FRIDAY FENCE POST #19

Look closely. There's a fence underneath all those beautiful flowers. All three shots are of the same fence, on Wisteria Drive, near here.



"There is no fence nor hedge round time that is gone. You can go back and have what you like of it if you can remember." Philip Dunne

COME TO CAMP CACTUS!

I have a show coming up, starting tomorrow evening. Well, twenty-nine other artists are sharing this particular spotlight, but I suspect we all say, "I have a show this weekend." I think "the more the merrier" fits, especially in this case, especially since I've seen some of the other art that will be there already.

If you're anywhere near Portland, Oregon come by Friday evening for the opening night party, and/or Saturday or Sunday for the show itself!


Heading to Lincoln City now, to see Mama and take her the new lawn mower. Happy Thursday everyone!

RECIPE: WORLD'S BEST TUNA SALAD

True confession: I don't cook for me. If the husband isn't home, it's a peanut butter sandwich, or a bowl of cold cereal, nine times out of ten.

So if I do pull out a recipe and actually cook, you know whatever I'm fixing has got to be really, really good. What you'll find below all this verbiage is the recipe for the world's tastiest tuna salad. Put away all thoughts of any tuna salad you've ever had. This isn't one of those. My cousin Pat brought it to the Cousins' Night Out, and it was so scrumptious I got the recipe. Today was the third time I've fixed it just for me, because the DH doesn't like tuna. (Except for my brother's home-canned. I think the husband would eat that straight out of the jar.)

Gingered Tuna Salad

You'll need:

• 1 12 oz can tuna fish in water
• 2 tsp Curry powder
• 1 TB Olive oil
• 1/4 c Minced red onion (1/2 small onion)
• 3 TB Crystallized ginger chunks
• 1/3 to 1/2 c Mayonnaise (1/2 cup will make it more moist, but 1/3 cup will have fewer calories and fat)
• 1 TB Rice vinegar (or 1 tsp white vinegar and 2 tsp water)
• 1 tsp prepared Dijon-style mustard
• 1/4 cup Chopped pecans
• 1/4 tsp Salt
• 1 dash Cayenne pepper, to taste

Drain the tuna and set aside. In a small saucepan over low heat, saute curry powder in olive oil for five minutes, stirring every so often.

While curry powder is cooking, mince the red onion. Chop the crystallized ginger into small pieces, about the size of the minced onion.

In another bowl, whisk to combine mayonnaise, rice vinegar, and Dijon-style mustard.



Add cooked curry powder mixture (make sure to scrape it all), crystallized ginger, onion, chopped pecans, salt and dash of cayenne pepper. Whisk again.

Gently fold mixture into the tuna, until well blended, and the fish is coated with dressing.


To serve, line 4 plates with a cup or so of chopped lettuce, top with tuna salad and ring with rounds of crusty bread, quartered cherry tomatoes, and baby carrots, if desired. (Or use what you have on hand, which is what I did.)
This salad is excellent served chilled or at room temperature.

Without those crusty rounds of bread, this recipe is also extremely low in carbohydrates, for those of us who are watching our carb intake. I don't allow myself to have carbs at all untill dinner time, so this is a wonderful lunch choice for me.

Yield: 3 cups salad; serves 4 or so.

GRANDMA GERT, NEW COFFEE POT PERSON

Ask many little girls what they want to be when they grow up, and even in this day of liberation and outside-the-home careers, they'll tell you they want to be mommies.

That was even more true when Gertie was a little girl, some seventy-five years ago, but that wasn't what she aspired to, except as a step on the way. She needed to be a mom to achieve her goal: to be a Grandma. It took her a long time, but she's made it, and is tops in the trade, with a never-empty cookie jar, a merry twinkle, and a well-earned reputation for having a sympathetic ear and a mouth that never spills a confidence entrusted to her.

She is, in fact, such a terrific grandmother that every kid within three miles calls her "Grandma", and she holds the title and each child warmly in her heart.

(For the full-size, and higher resolution, image, click on the pictures.)





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MEGA BLOSSOMS ARE IN FLOWER!

Finally, got to take pictures of some of the Mega Blossoms I've been working on. I told myself this afternoon, I'll just photograph a few of my favorites. So I started taking them out to the yard, three at a time. I'd photograph that trio, carry them back inside, and choose three more, each time thinking, Oh! And I need to get pictures of those, too. So this entry is going to be rather longer than I expected, but actually shorter than it might have been if I hadn't run out of daylight!

Some of the new crop, then:

ARBOR IN THE STORM

I mentioned on Friday the storm we had. It was brief, and in this area not particularly damaging, although elsewhere there were trees knocked over, weather-induced traffic snarls, and branches strewn on the ground. One amazingly fortunate fourteen-year-old boy uttered the fateful words, "What's the worst that could happen?" and went outside to watch the lightning. The lightning did not avoid him, and he took a direct hit to the head. His brother said the bolt seemed to enter his head, and exit his chest. Believe it or not, the boy never lost consciousness, and seems to be fine, other than a few burns.

At our house, the crab apple tree lay its branches in a swooning drape across the top of the lawn swing, and the rose arbor assumed a slant quite forty-five degrees off vertical, no small feat, since it took two roses and a clematis with it.

The crab apple tree is slowly recovering. The arbor was righted today by the Dear Husband:









Just to the left of this photo, barely out of sight, a pink rose is going completely crazy with bloom, rising from behind the curry plant, whose blossoms haven't opened, but will be a lovely shade of yellow when they do.

FRIDAY FENCE POST #18

This is almost just an excuse to put up pictures of roses, but the deep wine-y red of this climber against the weathered gray of the fence was too much to resist. I'm just sorry I couldn't get a good shot of the pink ones at the other end. No matter what setting I tried, they washed out against the sky in the bright sun. Another time, on a dimmer day, maybe.

Photos (Click on an image to view it full size.):







"A politician is an animal which can sit on a fence and yet keep both ears to the ground." Henry Louis Mencken