“Clafoutis is a French dessert made with fruit covered in a batter that consists of eggs, sugar, milk, and flour. It’s a thick custard that is similar to flan in texture. It is usually made with cherries, but other fruits can be used as well.” prettysimplesweet.com
Oh my goodness! It was wonderful.
We invited Tillamook strawberry ice cream to join us for breakfast. 
2. Grandson Daniel, singing “Come What May” (from Moulin Rouge) with his girlfriend Amalie at a recent concert. Daniel’s last Savannah performance before his freshman year of college.
3. Realizing that every minute is a new beginning.
4. HR and purple.
5. Seeing this on my walk this morning. And realizing that it is a truth that life finds a way.
Even if we are not always happy about that outcome.
May you be happy about the outcome of this weekend ahead!
1. My favorite summer lunch: simple Tomato Sandwich with vine-ripe tomatoes, accompanied by mayo, thinly sliced Vidalia onions, and a sprinkling of fresh thyme, salt and pepper.
Oh my GOODness!
2. Going to Tybee Island Post Theater to see grandson Daniel’s final Savannah play before heading off to musical theatre college in the fall.
Granddaughter Madison, ex-wife Donna, along with HR and me waiting for the show to begin. 
Daniel played the part of Jack (as in Jack and the beanstalk) in Into the Woods.
Daniel with his girlfriend Amalie, who was the lead actress (the Baker’s Wife) in the play.
3. I know I say this often, but what a blessing air-conditioning is. I know it’s very hot in many, many places, but here in Savannah the heat is exacerbated by ridiculously thick humidity.
Real Feel 108Real Feel 110
Weekend:
But as Marjorie Taylor Greene says, there’s no climate crisis!
4. The ability to lift my coffee cup up to my mouth each morning. What a blessing!
5. Our overly photographed kitty cat Benny.
May you have an Overpopulation of Good this last weekend in July.
1. Discovering a new (to me) type of peas at our little independent grocer, Red & White.
Sandandy Peas, fresh and shelled
Google told me that Sandandy peas “often spelled Sadandy or Sa Dandy are a type of cream pea, which falls under the broader category of southern peas or cowpeas (Vigna unguiculata).”
So Very Good! With an Earthy Flavor.
And leftovers for the freezer …
2. These stickers about breathing I recently ran across and had to buy.
3. Speaking of breathing, I so appreciate that our bodies breathe by themselves. We don’t have to force the breath. It simply happens.
4. Popcorn! Ex-wife Donna recently gave Robert and me this neat Movie Night Popcorn Set for Father’s Day.
The other evening in the middle of a movie (FYI: Twilight Kiss Suk Suk), I jumped from the couch and yelled, “Our popcorn gift! Pause the movie!”
And we did something which both of us realized we haven’t done in years, maybe decades: we popped popcorn “the old fashioned way” on the stovetop instead of in the microwave.
We had such fun!
Sometimes Slow is so much better than Fast.
5. I have mentioned before that HR and I love our local library’s “Spice Club.” Once a month or so, our Bull Street Library offers patrons a new spice, along with an explanation and several recipes.
Some of our Spice Club materials.
This month is Mace. I had never heard of Mace as a spice, only that self defense spray.
Well, listen to this: “The web-like outer covering of the nutmeg seed, Mace, imparts a more pungent and spicier flavor to food than nutmeg. Mace is most popular in European foods where it is used in both savory and sweet dishes, especially in French cuisine that calls for this spice to be used in tandem with nutmeg to balance the flavors; it is also the dominant flavor in doughnuts and a great companion for chocolate. Add whole mace to fruits while cooking; it can also be used in savory favorites, such as patés, creamed spinach and mashed potatoes.” Spiceworld.com
From the accompanying recipes, I chose cookies (mainly because they looked so easy to make.)
They were delicious!
May you have a Bit/Bite of Deliciousness this weekend!
1. Beautiful reflections (during a recent walk in daughter Amy’s neighborhood).
2. Rest. Sometimes you simply have to lie down.
Amy’s dog Coastal (named for their medical company, Coastal Care Partners) after Robert and I took her for a long walk in the South Georgia heat.
3. Speaking of South Georgia heat, how HAPPY I am for the blessing of air conditioning in Savannah!
Tuesday of this week.
