PIZZA

We found a good pizza place in our new home. Peppino's is family friendly with luscious pizza!

The sign out front promises a good deal:

The place itself looks neat:

Inside smells great:

Plenty of tables:

And oh, that pizza!

The pieces are so big, my guy and I share one order. Yum!

Only bad thing is that they're closed on Mondays. And we always seem to get the urge for pizza on Mondays.

Bummer.

FARMERS MARKET

We've been so engrossed in getting our house ready, I almost forgot to blog. Luckily, we went by a farmers market this morning while picking up my guy's photograph from the art gallery in a neighboring town. We parked and got out, but a sign was the first thing we saw:

Amid the booths, a couple were playing guitars and singing as buyers browsed. You might can make them out in the middle of this picture, where they had a little stage beyond the blue tent:

Then these baskets of homegrown, ripe tomatoes caught my eye. The smell wafted up to me and I was a goner I got in line to buy some.

And back home for lunch. Guess what we had? That's right! Good old mater sandwiches!

Yum! How I love summer tomatoes!

BLESSING OF THE FLEET

Last weekend, the small town up from us held their annual "Blessing of the Fleet" festival. The blessing itself took place on Sunday, but we went up Saturday when it wasn't so crowded.

The street was blocked off, and there were maybe a hundred or so booths winding around beneath the huge oaks. Here is the section going in:

And this is the end with the food!  There were Phillipine and Thai cuisines, as well as tacoes, alligator bites, chicken fingers, and other offerings. We chose fried local shrimp (fresh and scrumptious!) with fries and a funnel cake from the sweets booth.

I heard the man at this booth playing and went over to see, thinking he was touting his homemade dulcimers or zithers. But no! It was a string instrument with a neck in a bean can! No kidding! He was playing tunes out of a can! If you look closely at the middle right, you can see several instruments standing upright, cans at the bottom.

It was a good deal, too. The instrument and a booklet of music for twenty dollars. Perfect for a beginning guitar player!

On the way home, a bicycle rental shop in town sported a sign I adored. The Pedaling Pig! Doesn't he look carefree and happy?

All in all, a fun day!

CATS WHO THINK THEY'RE DOGS

My cat thinks he's a dog. When I eat, he puts his feet on my knee and looks at me like a dog. All hopeful and pleading.

"Don't beg," I say. "You're a CAT. Cats don't beg."

He doesn't listen but continues to give me the soulful look.

"Cats rule the world," I lecture. "They tell everyone else what to do. They do not beg."

My admonishing doesn't stop his begging. If I don't give in, my guy does.

And when I feed him and his sister, he wolfs his food down like a you-know-who (which means he's liable to throw it up like dogs do). Then he rushes over to push his sister back from her dish. She pushes back but it's useless. She may be queen of the house, but when it comes to food, the boy cat is immovable.

"You aren't a dog," I tell him. "Cats are finicky eaters. You need to take lessons from your sister."

She smirks at him, but he doesn't care. He's too busy cleaning her plate because while she was daintily eating half of hers, he has swallowed his food whole.

I'm wondering if a cat psychiatrist could help. Maybe it's a lack of self-esteem?

BANANA PUDDING

Having relatives next week and had left-over whole milk from the last set of relatives. So I decided to make a banana pudding using Granny's recipe. Or rather, Granny's recipe as written down while watching her throw in a teacup of this and a heaping spoon of that and guessing at this...

Naturally, mine did not turn out as well as hers.

Could it be I forgot the vanilla flavoring in the pudding part? Hmmmm?

RACOONS DINING

After being away nearly two years, we drove a half hour to a favorite restaurant on Jekyll Island. Sea Jay's. To our horror, its dirt road had been paved. And marked. But the shrimp salad sandwich was good as ever.

Sea Jay is at the marina by the water where people eat outside and watch the animals. Usually squirrels and birds are the beggars. Yesterday we had raccoons. One came right up under the porch where we were eating. After licking out what looked like a tartar sauce/cocktail sauce/salad dressing container someone (likely the wind) had thrown on the ground, the first went up a tree just as a second one arrived. The tree was right beside the porch. Maybe you can see their friendly little faces from the phone pix.

