And now we interrupt your programming for a special announcement....

MATT JUST GOT ACCEPTED TO LAW SCHOOL!

...you may now resume your regularly scheduled activities. Us? We've got to get back to partyin'.

When celebrating this weekend, please keep this in mind...

Originally from Salon.com:

It's time to stand up for homemade potato salad

Come on, people, it's not that hard to make. Do you really think we can't tell the difference?

By Garrison Keillor

July 1, 2009 | I walked the length of the westbound Lake Shore Limited as it left Albany last Sunday, six crowded coaches, and counted three Twitterers and a couple of phone texters, six laptoppers (two of whom were watching movies), four video gamers, and 27 people reading books. Books made of paper! Turning the pages with their fingers one by one, reading the lines left to right, just as people have done for hundreds of years. Ain't that something?

I didn't lean down for a close look at the books they were reading -- I was not brought up to do that -- so perhaps bodices were being ripped and stalkers were stalking and meteorites were heading straight for Earth, but no matter. Books were being read!

Along with live theater, monogamy and the bald eagle, the paper book has been despaired over and its demise freely predicted, and yet, among people heading west, it seems to be the diversion of choice. So Dickens and Jane Austen and Flannery O'Connor are not dead yet.

And the bald eagle is coming back, along with the gray wolf and the Yellowstone grizzly -- though less attractive endangered species such as the glassy-eyed smelt and the orangefoot pimpleback mussel and various arachnids are still in doubt -- and theater seems as alluring as ever, judging by the number of young New York waiters with large personalities. And as for monogamy, it's there, waiting to be rediscovered.

So let me speak up for an endangered menu item this Fourth of July weekend and that is homemade potato salad.

When the family meets this weekend to hobnob and burn burgers, the family member assigned to bring the potato salad is likely going to walk in with a couple of gallon plastic buckets of yellowish muck bought at a convenience store, the price stickers still on them, and set them down on the table with no apology whatsoever.

Or, if they have more disposable income, they'll bring paper containers full of brownish muck from the natural organic sustainable united empathetic co-op.

If you bring garbage to share with your family, the least you can do is tell a lie and say, "I couldn't make the potato salad myself because I am bipolar and my lover left me and my dog has leukemia and I have an oozing leprous sore on my mixing hand."

It is not that hard to make potato salad, people. Take half an hour away from your Facebook page and do the job right. Boil some eggs, chop the celery and chives and green onions, boil the potatoes, make your mayonnaise, maybe toss in a little sour cream, use plenty of dill, and sprinkle paprika on top. The eerie-yellow store-bought stuff in the tubs was manufactured at Amalgamated Salad in Houston by undocumented 12-year-olds from the hills of Michoacan. Worse, it is teaching our children that accomplishment doesn't matter.

A child served yellow slop from a bucket is being told that it's OK to plagiarize a term paper off the Internet just so long as it's poorly written.

What if Thomas Jefferson had been too busy hobnobbing to write the Declaration of Independence so he just downloaded a bunch of stuff he found Googling "independence" and coming up with stuff about indolence, pendants, incontinence, but hey, close enough, and he pasted it together and they all signed it and went out to a movie? Not good.

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the potato salad that has connected them with another, they will do it, believe me, so why insult us? Just because we're polite, do you think we can't tell the difference? Are we demented? Does this not seem self-evident to you?

Attend to the details. Teach your children manners. Write cogent paragraphs. Drive carefully. And make a good potato salad, one with some crunch, maybe accompanied by a fried drumstick with crackly skin -- the humble potato and the stupid chicken, ennobled by diligent cooking -- and is this not the meaning of our beautiful country, to take what is common and enable it to become beautiful? All our beautiful young people -- so diligent and focused and powered by hope -- you can't tell me those kids didn't have parents who took time to chop the celery and onions and experiment with the ratio of mayo to mustard to achieve a potato salad that is worthy of our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

(Garrison Keillor is the author of "77 Love Sonnets," published by Common Good Books.)

© 2009 by Garrison Keillor. All rights reserved. Distributed by Tribune Media Services, Inc.

These are a few of my favorite things...

I'm currently sitting under an umbrella in my new favorite spot on earth. There are baby housewrens chirping from their nest in a birdhouse just above my head. The water is splashing melodically in the fountain behind me. A wonderful breeze is rustling the limbs and leaves in the woods directly in front of me. I'm surrounded by gorgeous, cloudless blue skies. And in the distance, I KID YOU NOT, a train whistle just blew.

It's like movie out here today.

I'm speaking, of course, of my deck, and my glorious back yard, where lately I find that I am happiest. I suppose I could update you on our lives (as though there were much to report--beyond Matt applying to law school, everything is pretty much the same), but instead I'll give you pictures of my new found oasis, and invite you all over for barbecue, anytime you want.





More pictures on Flickr.

A mama blue bird just landed on the pergola to my left, she and papa are scouting our bluebird house on the tulip poplar. Linus is rolling in the sunshine on the hill. A cardinal is splashing in the birdbath.

It's a good day out here, y'all.

Some baking...

Working in a bakery and wanting to actually *keep* my paycheck means I have to come home and bake all the tempting treats I work with all day.

