I Hope...

...Your Christmas....

...was filled with friends and family....

...Sharing love and traditions....

...companionship and joy...

...advice and secrets...

...abundance to give...

...simple pleasure of just being and working together....

...experimentation and something new...

...pride in accomplishment...

...and unbearable cuteness!!! (our Delta's growing)

Our Italian fig cookies were made at Grandma Rivero's house and the recipe was similar to this one Italian Fig Cookies. 

When my Mother-In-Law was a very very young mother (17 years old) she lived on a street with quite a few Italian families.  My Father-In-Law worked on tug boats which kept him away from home most of the time.  Her Italian neighbors thought she was widowed and began to call her the "little widow".  They took her under their wing and shared their wonderful food with her and how to make it.

These cookies were made at Christmas time and for St. Joseph's altars.  All of the ingredients for the altar had to be begged for door to door.  All of the ladies got together and made huge batches of these cookies.  Each lady having their own responsibility. 

One day my Father-In-Law was home and all of the ladies were delighted to see the little widow "had a boyfriend".  Eventually they were learned that this was her husband and even many years later they laughed about the young "little widow".

Our filling included:

raisins

dates

figs

pecans

walnuts

orange peel

nutmeg

cinnamon

allspice

Steen's cane syrup

If allowed to dry a couple of days and then sealed, these cookies last up to a year!

...oh yes,  I like them dripping with icing and covered in those adorable dots.

This Saturday's Wedding

I so enjoyed doing the flowers for this Saturday's wedding...I love the delicate ultra feminine look...here is a pic of the filled silver tussie mussies the mothers carried....sweet...

The bridal bouquet was a teardrop of blue hydrangeas and white roses...um....um....I am so ready for the strapless look to exit the wedding scene...it's been ten years!!!...arghhhhhhh....something different please designers....designers?.....designers?....are you listening to me?!...anyway the bride was beautiful....

...the bridesmaids carried a swanky arm bouquet of callas and peacock feathers wrapped in gold ribbon...it reminds me of the '20's for some reason.....really like them....especially since it is a departure from the round pave' bridesmaid bouquet look....

This is the bride's son....he was an adorable stinker....I overheard this conversation....

...between him and this little girl....boy, "...I hate all this..",  little girl.." you bettah not say dat...you remembah what ya mamah said huh?...Let's go have a convahsation?!"  ...hmmm?  I guess his mammah had been having some convincing conversations about proper wedding behavior!   Oh, too cute....I adore, adore, adore, children in weddings......

...making sure the musician has his equipment set up and in working order before the wedding begins...

Simple delicate cake topper....I love this location for weddings...It's a shabby chic plantation home and an old church...The weddings take place in the house or the grounds and the reception in the church...huh?...but I love it!

...the giant old palms and cypress trees are breath taking...Looks like the groom is saying..."c'mon guys line up!"

...this is the front of the home.  These old plantation homes were designed to be seen from the Mississippi river when they were built long ago.  Now the levee blocks the view of the river, and the back of the house faces to highway.  If you climb to the top of the levee you can imagine how beautiful the view of the plantation homes must have been from the deck of a steamboat.

This particular home "Woodland Plantation" has the particular fame of being the home featured on the Southern Comfort bottle...

...there's also a beautiful swampy area complete with gators and snakes...ha ha...no really...there are gators and snakes....did I mention this place is kid friendly?...

...the ceremony area presided over by a great old Louisiana bald cypress...

...and a simple bouquet of blue hydrangeas to adorn the church....

Click here to see other wedding flowers I've done.

This Amazes Me

It's amazing how much food that can be grown with part time effort.  All of this is from my garden!  Much of it was grown with minimal effort. 

The citrus was as simple as planting a tree in the spring, giving it a little water every now and then during dry spells the first year, watering it during any extended dry spells the next year, spreading a little composted chicken manure around it twice a year, and when black soot appeared giving it a spray of neem tree oil once a week several times at twilight....and now....a beautiful tree that gives abundant fruit chock full of nutrition and goodness!!!!   I would encourage anyone to try it...

So much idle ground being mowed, trimmed, treated and fed...taking up time, effort, and money....why?  Your land has so much to give you...plant a seed....a tree....a plant......and let it give......

Green beans from the garden...(the frost last night has just about killed them....but oh what bounty while they lasted!)

...dried chili peppers ready to crush...

....PECANS!  (I have twelve gallons of pecan meat in the freezer right now.  I plan to make praline pecans as presents to teachers and friends....super yum...I'll post the recipe later.)

Pickled Cauliflower and canned green beans from the garden.  Super juicy yummy sweet grapefruit and navel oranges from the trees....

Green onions, green peppers, green cucumbers, and yes...potatoes!!! From the towers...I must recommend the towers...I'll tell more later.  There's my compost bucket.  I never chop anything without having my bucket ready....those are stalks of dried basil seed I need to save....

