Ruthanna, I too want to add my condolences on your uncle's passing. LindaC, I am waiting for some fresh from the garden green beans. I could have just those and be satisfied. Maybe there will be some at the farmers market this week. We had a nice weekend here, perfect summer weather. Friday night we grilled burgers and had fresh sweet corn and baked beans. Saturday was grilled chicken, marinated in teriyaki sauce. Sunday we had some really good rib steaks....grilled of course! We were lucky.... our power went out (a tree fell and took the lines with it about a half mile up the road) so we had now power from about 5 to 10. I had made a layered salad and potato salad earlier in the day, so no problem!!! It was hot in the house but we've been eating out on the deck anyway.... Last night was a burger repeat with salads from Sunday. Tonight? I have locally made cherry bratwurst in the frig.... We'll have those in honor of the National Cherry Festival going on right now in Traverse City. Happy cooking all!!!! Stay cool if you are in the heat wave! Nancy

Jenn that salad sounds DELISH! My mom gave me a bag of walunts and I already had two bags in the freezer, so I'm collecting walnut recipes, lol! Speaking of walnuts, the salad I made for Thanksgiving was delicious. I didn't follow it to a T though. But I love beet salads and this one is lower fat than my traditional beet salad which has goat or feta cheese in the mix. BTW, this was also great mixed in with some homegrown cabbage the next day as a kind of coleslaw. Beet and Walnut Salad - Rachel Ray 1/2 cup chopped walnuts 1 heart romaine lettuce, chopped (I used a gourmet lettuce mix, including red leaf, mache, romaine and frise, my favorite. Also added chopped cabbage the next day.) 1 can sliced beets (14 ounces), drained and chopped (I left out this time, subbed a red pepper for color) 4 radishes, chopped 1/2 small red onion, chopped 2 ribs celery, chopped (I subbed two pickling cucumbers, very yum!) 2 tablespoons black cherry, seedless raspberry or apricot preserves (I used blackberry) 2 tablespoons vinegar, eyeball it 1 teaspoon poppy seeds, (optional, but makes the dish, IMHO) 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil (EVOO) Salt and pepper Toast the nuts in a small pan over medium heat, 3-4 minutes, then let them cool. Combine chopped lettuce, beets, radishes, onion, celery and toasted walnuts in a shallow bowl. Place the preserves into a small bowl and whisk vinegar into it. Add poppy seeds to dressing if you are using them. Whisk EVOO into the dressing and season it with salt and pepper. Dress salad and toss to coat evenly then adjust salt and pepper to your taste. Lpink's notes: I marinated the chopped veggies in the dressing for a couple of hours before putting the stuff on the lettuce. Also, it still tasted kinds bland to me so I added 1 or 2 TBLSP raspberry balsamic vinegar. I can't remember if it was 1 or 2, but it made the salad, that's for sure. Could add more of the preserves and regular old balsamic vinegar if you don't have the snazzy raspberry kind. ________________________________________________________ This dressing was a great alternative to the usual sagey kind, I may make it every year. Wild Rice and Goat Cheese Dressing Recipe courtesy Bobby Flay Prep Time: 25 min Inactive Time and Cook Time: 1 hr 45 min Serves: 6 to 8 servings (Definitely 8!) Ingredients 2 cups wild rice 6 cups water 3/4 pound Spanish-style chorizo, diced, see Cook's note* 5 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus extra for greasing the dish 1 cup Spanish onion, diced 1/2 cup diced carrots (BF didn't want carrots so I used all celery, but it would have been great with carrots) 1/2 cup diced celery 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped 2 tablespoons fresh thyme, chopped (I used 1 1/2 tsp. dried thyme) 1 (day-old) loaf country-style bread, cubed 2 to 4 cups homemade chicken stock (Use the lesser amount) 12 ounces goat cheese (I used maybe 6 oz.) 1/2 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped (I used 2 heaping TBLSP dried parsley) Freshly ground black pepper Kosher salt Directions: Combine the rice, water and 1 tablespoon of salt in a large saucepan, bring to a boil over high heat and cook until the grains open all the way, about 1 hour, 15 minutes to 1 hour, 30 minutes. The rice should be very cooked (not even the slightest chewy). Drain well, place in a large bowl and set aside. (I cooked the rice in vegetable bouillon, saved the leftover broth for the dressing. I did not add salt and 1 TBLSP seems like a lot, I would never put that much salt in something! I would use maybe 1 tsp.!) Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Heat the butter in a large high-sided saute pan over medium-high heat. Add the chorizo, onions, carrots and celery and cook until soft. Add the garlic and thyme and cook for 1 minute. Add the onion mixture, bread, goat cheese, parsley and 2 cups of the chicken stock to the rice. Mix to combine. The mixture should be quite wet; add more stock, if needed. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Transfer the mixture to a large buttered baking dish and bake, uncovered, until heated through and golden brown, about 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and let rest 10 minutes before serving. *Cook's note: We recommend to order from D'Artagnan because it's not raw or totally cured and cooked...it's kind of in between. Lpink's notes: I didn't use chorizo, so I don't know how good it would be with that spicy sausage. I had some maple flavored vegetarian sausage I wanted to use up, and some mild natural pork sausage links. The kind of sausage you use is the key flavor ingredient here, so if you don't think you'll like chorizo flavored dressing, use another kind you like. Also, I think all that goat cheese is overkill, definately not needed or use way less. Lastly, I added about a cup of chopped and sauteed gourmet mushrooms because I thought the recipe called for them when I got them at the store. They were great in the recipe!

