Green Things, Date Night, and Dinner for 17

Another weekend. Another weekend of too much.

It was the weekend to put in the victory garden. We decided to lower the property value on our block by putting in a bed of tomatoes in our front lawn. Well, we made it as tasteful as we could with a nice raised bed from Home Depot and positioned it towards the edge of the property. Steve used a pick ax to pull out an old rose bush and dumped 15 bags of top soil – his workout for the week.

We hit the local garden center for tomatoes and peppers. I’m still working on the non-edible garden in the front yard. It started raining half-way through the weekend, so the job is half finished. Plants sit in their plastic containers on the lawn waiting for a sunny day. I’ll take pictures for show and tell, when things lighten up.

Later on Saturday, we hosed off the dirt from the garden and hit the city for an anniversary date night. The kids were dumped at my sister’s house for a sleepover. Steve made reservations at the Bobby Flay restaurant. We had a memoriable meal there years ago for a friend’s 40th birthday, and we thought we would give it another go.

It was fine. Southwestern style meats and fish. The place was packed with wealthy tourists and some locals. We chatted with a Cindy McCain look-alike at the next table who was in from Dallas with her big-haired daughter. The creamed kale was so good that I googled the recipe on my iPhone as we were eating it. “Bobby Flay Creamed Kale recipe” I guess I really didn’t need to know that I could made that $10 side dish for about 50 cents.

We asked for the check and ran over to see Nathan Lane’s “The Nance.” Lane was perfect as he basically did the character from “Le Cage aux Folles” again. Some nice vaudeville style jokes, which Lane expertly milked for the laughes. Not up for Tony’s, but still a fun night.

Sunday, the extended family descended on the house. 17 people that night. Pork, shrimp, risotto, potatoes, salad, asperagus. Mom helped with the clean-up, but there’s still another batch of dirty dishes in the sink.