A milestone. A tradition. A wake-up call.

I love food.  I kind of adore food.  I love the planting of food.  I love the growing of food.  I love the harvesting of food.  I love the washing of food.  I love the chopping of food.  I love the boiling, sauteing, roasting, baking, reducing, tasting, consuming part of food.

If I could yank some tuna out of the ocean, or hogtie a cow in a pasture, I would slice it up and eat it raw.  Yes, I know, many people will hate me for saying that.  But I love nothing more than some raw meat and fresh veggies on my plate.  And those of you who know me REALLY well know exactly how raw I like it.  And that's not innuendo.  I like me some raw meat.

Over the past week, I've been feeling the call of being back in the kitchen, hardcore.  My summer garden is coming to an end and college football is in full swing.  There is something about the last bit of basil, dill, cucumbers, jalapenos, and banana peppers that scream, "PICKLE ME!"  And there is something about College Gameday, NFL Countdown, and Labor Day that screams, "Meat, MEat, MEAt, MEAT!"

So...Wednesday night, Evan had the fantastic idea of taking advantage of the garden's last nuggets of summer.  I'm no pickling expert, but my grandmother passed down the most fantastic sweet pickle recipe on the planet.  The catch is that it takes almost a month (and A LOT of attention) to yield the most perfect pickles on the planet.  My mom and I made her pickles for the first time in 15 years about 4 years ago and they were absolute perfection.  Yes, it was time-consuming.  Yes, I was irritated by the daily attention they needed.  But I'll be damned if they didn't taste like they did when I was 5 years old.  What a legacy to leave.

Anyway, Evan doesn't like anything sweet.  Ironic, right?  ; )

But he decided we were going to spend Wednesday night pickling and canning before we christened the new grill.

So, in typical Evan-fashion, he read some recipes about pickles, free-styled his own recipe, and off to work we went.

After we got the pickling situation settled, we decided to break in the new grill.  Why not?  The weather was cool, the fire pit was nice, and there were no kiddos to argue with or referee.

Filet.  Portabello.  Asparagus.  Chicken wine.

Perfection.


So tomorrow, we are having a Labor Day party.

I am SO excited to entertain and so are the boys.

I LOVE that they get so excited about food (even though they don't really eat).

I adore that they want to get involved in the menu.

But most of all, I cherish that they want to be a part of the cooking process.

These are post-bath pics from tonight...

So, tonight, we did some food prep.  Teague was in charge of my signature Peach-adobo bar-b-q sauce marinade for the chicken.  I stressed how important it was to keep at least a cup for basting on the grill.

Crews blended the marinade which will accompany the jicama slaw, perfect with the dry rubbed carne asada (also my signature!).

And tomorrow, well, stay tuned for the food pics tomorrow.

You know they'll be insane.  And I can't wait to see what dessert brings!

But before I leave you...

When I put the the boys to bed tonight, Teague waited a few minutes then came downstairs.
He asked if I had more cooking to do, and if he could help.

I said, "I have a few more things to do.  Are you tired?"

"Yes," he said.

"Well then go to bed," I said.  "You've had 2 sleepovers in 2 days.  Just rest for tomorrow."

He responded," I know you can't hold the Ziploc AND pour the marinade in.  Just let me help you."

"How do you know that?" I responded.

"I've been at the edge of the stairs and I've seen you  try it before," Teague said.  "Mom, admit it.  Seriously, sometimes you need help."

He's right.  Sometimes I do.  But I'll be damned if I ever admit it.

The sweetest surprise on an August Sunday evening.

With the kids settled in to watch Aladdin, and Koda scarfing up the remains of dinner, I wandered outside to check the status of my hanging plants on the back porch.  I was pleased to see that the windmill jasmine is finally wrapping around the railings and following my lead as I continually try to redirect its growth.  For the last few months, it has been about as manageable as my hair.

I then made my way over to what remains of my summer garden.  Though my basil is yellowing and looking rather puny, I was excited to see that my squash plant has come back to life and seems to be crawling out of the garden towards the pool.  I'm hoping I can at least snag a few blossoms to stuff for dinner one night before it kicks the bucket for winter.

I also noticed my chives are about to bloom.  I love that.

The banana peppers and jalapenos are still going strong, as usual.