Yes, it's true. Some people have a native acuity for flavor perception. Often they have more tastebuds and olfactory receptors (which are very important in flavor perception), but some of it is more in the brain, like perfect pitch. That's different from what is conventionally called "supertaster", which is what the coated paper tests--the ability to taste those three compounds. The theory is that the ability to sense bitterness helped people in certain parts of the world avoid certain local, poisonous plants. For each of the three compounds, there's a simple genetic ...is distribution the right word? Unlike complex traits, such as hair color, these are 0, 1 or 2 alleles. If you have zero, you taste paper. If you have 1 allele you can perceive the bitterness, but it's pretty mild. If you perceive it as revolting, you have 2 alleles. About half the population have 1, a quarter have 0 and a quarter have 2. You might have 2 for one compound and 0, 1 or 2, for another. I only dislike tannic red wines--there are some reds that I like--and hate olives, like Annie. We have one of those compound sensors in common. :)

I have a bunch of greens sitting on one of the deck tables--they've been there for a couple weeks. I've no idea what I'm doing. I want to take some to Lincoln, but have to see if John will be available to help keep an eye on them. I've already put a bunch in my containers on the deck. I don't know what it "dipped" to here last night--my min max thermometer says 26. I know that wasn't right--I must have forgotten to clear it. But dip, it did. It was 38 at 9 am. Cold enough that Garry and I decided it's a good day to stay inside. EWWWW. Low tonight might be 36, tomorrow night, 33. Yuck! I just got Native American Seed's newest catalog. It is the most amazing thing--any of the rest of you get it? I told GDW I think I'll have to send them a donation, even though I don't need to buy anything. It's that great. Chock full of excellent information, and as a bonus, got Nat'l Geographic's survey, too, with great survey questions. Guess I'll go online to do the survey. I don't know if I'm done planting seeds YET! lol. I saw a couple basils I'm missing. Might have to order them. And I was SO late with these that recently came from Pinetree: Statice (do any of you grow it here? Why I thought I needed it, I've no idea. Illumination Amarantha; Chives; the broccolini; and Tulsi. And then discovered I hadn't planted the last pepper seeds--aggghhhh. So got them in: Fatalii, Yellow Bhut Jolokia. Gorilla Griller, and Trinidad Scorpion Butch T. Fun stuff. And now I must prepare to be done! I'm out of seed starting mix, and Walmart doesn't have any and the orders online are backed up. Hmm. Maybe Lowe's in Muskogee has some. Okay--GDW says he's good to go. :). Bye all.