My first official Challah loaf

Pineapple upside down cake, from scratch. Well worth repeating all summer long!

Love for the Kitties...

The cats don't make it on the blog as often as they deserve. So, today, it's all about some kitty love.Marley's calendar shot. This picture should be framed and hung in my house. Isn't he beautiful? Marley is my boyfriend...

These two are exact opposites in disposition--in fact, I can't believe Zoe was being so tolerant as to let Nilo share this much space with her. I blame it on the sunshine--the pure joy these cats get from rolling on the deck in the sunshine gets them both high (or, perhaps that was the catnip Matt had just sprinkled liberally on that very spot? Hmmm....). Normally Zoe would not condone one of my cats *touching* her. And we call Marley a princess...

Baby Steps...

My brother and I made this stepping stone for my grandmother (long ago, when his foot was still able to be contained in 12"x12" cement), and it resided in her condo patio garden in Nashville for (I'm guessing?) 15 years or so. Along the way a few shells were lost, and moss began to take hold in the surfaces and crevices. This winter, Go Go (as she is affectionately known to her grand and great grandchildren) moved into assisted living, and this stone was one of the many treasures I brought home with me. This summer we'll move it to a nice spot in our own garden.

And yes, my foot still fits in the groves perfectly.

Chicken Fried Smiles

(clearly I am concentrating very hard back there, or I too would be grinning in awe at the plate of fried goodness)

This is Mike. He is my brother. He came over one evening and made us Texas-style Chicken Fried Steaks (and a huge mess in my kitchen, which is easily forgiven when the result is chicken fried steaks), and I made green beans , mashed potatoes and cream gravy, and we all smiled this big. A very good day.

Regularly scheduled programming...

I hope your Easter weekend's were at least this good.

Starting this week, I'm going to do mostly picture posting for a while, if for no other reason than to break me out of this blogging rut I've been in.
I've missed y'all...

I Believe In Playing Games...

I've had a rotten week already, and it's only Tuesday. I suppose I could use my weekly blog post to whine, but, I'm trying not to perpetuate the *blah*, you know? So, instead, Yay! Becky gave me something else to talk about!

A game

the rules:
write 5 "beliefs"-- rules you live by -- you are not aloud to get serious or preachy, political or religious! These are just for fun and to see if other people are as quirky as you!

So here goes:

1. I believe in TiVo.
2. I believe that recipes are just general guidelines, and that real cooking begins when you improvise.
3. I believe in shutting the bathroom door.
4. I believe in sleeping with the windows open whenever possible.
5. I believe in scratch-made strawberry shortcakes, sweet tea, and Southern Living.

How 'bout you?

Today's Best Hits...

You guys!

Today--today today hot damn TODAY*--is Matt's last day of class. My boy's mere hours away from completing his degree. Everyone say a small "hallelujah" for us from wherever you are. Tonight, after he turns in his paper, we'll be out celebrating with chicken wangs and his classmates (and everyone else in Knoxville because, naturally, his last night is on St. Patrick's Day, but oh well...).

*paraphrase courtesy of Darren McGavin from "A Christmas Story"

My contribution to our personal celebration? What else, I made a cake.

Yellow cake, chocolate frosting, recipes courtesy of America's Test Kitchen, and oh, my, but it's heavenly. I could use nothing but this frosting for the rest of my life and be happy, it's quick, easy, and completely divine tasting. And because I'm such a pal, I'm posting the recipe. You need a food processor, that's the only caveat. Otherwise, this recipe is perfection.

Foolproof Chocolate Frosting

Makes 3 cups to frost one 9-inch 2-layer cake

20	tablespoons (2 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter , softened (60 to 65 degrees)
1	cup confectioners' sugar (4 ounces)
3/4	cup cocoa powder
	Pinch table salt
3/4	cup light corn syrup
1	teaspoon vanilla extract
8	ounces chocolate , melted and cooled slightly

In food processor, process butter, sugar, cocoa, and salt until smooth, about 30 seconds, scraping sides of bowl as needed. Add corn syrup and vanilla and process until just combined, 5 to 10 seconds. Scrape sides of bowl, then add chocolate and pulse until smooth and creamy, 10 to 15 seconds. Frosting can be used immediately.

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Beyond frosting, I have another new love this week. Miniature gardens. Tiny little landscapes contained in nothing more that the space your potted geranium used to live. I first discovered these a few years back on Little Landscapes (how much do I love the airstream trailer and it's Christmas lights and tiny pink flamingo?) Then recently, while poking around on Apartment Therapy I found this. *Squee!* And a quick round of googling yeilded even more treasures, some I love like weegarden and Two Green Thumbs, and, yeah, a few that aren't quite my style but may have some useful tips (ahem, Enchanted Gardens, I'm only using you for your accessories). I cannot wait to try this out, y'all. Maybe you don't know this about me but I HEART TINY THINGS. Tiny = adorable, always. And with the acres of new real estate known as my perfect, pergola covered deck and the 20 or so various containers I've amassed already, all I need is spring (and, I suppose, some garden center gift cards/a few extra hours at the bakery, whatever it takes).

So, y'all, what's floatin' your boat this week?