some of the ones he dried and ground up last year and some of the ones he picked this year. Yum.

Another one of my favorites - this time the corn is accompanied by a quinoa/orzo/garbanzo bean/something else delicious blend made by Wegmans called Golden Jewel. It's amazing. There are so many different textures and I LOVE it. I had it first at my coworker's, when she and I ran together between school and dress rehearsal for The Music Man (which I vocal directed and her kids were in). YUM. The split chicken breast is marinated in Chiavetta's. If you haven't had this... I pity you.

 OK, so we're on a BIT of a catfish kick this summer. This time he did it in Wegmans Mojo sauce (he keeps correcting me when I pronounce it "moho" but it seems more fun that way!). The sauce is light and has some nice spices which I can't identify. If I could, I would be doing some of the grilling instead of Greg (in truth, he really doesn't even trust me with the vegetables. Rightly so. I forget about them). Obviously, we have my delicious Golden Jewel blend there again, some mixed vegetables, and the best part of this plate is the corn - we grew it in our back yard!

This is obviously just a FEW of the wonderful things we've eaten this summer... but you can see why I love it so. If I'm lucky, all the stars and planets line up correctly, and I keep my fingers and toes crossed properly, maybe winter will hold off long enough for us to grill for another couple of months. *fingers crossed*

Salvo Wednesday #5 - Atlantic City!!

When we visited Atlantic City last week, I made a point to visit their Salvo on Wednesday. I wasn't sure what to expect - amazing stuff? Hilarious items from casino performers? Terrifying items from the many, many girly bars? What I found was a small but jam-packed store with an entire wall of dresses. A WALL of dresses. The aisles were so narrow that everybody was leaving their carts at the end. Very few people were speaking English - mostly Spanish and Russian, from what I could tell - and I was pretty confident that no one would be competing with me for the clothes I wanted, since I was the youngest person in there by a couple of decades, easy.

I made out like a bandit, though. I didn't take pictures of a couple of layering tank tops, some yoga pants (and a running skirt - $2 for a running skirt is very exciting!), and a skirt that I didn't try on because it was my size and Kenneth Cole, but turned out to look like the skirt version of Hammer pants. Very weird. Anyway, the dresses and skirts were pretty great...so here they are!

J Crew, $5

What you can't really see here is the white embroidery. Pretty pretty pretty! And since I'm tanned for about the only time in my life, I wore this one right away. This will NOT be good on me when I'm back to being pasty white.

Bitten, $2.50

Continuing my mission to rescue the entire SJP Bitten line from extinction, at least in my closet. It's a nice stretchy knit and is SO comfortable and breathable!

Old Navy, $3.50

I wore this right away in Atlantic City. Love the off the shoulder, love the flowiness and stretchiness. The green wall makes it hard to tell, but this is a true blue color.

$3.50, Forever 21

Just can't get enough of that stretchy knit material. It's my favorite material for a summer dress, since it's so comfortable and cool on a hot day. Which, incidentally, I could use a few more of.

$3.50, Banana Republic

OK, did NOT realize how much this needed to be ironed until I took the picture. Anyway, I love the top and it is a really soft, shiny metallic skirt. 

Banana Republic, $3.00

It's hard to see the print but it's little shades of gray and purple boxes. Nothing makes my day more than finding Banana Republic at the Salvo!

Express, $3.00

It's scratchy wool, so this one will definitely be for winter, paired with tights.

Atlantic City's Salvo gets two thumbs up from me!

Anniversary

Six years ago today, I put on a pretty white dress and promised, in front of my friends and family, to not talk during soccer games. In return, Greg promised to always hold my hand.

August 14, 2005

He's kept his promise better than I've kept mine. Fortunately, I have lots of time to keep trying. I'm anticipating many, many more happy anniversaries with this crazy, wonderful man.

The Beach!

Dear friends, let me point out the ways in which beaches are awesome.

Water

Sand

Pretty beach umbrellas

Ice Cream

Boogey

Boarding

Getting a tan

Relaxing in the sun

So...pretty much everything. Every. Thing.

Professional Vacationers

Last summer, we took advantage of a deal offered at Bass Pro Shops - for $100, we got two nights at a Bluegreen vacation club in Williamsburg, VA and a $100 Bass Pro Shop gift card. So, free vacation, right? We had a wonderful time - and then had to sit through the vacation club spiel. We caved. We bought in at a VERY entry level - enough for a short vacation every two years, probably - but Greg kept saying repeatedly "We're professional vacationers now, baby!"

So, we're taking our first "professional vacation" at the Bluegreen resort in Atlantic City (there are about 50 resorts nationwide) for our 6th anniversary. We're right smack dab on the beach...

View from the pool deck

And there's a pool and a hot tub... (and a sauna, steam room, and a weight room, but I didn't take pictures of those.)

The hotel has a game room, which we didn't expect but is pretty cool.

But the best part about being professional vacationers instead of just booking a hotel room is the room. We got a studio - the resort offers one and two bedrooms as well - but even the studio offers a full kitchen, a large bathroom (with a whirlpool tub!) and comes stocked with plates, pots and pans, and glasses, including wine glasses. Which made me very happy.

