house projects

as most of you already know I've been renovating a house for a while. My focused turned to the landscaping this season. I have been planting all sorts of flowers almost every weekend since late march.

I've been also planning to add a patio section just off one of the flower beds. I positioned it where water would collect after a good rain. I wasn't able to grow grass so I figured it was a good solution.

While doing my research on how to go about this I spoke to Sean, a work buddy, about the project. Sean grew up helping his dad with all sorts of landscaping projects. Sean gave me some really good direction and offered to help on some of his days off. Of course I jumped on that.

So this Friday I got up super early and started. In addition to the patio I was spreading my mulch on my large flower beds. I started spreading at 6:30 am. Sean arrived at 8am. We worked like dogs in really hot weather. it was at least 95 all day. We finished digging out the spot for the patio and the trench for the drainage.

On Saturday Adam jumped in to help. We moved almost 5 ton of material to complete the patio. Take a look.



I huge thank you to Sean and Adam for all your help. Can't wait to seat out there and have a cold beer with you both

Weekend Warriors

Back in March of this year Adam bet me he could predict the winners of the March Madness games better then I could. Knowing my history and good luck with March Madness I took him on full speed. The Bet: The winner could pick the restaurant of their choice. I lead from the beginning and ended up selecting the Championship team. In addition was guessed the final score of that game within 7 points.

For my prize we went to 10 degrees South. A South African cuisine place that I've been wanting to try. A set of good friends have been there several times and raved about the food. After a long description of the menu items we selected the Peri-Peri Chicken Spring Rolls to start. For my entree I went with the SoSaties (per my friends recommendation). Skewered beef filet marinated and topped with a sweet apricot curry sauce. SO GOOD. and of course for dessert I had the Don Pedro. It's an ice cream drink.

INTRODUCING

Blog followers I would like to introduce you to Samuel.
He is a new addition to the Williams household as of Saturday May 2nd.
Many months of reserach and test drives led me to him. Special thanks to Ken and Jennifer for all the help with the numbers.

Whole Food goodness

Since October 2008 Adam and I have been going to a monthly event at our local Whole Foods on Pounce. Once a month they convert the table and chair section into a restaurant. Complete with linen table, glasses and silver.

Each month has a different theme. There are usually 6 courses with wine pairing.most times they will pour twice. It's the best deal in town. They also offer all the wines featured that night at 20% off retail price. Last night I bought a very nice white from Chili for $7.00. I bought 3 bottles.


You can find all related information on their website. Here is an example of the posting.

A Taste of...South America
7:00 p.m. $20 in advance

Join us for our series of "A Taste of...", where we pair some of our favorite wines with delicious creations from the chefs in our Prepared Foods department. This month, take a trip to South America with a sampling of some of the region's specialties, plus the South American wines that taste great with them. Please RSVP at Customer Service. Seating is limited.

Kiss the Cook

In addition to hosting my large parties several times a year I will invite a smaller crew over for dinner parties. I really enjoy cooking for my friends, drinking wine and chatting. I'm always on the hunt for new and exciting dishes. I'm determined not to fall into a routine and make the same dish over and over again. Most of the recipes I find come from the Internet.

Recently I have found a new source for creative culinary works. Bigoven.com
it's pretty cool. You can create a profile and collect your "favorite" or "try soon"
recipes. There is also a leftover feature. You can plug in 3 different ingredients that you have laying around and it will give you a number of recipes to try.
You can also sort by flavor, season, occasion, course or popular ingredients.

I invited the boys (chad and landon) and Laura over on Sunday for a spring dinner party. I tried three new recipes from this site. We started with Chicken Curry salad served with Stacy's Pita Chips. It had grapes, almonds and celery in the mixture. Can be served warm or cold. it was a huge hit.

The fish tacos were pretty basic. Baked the Halibut with a little butter, pepper and lime juice. The tacos were served with shredded lettuce, chopped tomatoes, avocado, lime juice and a black bean salad. It was very yummy and super easy to make. 1 can of black beans, 1 can of corn, chopped tomatoes, cilantro, jalapenos, lime juice, cumin and salt.

I recommend all you cooks out there give this website a chance. I'm happy to come over and taste test anything you make. happy cooking.