Mondays can really be a challenge in my industry. It seems that all of last weeks construction issues start out with a renewed urgency on Mondays and this Monday was no exception. I raced out of the house and ran down to a city plumbing supplier to pick up an order but found myself in quite the snarl of highway traffic. I think many area schools are starting up now and I felt the impact on the roads. Ah, those were the days. For me, when my children were young, the seasons of the year were determined by the school and sports schedules. As I drove around today, it made me realize that I’m totally outside of that schedule. In some ways, it is like missing out on Christmas Eve or something! Sigh.

After dashing around all morning with my phone glued to my ear, I caught a bit of lunch with Dave. We had decided that today was the day to unveil the first of the 2013 pickle batch and so we opened one, special, pre-refrigerated jar of sweets to sample and then added it to our sandwiches. BLAST-O-FLAVOR! The result was wonderful! Yeah! This particular jar was made with my new favorite recipe so it was a good thing it was more than just tasty since I had an investment in this version of sweet pickles already sitting on my pantry shelves! Yowser, this felt good! Since pickles have to sit for 6-8 weeks to mature, how would I have known this was a success until now?

With this success, I jumped back into pickle making this afternoon with renewed zest. I processed 16 more pounds of cukes into delicious pickles and made 20 pints today with the security that these will be incredibly tasty bites all year!

We really love our pickles but will be sharing soon since Dave will take at least a case to our son, Peter, when he travels there this weekend for a visit. Much easier to drive pickles around the country than to fly with them!

So that was not the only fun thing that happened today. My greatest gobsmacked moment came when Dave brought in the mail and told me there was a package from Amazon. I’m often on the ordering end of things but I wondered what this pkg could be since I didn’t think I was waiting for any deliveries. Low and behold, it was a fabulous cook book, sent from a Seven Oaks Farm admirer. OMG!

I am in love! This book is fabulous and I will recommend it to anyone who loves to cook with fresh grains and vegetables! Of course Eggplants are featured on the cover, so that just melted my heart! The photography is outstanding and the descriptions and recipes are amazing.  I think I will sleep with it under my  pillow. Many, many thanks to our dear fan of Seven Oaks!

Off I go off to figure out what to make for dinner using twenty different veggies, staring me in the face, calling out ‘Pick Me, Pick Me’ as if they are orphans, looking to be adopted! No matter, I started the oven a while ago and something will get roasted tonight!

Also, thanks to fans of the blog for all the kudos. We are really just amateurs, doing what we can. No pun!