So these professional vacationers fully intend to spend most of the day on the beach. After I go to the Salvation Army, because after all, it IS Wednesday. And it should be a better day today for the beach than yesterday... we arrived to a thunderstorm and TORRENTIAL downpour. The road outside our resort turned to a river. A couple of trash cans even floated away.

Vacation time!

Ghetto Garden

Fresh fruits and vegetables are, in my opinion, the next thing to heaven. We are lucky in Rochester to be smack dab in the center of many farms. This allows both for lots of fresh produce at Wegmans (if you don't know what that is, ask any Rochesterian. You'll get an earful. It's like a cult.) and a ridiculous amount of cheap, local produce at the public market. This reminds me that I should probably do a post on the public market and how awesome it is - it was voted #1 in the US. But I digress.

My husband and I both love fresh produce so much that we have made several attempts over the years to grow our own. First we planted in the back of our yard, putting more and more elaborate fences (etc) around it to keep the dogs out. They took it as a challenge, and it only succeeded in keeping ME out. Last year, we planted a few tomatoes and some peppers in pots and put them on a table in our driveway. This was quite successful, so we moved the plan onward and upward into what we have named our "ghetto garden."

I had seen some cedar planters at Wegmans and asked Greg if he thought that would be worthwhile - we could plant lots of veggies in it and put it on the table instead of small pots. He suggested instead that we use the old kiddie pool that we used for our dogs a few summers ago but replaced due to some holes. These holes are now drainage, and the pool was the beginning of a rather bizarre garden.

 Old doggie pool with cucumber (not producing yet), cabbage (you know, for sauerkraut), romaine, green pepper (ONE pepper!), and tomatoes (producing quite nicely). Behind it you can see our corn (we have several ears!) and underneath, there are beans and a giant yellow squash plant.

 Cilantro, rosemary, celery plants, more tomatoes, basil!

Various hot peppers. Hot cherry peppers, habaneros, and I forget what else.

This wasn't quiiiiiite enough room to grow all the hot peppers Greg's little heart desires, so out front in our flower bed, we now have cayennes and kung pao. And there's some more cabbage and beans behind them.

If everything produces to our expectations, we'll have veggies coming out of our ears. And probably steam, too, since Greg LOVES to use those hot peppers. Last year he spent weeks drying and grinding up the extras, and I expect more of the same this year. In the meantime, I'm eating tomato sandwiches like they're going out of style. (They're not. I checked.) And I experimented and made a rather outstanding dinner for myself last night...

Homemade margherita pizza, using tomatoes and basil from our garden! It was as heavenly as it looks. So was the Red Velvet wine.

I love my ghetto garden! Now come on, cucumbers!!!!

Salvo Wednesday #4

Having visited all of the Salvation Armies in the immediate Rochester area, I decided to drive out to Auburn this week. My mother-in-law lives there, so she joined me in this week's excursion (and took me to Parker's afterward, a very delicious restaurant). This week's trip was much more productive than last week's, especially when you count the turkey reuben I ate afterwards, and the delicious glass of Cupcake Red Velvet wine.

skirt, $2.50

 

 

I actually stumbled upon this skirt just as I was leaving, and fell in love with the pattern. Adorable!

H&M sweater, $1

I can never find sweaters I like (I hate them, probably because they're not sundresses) so was very happy to find this cute one. It was waaaaayyyy too hot to be wearing this outfit even for 30 seconds, and boy, can you tell it in my expression. Watch out for this girl, folks.

Banana Republic, $3

I didn't even buy this one for me (it's destined for my cousin Colleen), but I am starting to think that was an error. I mean, LOOK at it! It's the most perfect cotton/silk blend and it has POCKETS!!! It's rather loose in some pretty important areas, though, so I'll stick with my original plan and pass it along to someone who can fill it out properly. Banana Republic is my absolute favorite label to find, so there was no chance of me leaving this beauty behind regardless.

Bitten, $3.50

 

 

Whenever I stumble upon a piece from the Bitten (Sarah Jessica Parker, from Steve & Barry's) line, I always want to take it home with me. My heart broke a bit the day that I heard Steve & Barry's (and thus, the Bitten line) was going out of business. I have a houndstooth coat that cost me $9 and I've gotten compliments on it every time I've worn it for the last 3 years. Amazing. So I bought this, loving the color and the belt (which has matching nude stitching on it), but not crazy about the bottom part. Then I happened to spot my seam ripper, and literally less than 5 minutes later, the dress looked like this instead:

Aaahhh. Now we're talking! Please note my smug expression. I LOVE this dress now!!! Woo! God bless the seam ripper. (Also, I just checked the time stamp on the original photos, and they were only taken 4 minutes apart. It's like that ruffle WANTED to come off!!!)

Finally, after last week's post, imagine my surprise when I found this:

purse, $4

It has no outside pockets so CLEARLY doesn't meet my exacting standards. However, I love the pattern, it's got a spot for my cell phone, and it has much more room for my Kindle than my previous purse. So I think we have a temporary solution here, at least!

All in all, a much better week than last. Now excuse me... there's a glass of Red Velvet calling my name.