Per DH, your weather will be here just in time for the Labor Day weekend. I hope you are able to enjoy the state fair! We still have a few county fairs around here. My kids used to love to go to them when they were in high school - there are also  a couple of pretty famous "haunted forest" places that fire up every year for Halloween and that's a big hit, too. Getting excited for fall here now! Will head up to Vermont to visit DS soon and I'm hoping to see a few early trees :-)

Cheers!

Hi Homely, we've gone from really hot to cool temps out, which is perfect because the Minn state fair is going on and we normally have extremely hot temps for it. Yes I live in Wis but their state fair is only about 30 minutes from me as compared to the Wis state fair which is 5+ hours from me.

My 50° evenings and 60° afternoons is probably headed your way. This is my kind of weather, great sleeping temps, so nice not to have to turn on the air. 

Take care and don't work too hard :)

Well, it's been cool and hot both since I was last on. Got super busy for a few weeks but thought I would check back in on you, N Q, and anyone else who cares to drop in. One complaint about bullying and the place has cleared out, apparently. Glad we still have each other! Or not, if you don't ever come back and respond to this message, LOL

Hello to anyone who is still lurking around out there!

Homely unfortunately my weather has changed back to hot and humid, if you're lucky, it'll stay south of you !

And right on cue we have some drier, cooler weather, so thank you! Frantically busy this weekend and will check in more later :-)

Homely I'm happy you like the salad. It's a salad that we tend to call the kitchen sink salad because you can add pretty much anything you like in it except the kitchen sink :)

You said you added pesto to your galetta, I do that occasionally with my pasta salads, along with throwing some pine nuts on it right before serving.

Your galetta sounds yummy, the pesto would add some nice flavoring to it. I've had focaccia bread that has had most of your galetta ingrediants in it but you only gets bits of flavoring in the bread so I may actually try making a tomato geleta, I definitely have time to try making it.

Sorry for sending you my heat but you'll be happy to know that it has cooled way down today so hopefully you'll get this in a couple days :)

Hi, N Q - I made your salad last night and it was fantastic! DH ate it up - I had to put it away so that we had enough left for lunches this week! Perfect for a really hot night here - YES your heat has made it to us! Oof - also very thankful for AC! To answer the galette quesiton, mine is really simple - lots of people make a "tomato pie" with a mayonnaise based binder and I really hate that. Mine has a butter crust base, then you smear about 6T of pesto all over it, sprinkle 1.5c of grated parmesan cheese, and then layer the tomatoes on top. I slice them into 1/4" slices, salt them and let them sit for 10 minutes or so before using them in the galette to get all the juices out of them. Then you fold the edges of the crust up around them, brush the exposed crust with olive oil and sprinkle with more parmesan chees and cook it for 30-40 minutes at 400. When it comes out, I tear up buratta or fresh mozzarella and put it all over the top, grate some lemon zest on it, throw on more parmesan and sprinkle with fresh basil. It's really phenomenal!

Homely that's great that your test turned out good and I'm betting you're very happy to be off your fast !

Do you add cheese or Italian seasoning to your tomato galette ?

The heat here has been extremely bad this last weekend and yesterday, temps in the high 90s and heat indexes around 120. I'm so happy that after years of going without air conditioning that I finally have one that is keeping my place bearable. I know that most of my heat has made it out to the east coast but I'm not sure if it drifts upwards towards you ?

Hullo, N Q - I'm off the liquid diet, all went well, and i'm making your summer salad for dinner this week! Will serve it over top of some greens and also switch in kalamata olives for black olives, but looking forward to a lovely cool salad for dinner with good leftovers for lunches :-)  I also have so many tomatoes that it's time to make another galette!

Cheers to you and anyone else who checks in... hope you are all keeping cool as it is BEASTLY with heat and humidity here!

Ughhh--a liquid diet for even one day doesn't sound desirable to me, I would need some meat or chicken to go with it but that would defeat the purpose of the liquid diet.

I hope your procedure went smoothly and the test results are negative !

It would be nice to just grab a salad from a garden and it must feel rewarding to you to do that. The thought of a fresh home grown tomato right now has my mouth watering !

Hi, N Q - It's really nice to have things to use for dinner right outside the back door, no matter how small a plot I have. DS is now here and it was lovely to go out there and pick some tomatoes together, too. Currently in full prep mode, clear liquids only. It's going to be a very long day and night.

H

Homely it must feel rewarding to be eating out of your garden, I know my CT friend started eating lettuce from her garden a couple weeks ago and she just pulled a bunch of garlic to dry  and here I am, eating all store bought and not a single organic item because they're too high price. If I did have a place to garden, I can't see myself doing it because of the sun and bugs, a combination I don't like !

