Fruits of My Labor

Swiss chard, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, and zucchinis.

Peppers, eggplants, green onion, and my Camino bonnet.

My garden salad.

Stone baked pizza w/ homemade rye dough.

Garden style scrambled w/ homemade wheat bread & fresh squeezed grapefruit juice.

My lovely yard...Thanks, Christy!

All that hard work in the spring has paid off, and I've started to enjoy the fruits of my labor. Okay, I had some help, but it still is my garden so it's only fair that I get all the credit. Not just me though, but the lucky SLC peeps who get invited over for my lovely dinner parties. (Can't get that word out of my vocabulary having spent all summer around the Irish.)

I've been busy entertaining since the beginning of the week, and it's only Wednesday. (3 more to go & I'll be done for the week...perhaps for this year.) Breakfast for my aunt on Monday was brilliant! (It's the Irish again...) Followed by afternoon drinks with Jeanette, and then Chris, Christy, Jack, and Hasen came over for some pizzas I baked on my never-used pizza stone. It really was quite lovely! (Wish had a brick oven though...anyone wanna build me one in my backyard?) Yesterday was spent entertaining a Swiss who made me feel like I was back on the Camino, and we even got in a lovely hike up to Lake Mary up Big Cottonwood Canyon. (Felt kind of weird walking without a heavy pack, though.) And tonight, I'm throwing a party for Jen's graduation & getting another use out of that fantastic pizza stone & my ice cream maker I got for Christmas which is still new in its box.

Wish my new Camino buddies were close by so they could partake in my end of summer soirees even though Super Hans may beg me to marry him again like he did the night I made dinner for a bunch of us in Arca do Pino. The only downside of all this entertaining is that my waistline is slowly increasing again. Perhaps I should just put a sack of rice inside my pack & start hiking everyday so I can eat whatever I want... like ice cream & chocolate on a daily basis.

Off to the backyard-farm to pick my veges for my lunch guest before I start throwing some dough around for another round of pizzas tonight. I wonder if there's a Camino like walk in Italy...that really would be BRILLIANT!