Raccoon is kind of in the center to the right.

Raccoon is beside the tree on the right.

MAGIC MIRROR

As I mentioned, I'm on a diet. In the last 2-3 weeks I've lost 4-5 pounds. Yay.

So we go out of town to a family thing yesterday, and after the event, came back to the hosts' house to celebrate with food. All kinds of food. On the dining table, on the coffee table, on the counter, on the stove...

Cold cuts, cheeses, croissantes, fruit, pastry poufs, tiny eclairs, little hors d'oeuvre thingies with spinach and stuff inside... Oh it was grand! With a big cake to top it off!

I know what you're thinking. And okay, I did eat. But there was nowhere to go stand without food staring me in the face.

Besides, at our motel, there was a magic mirror. When we dressed for the event, I looked into it and darned if I didn't look slim! I called my guy over. He looked in the mirror and he looked slim, too!

Even when we got back after pigging out, we still looked slim! Then I turned from his reflection and realized that what I saw in the mirror wasn't actually the real thing.

Bummer. Wish I could have brought the mirror home.

SLIM TO NONE

SLIM TO NONE by Jenny Gardiner is a light, humorous slice of gingerbread with whipped cream topping.

Not really. The food and recipes I salivated over throughout my reading brought up this metaphor, but it's still pretty apt. Not quite chick lit and not quite women's fiction, this kind of straddles the two.

Abbie, the overweight heroine, loses her job as a newspaper food critic because she's gotten so fat the restaurant owners recognize her. The editor puts her on a temporary part-time column and gives her an ultimatum: lose weight or forfeit her job.

Perfect. Especially since the sleazy food-section guy (who she thought was so nice because every day he brings her pastries and other exotic confections guaranteed to add the pounds) is filling in at her job!

Now Abbie not only has to lose the pounds to wrest her job away from her stand-in who wants to become permanent, she also has to deal with a husband who wants her to ride on a Vespa, a homeless man she wants to take under her wing, and a best friend who wants to use her to cover an affair.

And this brings her to having to face her own past and the reason she hankers after food so much.

Everyone who's been overweight will get a kick out of this book. No earthshattering problems but lots of funny situations.

But avoid the recipes like the plague.

MOUNTAIN WEDDING

Yesterday my guy and I drove up into the N GA mountains for a wedding. Since we were so close, we stopped by Mercier's Apple House in Blue Ridge and had one of their mouth-watering fried pies.

Then we went on to the business at hand. Gorgeous weather, glowing bride, beaming groom, and a beautiful backdrop. What more can you ask for a wedding?

Some cute attendants, of course! And in case you didn't notice them in the first picture, let's look at them again.

And don't forget the reception. Ah, that fabulous food! Some of us -- forgetting waistlines -- pigged out. The wedding cake was a work of art, but the groom's cake was a trout. And it was either hated or loved, depending on the person viewing. Bet you can guess what the groom does in his spare time.

 

So. Congenial people, happy couple, and good food in beautiful surroundings. A day well spent.

The Cold Weather

Brrrr. We are wondering if we moved far enough south.

We went out to eat earlier in the week, on one of the really cold nights. At the Frederica House, they kindly put us next to the baseboard heaters by the windows and we ate our great dinner in cozy comfort.

But as we were rushing inside, this guy in short sleeves comes out. I don't usually talk to strangers, but I was so startled at his coatless state, I couldn't help it. "You're going to freeze!"

He didn't answer, just kind of sneered like, Lady, this ain't cold. and went on to his car

I figured he was a Yankee. My guy said no, he looked like a salesman to him.

AND IT WAS A HAPPY, HEARTY THANKSGIVING!

Too much turkey, ham, dressing, gravy, biscuits, green beans, sweet potato casserole, congealed fruit salad, cranberry sauce. Couldn't eat either the homemade chocolate cake (with homemade fudge icing!) or the luscious looking pumpkin pie. Had to wait till long afterward.

Hope everybody ate as well as we did.

Hope everybody isn't still groaning today like we are.