And the Birthdays Go On and On

Thursday was my baby brother's birthday. Friday was his granddaughter's, Saturday was Mom's and Gardener E's, so back to more celebrating. Woo hoo! Tim sometimes joins us for Thursday Gramerly Day with Sophia. Since this Thursday past was one of those, I told him I would fix a yummy dinner. Miss Sophie had ordered a cake with a purple star. No, a blue star. No, purple. Grandfather brought a cake with a purple and blue star. Of course he did.

He and I were visiting while she was entertaining herself with one of Bugg's Disney dolls, Belle.

Soon I heard the whole song Belle sings on her morning visit to the village, all the words, perfect pitch- so cute, drifting up from underneath the kitchen table where we were visiting and she had chosen to play. Mom and Auntie G-lou were able to join us in celebration.

On Saturday, I fixed dinner for my friend Gardener E. She is a knitter too and I found this yarn bowl at a potter's booth. I loved it and thought she might as well. I always think in blues for her gifts.

With the last bits of summer, I made my favorite salad for both birthday celebrations.

Here, at last, is how it goes. You toss room temperature fresh tomatoes and cucumbers with some sea salt flakes. Add rice vinegar and olive oil. For this amount of vegies I would use about 4 tablespoons of oil and 2 tbsp of vinegar. Then I pick and rinse a handful of basil. I roll it up together, slice it thin and stir it in with lots of fresh ground pepper.

Next I take some chunky bread. I love sour dough or the multigrain french ever available at the Kroger store. I put my homemade garlic spread on it. What is that? Well, whenever I bake something, I throw a head of garlic in the oven and bake until it's soft. Next I peel and squish some of the garlic and mix it with 3 parts butter to one part olive oil in a glass jar. It is in the frig for whatever need I have of garlic butter. Anyway, I toast the bread on 400 degrees until it is brown.

Cut it up in a bowl, pour the vegies on top and eat it while the bread is still warm. Uh, then we eat some more when the bread isn't warm, and typically don't stop until the bread is all gone. Bean and Bugg love this too.

Now it seemed Ms. E liked her yarn bowl, but this, this was her favorite treat of the evening- fried green tomatoes. I don't know why, but fall green tomatoes have more body, or texture, or something than early summer ones. These were green tomato heaven.

We actually had a main dish, though we probably wouldn't have missed it if we hadn't. This is another dish I love- Gorgonzola Crusted Chicken. There were lots of leftovers, so I'm already looking forward to lunch tomorrow.

A very happy birthday to Tim, Sophia, Mom and Gardner E.

I'm ready for a birthday rest.