And a trip over to the pond confirmed the sun would be setting soon.  I can always tell by the state of the swamp hibiscus blooms.

The plant I can never remember the name of  displayed its purple glory.

And everything was as it should be.

But then, then something extraordinary happened.

While walking by my apple tree, which I planted 5 years ago and has never once produced fruit, I saw this:

A pear.  A single pear.

I was so excited about it finally producing fruit that it took me 10 minutes to realize it was not in fact an apple.

So I have pear tree.  With one pear. 

And I was ecstatic.

But then, then something even more miraculous happened.

I wandered over to the pecan tree, which has never yielded a single nut, and noticed a vine.  An extremely thick, strong vine winding down from a relatively young live oak tree.  And on this vine was grapes.  TONS of grapes. 

And this is why these grapes are special:

Every year I've lived in this house, I have planted a grapevine.  And every year, it shrivels up and dies.  I have tried planting them along the fence.  In the shade.  In the sun.  In moist areas of the yard.  In dry areas of the yard.  Near the pond.  Far from the pond.  In my herb garden...  You get the point.  They never ever live.  And the last time I planted a grapevine was when I was married.  I gave up on ever growing grapes a couple years ago.  And I honestly haven't thought about it since.

But today, in an area of my yard I often patrol and explore, I noticed grapes.  At first, I thought they were surely some random, nonedible, poisonous berry.  But the closer I looked, I could trace the vine through the tree back to the spot I planted the last vine several years ago.  I have no clue how I've missed it growing, constantly getting stronger.  But there is something surreal about not knowing it was there until the fruit was ripe and ready to eat. 

I grabbed a handful and when I bit into the first one, it literally exploded.  Grape juice ran down my chin and dripped onto my shirt.  Usually, I would be annoyed about the shirt-juice incident, but I couldn't help but laugh.  And seriously, these just might be the best grapes I've ever tasted.

So I'm going to enjoy my "freedom grapes" as long as they hang around.  And every time I see that dense, twisted vine I'm going to remember that as soon as I let it be and it was no longer stifled, it thrived and flourished.  Just like me.

Goodbye treehouse. Hello tree mansion!

As a parent, there are certain things you can't and won't tolerate.  One of those things is dickhead adults screwing over your children.  Yes, that's right.  Nine full months later, I am STILL blogging about my a**hole neighbor.

Two weeks ago, an inspector from the Town of James Island came out and told us we needed to remove the ladder to the treehouse and that one support was too close to the fence.  We hired a contractor the next day and complied.  When the contractor finished, the inspector came back, took pictures, told me we were now in compliance, and that we would not hear from him again.  He also apologized multiple times for the stupidity of his visit.  He made it very clear that he did not agree with what my neighbor was saying/doing and that kids should be able to have a treehouse.  Period.

But an hour later, the inspector returned, and this time there was another man with him as well.  As I watched them go into the backyard, I noticed my neighbor was out by the tree, up on a ladder, with a measuring tape.  Yes, he seriously drug an enormous ladder across his 5 acre property to show that one board of our treehouse was still 3 inches too close to the fence.

Now, I'm not one for confrontation, but I almost lost my sh*t on him.  And Teague snuck out the side door and I heard him tearfully yelling 8 year-old obscenities at said neighbor.  And when you make my kid cry because you are destroying his 8th birthday present that his grandfather built for him, I am going to make you pay.

You see, I'm from Mississippi.  And I have a little bit of a trashy, redneck side that makes me want to punish you when I'm forced to destroy something I love.  I love to blow stuff up, and my dad and I LOVE to cause mayhem.  We like fireworks, and potato guns, and paintball.  Maybe if we could have honored the treehouse by sending it out in a blaze of glory, all of us would be a little happier.  But instead it was totally dismantled in a routine manner today and now lays in pieces next to the driveway.

 

 

 

 

And as much as I would love to bombard my neighbor's house with potatoes, or paint, or something else fun, I have found a much better way to punish him.  You see, I overheard him tell the inspector that he really just didn't like looking at the treehouse.  So I have decided to build a new one.  With a permit.  Three feet from his fence.  Tripled in size.  With the side facing his house painted neon orange.

And in the meantime, I left him another little note:

And I didn't even cuss in this one.