Chocolate Festival

The Squeeze was playing the 5th Annual Chocolate Festival down the street in Belmont Shores last weekend. Beth and I decided to check it out. More like conquer it with a vengeance. You can buy a book of 12 tickets for $10 and each chocolate masterpiece is alotted a different "ticket price". For instance, the enchiladas with Mole were 2 tickets (sooo yummy), but a piece of fudge with organic earl grey might be 1 ticket. There were TONS of people and eventually the chocolate ran out...people were giving away their tickets and only the hardy were left standing (no chocolate crepe left? that's fine, the homemade whipped cream with nutella and strawberries in a cup will be fine!) Oh yes, we learned a lot about a strategy for next year. Never again will we be left standing in line for 20 minutes for the best tasting, biggest freakin' velvet cupcake you've ever seen (even if it was in front of the headliner, my squeeze). I meant to photograph a lot more of the loot. But, um, well, we kind of ate it....

An Orange Poppy

Mom Harris' Stuffed Cabbage

Three things happened today:

1. The Squeeze was feeling under the weather.
2. A cabbage was ready for harvesting in the garden.
3. It was rainy.

So all things pointed to it being time to try to make his Mom's stuffed cabbage. It's one of his big childhood memory (seven kids diving into the cabbages, then just eating what was inside of them!). The Squeeze's sister-in-law Peggy was kind enough to send the recipe on. And his brother, Mike, was kind enough to track her down at the mall to answer my questions: did Mom Harris actually stuff these things with raw meat and onions? Um, yes. Well, too late for a two hour cooking session. I pre-cooked everything and just heated it up for an hour. I opted for the twist his Aunt Mary gave it, tomato sauce instead of tomato soup. While I resisted tweaking the whole thing in hopes it would be a comforting child memory, I did add some parsley and oregano from the garden.



Along with the harvest, I had to do some critter wrangling. A family of snails was living deep in my cabbage and I found a squirmy worm in the oregano and parsley. Again, apologies to Buddha, but the rest of the gardeners will be happy to know that at least five snails will not be feasting on their crops!


The (almost) final dish.... I also made two stuffed red peppers and the whole thing got smothered in the tomato sauce. He said it tasted like dear old Mom's, so while it wasn't something out of Julia Child's cookbook, it felt triumphant nonetheless!

Artwork by Emma

Needed a smile today.... So, I thought I'd post my favorite art piece. It currently hangs on one of the big beams in the loft. Right over an orange acoustic bass. Just makes me smile....