About your proceedure, be indulgent and eat something really yummy and fattening the day before because it's not going to stay in you long enough to add lbs to you :)

That is high price for such a small apartment and how lucky she was not to take it !

Hi, N Q - Truly, I am NOT looking forward to the prep! My husband must have that procedure perodically due to family history so I've been watching him go through it for years. Ugh. On better subjects, have been able to "eat out of the garden" for the first time this week. Made a lovely tomato galette and also used a bunch of my lovely thai basil to make this sauce for a great stir fry with ground turkey: http://hot-thai-kitchen.com/thai-basil-sauce/#recipe  

We were chatting about rent - DD was trying to rent a 300sf studio and they wanted $2500 per month. And it was in a terrible part of town that they are trying to gentrify... a month after she toured the building there was a double homicide at the front door. I'm very happy she is still here, instead!

Homely it's been too long since I followed any of MD's posts so I can't say if they seem off other than with signing the first post with MD and then stating she was on X which didn't seem like something she would do, but her info about me is correct and I can't really see somebody taking the time to go through old posts to dig up the info on me, so it must be her...time will tell.

Talking about time, yes it really has flown by and it's pretty noticeable with your son. I bet it is hard to have him so far away but how nice that's he's able to travel and live abroad in places. It'll be nice for you to be able to spend some time with your son but eweee with the colonoscopy ! I have a friend who recently had one and she stated she spent the whole night before on the toilet :(  Good luck with the results !

Hi, N Q and silversquirrel - SS, I'm not sure what is up with MD. The tone seems different but the poster does have the information. We will just have to wait and see if she resumes posting.

N Q - The passage of time is relentless and unforgiving. It's hard to believe I even have a 27 year old. At this point, I've not seen him since Thanksgiving, and he also did a deployment in Japan during the interim period. It's a strange feeling to have one's child that far away from you. Very excited though, because he is coming home next week for his sister's birthday and has extended his stay to five days. Sadly, I have a colonoscopy in the middle of all of that, but I'll take what I can get of him! He is also big into gardening so he is going to come look at my plants and give me some advice. To be honest, I think it is the constant rain we have had that is causing the most problems - my tomatoes got an early blight from it and are still trying to recover, and I think the basil is not enjoying wet feet, either. The Thai basil is up on the deck in an elevated tray, so it drans well and is partially out of the rain. That may be the secret, but have your friend give it a go anyway! I've finally gotten some tomatoes harvested, so tonight I am making a tomato galette for supper!

silversquirrel, it's MD, she has the correct info about me.

Hi Homely and NQ.   What is going on with MD reappearing?   It has to be spam.  Glad to see you here.  It's been awhile for me.  I'm hoping that Phoenix will see this post.  

Hi Homely, thanks for the new/old cam, I remember it as being the one that sorta aggravated me because I would see something interesting on it and the cam would swing away from what I was viewing :(

I had totally forgotten that you had told me that your son had gone into the service but I didn't realize he was 27 already, it seems like yesterday when you were talking about him in high school !

Rent is high pretty much everywhere, around here rent starts at $1800 for a single bedroom and goes up to $2700 for a double bedroom and small houses/townhouses rent is $3000 to $10,000 and at that price you might as well buy a house.

I have a friend in CT who has also had problems with her basil this year, I'll have to tell her to try Thai basil and see if that grows for her.

I tend to like pasta salads in the summer more than green salads and that recipe is easy, lasts long enough in thr frig so I can eat it most of the weeks with whatever else I'm having or just have it as a lunch salad. I forgot about adding grated parmasean cheese over it before serving, it seems to help blend the salad together.

Hope you had a nice 4th !

Oh dear, this cam is not working today. Meanwhile, and more distressing, I have just discovered that the "Add to My Cams" button is no longer working. And a truly lovely cam has popped back up that I had not previously saved. Putting it here for posterity: View from King-Albert-Tower on Spiegelwald - a webcam in Gr�nhain-Beierfeld, Germany, https://www.opentopia.com/webcam/6312 

MD - Your presence was indeed missed and those of us remaining kept checking back for months - years at this point. I was having a slow period at work and spent much time combing through the cams for signs of life. The last post I could find from you was on the bench on 11/24/2022 at 14:18. I missed your later post about Trix. Still slow at work, I resorted to combing through obituaries in your region but found none that seemed to match up. Decided maybe you were hospitalized somewhere, if we were lucky. If this is really you, then I'm glad our worst fears are proven untrue. Would be pretty funny to figure out how close my "investigation" came to finding you, but won't put you to the test :-)   The community is largely gone here, and we were definitely overtaken by spammers for quite a period of time, which wiped out the ability to communicate as we could not see on the main page who had been posting for all the bot entries. Eh, well, some of the faithful have remained, enough to exchange pleasantries. And it's someone's anniversary this week... I remember a virtual reception for him, once upon a time.