Summer stuffed artichokes from the freezer warming up.....

...and a very sweet and crisp cabbage freshly picked from the garden...

....my Mother-in-law and I made the most delicious venison sausage from two large roasts a cousin gave us.  This is soooo delicious...It is mixed with ground pork 1/2 and 1/2.  After figuring all of our expenses we estimated the cost to be $1.05 a pound....compare that to $3.89 that a local grocery charges for a similar product.

...there's plenty to store and plenty share...

....value the land....be nice to the land...and It'll will give to you....

Recent Harvest

68 and 12 years and canning and...

cooking cauliflower, and baking bread, and all other kinds of good things.  It's been a good week.  My two beautiful cauliflowers were large enough to supply one breakfast, one side for dinner and six pints of pickles.

Byron loves to saute cauliflower florets lightly in a little butter, salt and pepper.  He then adds some eggs and scrambles them in the cauliflower and tops with an Italian cheese mix.  This is good eatin' in the morning according to Byron.  I doubtfully took a nibble off of his plate not expecting much...I cleaned the rest up...yummmmm

Here are store bought carrots, home grown cauliflower, green chilies and red bell peppers soaking in salt water while I prepared the jars....

Next I boil the jars to sterilize them, and then I put a lid on the pot and reserve the hot water for the canning water bath...

Here are the packed jars waiting to be covered by the seasoned vinegar mixture I have made in another pot...

...after filling the jars with the seasoned vinegar mixture, lidding and capping the jars I processed them in a boiling water canner for ten minutes.  Here are the beautiful jars of pickled cauliflower and carrots.  My girls just opened one.....yummmmmmmm

For dinner I sauteed the cauliflower in a little butter, sprinkled a little Italian cheese mix on top and served as a side with turkey spaghetti and.....

fresh baked bread.  Byron then discovered that the cauliflower tastes great with the turkey tomato sauce on top....maybe I can skip the noodles next time?  Hmmm?

My friend Debbie has been teaching me to decorate traditional birthday cake style.  My roses were a little droopy because my house was a little to warm.  Not too bad though...Fun to do...very fun.  This is a carrot cake with cream cheese icing....Seleste's request...and again...yummmmmmm!

This is my Dad's first birthday since his terrible stroke in April.  He is 68. We celebrated his and Seleste's birthday together.  He always called Seleste one-baby because she was born one day after his birthday.  She turned 12..eek.

My heart was so happy to see my Dad enjoying himself and participating like he always used to do.  He was teasing the kids, clapping and singing "Happy Birthday".  Even though every word he sang wasn't understandable, it was the most beautifully I've ever heard him sing....I love you sooo much Daddy.

Seleste loved all her presents....and Naomi was wondering why she didn't get any presents...it was her birthday too....at least according to Naomi....Naomi you're just the cutest little pumpkin liver ever...I love that little Bootsie Barker...and Seleste...I love you soo much...continue to be the wise little owl that you are!

Life is beautiful and so are turnips...

...and cabbage and cauliflower and peppers and potato plants and....all veggies...they're just beautiful.  Look at them really well....form, line, color, pattern, and....function!  Beautiful and useful....sometimes I catch myself just sitting, looking, absorbing and admiring all the beauty of veggie plants....

This a great time of year for planting in south Louisiana.  Some summer plants are still producing such as peppers, tomatoes, eggplant, basil and squash.  I even have an Asian silver line and banana melon or two.  Until frost hits they'll keep on loving the warm days....

....almost every flower is loving the warm not scorching days and are blooming and blooming....

....there are few pests this time of year.  They mostly consist of children (who knocked several large navel oranges out of my tree with the golf cart) the occasional stray caterpillar, and a couple of other bothersome bugs...see the little caterpillar trying to escape my view....squish....

...my second try a tater towers...the others went kaput...I think blight.  I'm trying it again using pine straw to fill the towers instead of compost...I will post on the results and whether I think it is worth it or not.  This advice should be taken with consideration of my very limited experience in growing potatoes.

These cauliflowers take my breath away.  They are so fluid and lovely looking.

The cabbages are forming heads nicely.  The lines in cabbage are a thing of beauty as well.

The peppers are still chugging along....

My wagon load of harvest....oh yes... the satsumas are ready.  Mine are yummy because I watered them.  There was a drought in October.  We didn't have rain for eight weeks, so many of the growers locally who didn't irrigate have a very limited crop of citrus this year.

And inside....I have been crocheting these really cute popular headband/ear warmers.  They sell downtown in the French Market for $10.00 to $15.00.  I plan to sell a few for extra Christmas money and make some for gifts....

...and presenting the newest member of our family.......(drum roll)....DELTA....Isn't she completely adorable...and yes she is as sweet as she looks!!!