The North Texas State Fair is coming

Maybe we’ll see pickles like Aunt Regina used to make. Here are some more pickling recipes for the bounty from your garden.

For the first time in many years, I’m growing dill and okra for okra pickles. They were one of Mark’s favorite. It’s taken a while for the heart to heal enough to make them again.

Don’t let anyone tell you that cooking and food and love don’t go together. They totally do.

Although I am also growing elephant garlic, I discovered one year that it doesn’t pickle with okra. Well, it does, but only if you don’t mind eating blue-colored garlic.

Pickled Green Beans

Dill Okra (page 1)Dill Okra page 2

Best Birthday Ever …

The beauty of a summer birthday is the terrific parties you can have. Paige had some wonderful ones growing up, swim parties and slip-and-slide parties and going-to-Shakespeare-in-the-Park parties. The best one I remember was when she turned 6 or 7 and we loaded up the family and a bunch of her friends, and even a few friends’ parents, in the old school bus and drove to the pool in Highland Village where we inherited a membership (shout out to Sue B and Brian K for that one). Everybody swam and the girls played a fishing game in the baby pool and we ate an ice cream bombe cake that looked like a watermelon and Paige opened presents on the drive back.

I think her 21st birthday abroad has outdone it.

P.S. Don’t glaze over when Paige gives her critique of the K-pop bands. She knows things. Two summers ago she showed me a YouTube clip of this obscure, goofy dancing guy that about 100,000 people had seen. Turned out to be Psy and Gangnam Style (266 million views and counting).