my aching everything

We spent the day working in the garden, digging, pruning, planting, bending and stretching and using muscles with which we have not been in touch for ages. What hurts? Gluts. But the place looks quite lovely. With a combination of Home Depot, OHS, Smith & Hawkins, Ace Hardware, garage sales and friends' gardens, it's all coming together. The Patient has sanded and oiled all the teak furniture -- table, bench, chairs -- and we bought new cushions to ease the fact that we have both lost too much weight. Today we had out first lunch outdoors, poolside, in the lovely May weather. Rafa stopped by this afternoon to check on things. He will be back on Saturday to pull out a couple of stumps of shrubs that have died for lack of sunlight. This will give us a bit of room for some shade-loving plants.

I have two new delicious food blog sites to recommend: one is called Pinch My Salt, written by an American woman living in Sicily. The other is In The Kitchen With written by Karen Hursh Graber. She is a promoter of Mexican cuisine. What I need now is a blog written by a gardener, as in In The Garden With. I'm sure there are plenty of them out there. If you know of one, tell me.

Speaking of the kitchen, The Patient decided he wanted to whip up sourdough cornbread for dinner tonight. Oh my! It was delicious. The crust is crunchy and buttery, the inside moist and "corn-y". Combined with grilled lamb chops and steamed asparagus, this made for a lovely Spring dinner. These tasty treats were accompanied by my new favorite light wine, Snoqualmie Vinyards Sauvignon Blanc from the Columbia Valley. I am well aware that I should have either a light Zin or perhaps a not too-robust Sirah with lamb, but I am a white wine lover. And I am loving this particular bottling. Santé!