Dog Days?

Why do they call this the dog days of summer? The cats in town all walk 3 steps and flop, 3 steps and flop. It’s still hot.

So, we’ve been coming up with cold soups. The latest invention was a cold cucumber soup with pimento granita, olive cream and onion cream. Next time we leave out the cream, it tasted great, but looked really awful when it melted into the soup.  All this soup needs is a simple tomato coulis. And the pimento granita? Tastes great all on its own. It will make a fine amuse for another meal.

Pasta Fest! Saturday was pasta day, and Lauren and I worked for hours in the kitchen.  We made a Sardinian pasta stuffed with potato, sage, 2 kinds of pecorino and parmigiana; orchiette, cavatelli, and some fantasia 4 cheese raviolis. Our freezer is now loaded with pinwheel ravioli, tri-corn hat ravioli, snowflake shapes, etc. After the 4th or 5th hour of stuffing pasta, the creative urges can no longer be denied.

We now have some plants at the restaurant.  I haven’t seen them yet, but I’m assured that by next year, we will have a bountiful garden.  Somehow, with Jeff driving, they stuffed Claudio and Emilio into the tiny jump seats in the back of the pick up truck, letting 80 year Lina ride shotgun to the nursery. From the sounds of the antics, coming from the back seat, if there had been enough room, Claudio would have been dropping his drawers and mooning passing cars. Too many days of working in the hot sun for these boys, they are starting to loose whatever marbles they have.   When we first starting working on the space, the garden was this luxurious, green jungle; but the need to level and clear the space meant that all green things were torn out. It will be so lovely to see things growing there again. It’s awe inspiring to see this space come back to life; you can practically feel the stones and the walls smiling with happiness to be clean and useful once more.