Cooking Class with the Family March 2010

Liz and Mike called and invited me to go to lunch at Catrow's Catering with Grandma Pat.  Located at 2300 East and 3300 South, in an unlikely venue for a catering/cooking school business, we ate at the single table near the front door.  The soups were delicious and they offered freshly made ginger lemonade.  Mom (Pat) was very interested in trying out the cooking class.  We four signed up and included Eric, Jody and Steve, and Lou. Our class was held March 2nd in the evening.

Our class was a New Orleans Mardi Gras menu.  We had shrimp bisque, crab cakes with aioli sauce, fried red tomatoes (green not available in the winter) and our dessert was bread pudding with Bailey's creme sauce.  The bread pudding was made first, as it had to cook for about 60 minutes.

After the bread pudding was safely cooking in the oven, we began the shrimp bisque by slicing shallots, celery and very strong onions.  We were all crying....

While we were slicing and dicing, Eric was assigned to make the "roux"-a paste made from softened butter, flour and garlic-to thicken the bisque.  We added oil to a heated frying pan-then the aromatic vegetables we had diced.

East Hill Garden Work Begins

We began by stripping out the fallen trees and most other vegetation, as soon as the snow melted.

We also replaced the sprinklers in this part of the yard. These are early photos of the bare hill.

We engaged professional help to plan and install the new garden. We had several people give us plans and bids, and we decided on a plan which cost more, but was much more comprehensive.  They were also the people who installed the garden.

The required elements of our plan:

• All perennials, small trees and shrubs
• Use existing rocks 
• Moderately Xeric-when established will need moderate amount of watering
• Part of the garden faces the western sun and plants need to be sunloving
• Another part of the garden is in the shade of our house, and plants here need to tolerate some shade
• Plants need to help stop hillside erosion
• Plants were chosen which had great blooms and/or varied colored foliage, and were planned for year round color and interest

The Garden

We moved our home on the (steep) hill in 2005.  The garden was run down and presented a challenge to me.
In Spring of 2008, we had a "windfall."  Hurricane force winds visited our yard and wreaked havoc to our east hill. Three 60 foot pine trees and our (ugly) 50 year old maple were destroyed.  (YIPPEE!)