I don’t normally take photos of people but this woman selling flowers spoke to me. I like the shallower depth of field allowing the focus to be on her, yet the man across the street adds additional interest.

I just have to share this trick with you! I learned about it over on Mary’s blog.

First you need strawberries! These are from the Warwick farmer’s market and are really small berries so cutting the stems off would really cut into (so to speak) the meat of the berry quite a bit.

Take a straw and poke it into the bottom of the berry.

Push up until you’ve detached the leafy stem. It should pop right out.

You end up with beautifully cored, stemless berries!

This worked like a charm for these small berries. It cut the prep work down considerably. For big berries you will probably have to give an extra poke or two.

I was making a Strawberry-Rhubarb tart with them, and funnily enough looking back into my blog archives from last year I made the same tart on nearly the exact same day! How strange is that? And again with fresh strawberries and rhubarb from the Warwick farmer’s market! I won’t bore you again with the recipe. If you want it you can follow the link to last year’s post.

Now go and eat some tasty strawberries and use this trick!

eBay is a strange cat. She is always going over to one of the dogs for attention. Bella just happens to be the perfect playmate. (Note: the growling you hear in the background is not coming from eBay but from Pookie who didn’t much like what was going on, or maybe she really wanted to join in?) And just how long ago was Bella that little puppy??

Edited to add:
eBay was raised by our Bernese, so it’s not so strange she thinks she is one of them. For those new to my blog, you might enjoy the back story on eBay. Follow this link.

Wait just a minute here! How did those pics get on here? I think the cats are feeling left out of my blog. Sam, the Maine Coon decidedly does not fit in the box. eBay however fits very nicely. But that is not the box I was talking about!

I meant our produce box from Bear Swamp Farm of course! Last week we got two gorgeous heads of red leaf lettuce, a small bunch of spinach and a bunch of kale. Oh, and the ever present garlic scapes.

I had never eaten kale before so I asked Pedro what to do with it. He told me that when it’s young and tender to just sauté it in a little garlic and olive oil until it just wilts. So, that’s exactly what we did and it was delicious! Who knew kale tasted so good? We also had some baby carrots from the Warwick farmer’s market which we roasted. Paired with a tasty pork chop it made a great dinner.

The lettuce just went into various salads, as did the spinach. I love the fact that it’s all organically grown!

(P.S. I had meant to post this last week, but on Wednesday I pulled a muscle in my back and I wasn’t able to really sit for any period of time. Getting better now!)

Alex says Happy 4th of July! Alex was a good model for the Stars & Stripes until Bella got into the act.

psssssttt ... hey alex ...

i think that’s my tiara!

hah! got it!

my tiara ... mine, all mine ...

ahhh… see how good it looks on me?

Here’s hoping your 4th of July weekend looks good on you too!