4. Sitting near these Lively Ladies the other morning at a new coffee shop we were trying out near us, Foxtail Coffee Company.
They asked HR to take their pic.
“Wave, be silly!” Robert instructed.
We discovered that they are a group of ladies called “Savannah Newcomers,” which has been around for nearly 70 years! Most of the members are no longer newcomers, but they liked the group so much they just keep coming.
I asked if Robert and I could become members. They dodged the question in demure Southern Belle fashion and told us how happy they were to have met us. (I think that meant, “No.)
5. Walking to our car in the Publix parking lot yesterday …
… And seeing this:
For some reason, the view gave me pause and reminded me that life continues even in the starkest of environments.
May your life be filled with a bit of LIFE this weekend (in whatever way you define LIFE).
2. Watching (spying on?) and documenting my Handsome Hubby, as he walks toward our little car heading to an appointment.
“Parting is such sweet sorrow.”
3. Spices! Robert and I love them.
Our spice drawer ..
Simply Organic is my favorite spice brand.
Our spice shelf …
Our Spice Club! …
Once a month or so, our local library offers patrons a new spice, along with an explanation and several recipes. This month is a spice I have never heard about before: Summer Savory.
“Summer savory, Satureja hortensis, is a sweet- and spicy-smelling herb, lighter in flavor than winter savory. It is a member of the Lamiaceae, or mint family, and is indigenous to the Mediterranean region. It is also closely related to rosemary, thyme, oregano, sage, and mar-joram. Summer savory had both culinary and medicinal uses in ancient Greece and Rome.” Bull Street Library Spice Club
4. The amazing ability to simply Pay Attention. (That trait is sometimes a bit of a challenge for me and my “all over the map” brain.)
5. I SO appreciate the theme of this year’s Pride Festival in Atlanta.
RoughDraft Atlanta
May we all have a weekend where, even on the most minute of levels, we Realize that we can Resist that which attempts to damage our lives.
1. This unique little “Dog Library” that I discovered near us here in historic district Savannah the other day.
A variation of the Free Little Libraries and Free Little Pantries scattered across the country?
2. This simple, unassuming little fresh-from-the-garden zucchini gift from friends and what I made from it.
YUM!
3. Rejuvenating Spring Rain. (We’ve had a bunch of it lately.)
4. Robert’s Oh So Delicious! St. Louis Ribs on Memorial Day.
5. Attending a fascinating lecture at our local Jepson Center for the Arts about their latest exhibit, Moss Mystique: Southern Women and Newcomb Pottery.
We didn’t know much about Newcomb Pottery until our Toledo-in-the-Summer and Savannah-in-the-Winter friends Don and Jim told us all about the incredible pottery.
From the exhibit: “IN 1895, THE ART DEPARTMENT AT THE H. SOPHIE NEWCOMB MEMORIAL COLLEGE, a women’s school in New Orleans, Louisiana, began a new enterprise: the Newcomb College Pottery. The educators hoped to provide their graduates with way of putting their design education into practice and earning an income in a manner that was socially acceptable for white upper-class women.”
“These women decorated a variety of wares with ornament inspired by regional fora and fauna. Though students were educated in ceramics, the Pottery hired men to create the wares, which were formed from a mixture of clays from around the region. Promoting the Pottery to national and international audiences, its founders and some decorators claimed that the products were unique and authentic representations of the American South.”
“The Pottery’s aesthetics shifted dramatically over the following decades, and the school added other media, such as textiles, to the enterprise, but the emphasis on these products ‘Southerness’ remained in place until the Pottery’s closure in 1939.”
“Drawn from the permanent collection of the Newcomb Art Museum of Tulane University, this exhibition explores Newcomb decorators choice of imagery and their relationships with regional identity. Plants and vacant landscapes suggested isolation from busy urban centers in New England and the Midwest, while moss-draped oak and cypress trees matched descriptions in fiction that romanticized the pre-Civil War period. Even the decorators’ status as upper-class white women placed them as ‘belles’ in these fantasies. Though these women created many of these designs over 100 years ago, their work reinforced perceptions about the American South that remain powerful today.”
May you Exhibit some Powerful Joy this mid-spring Weekend!
NealEnJoy 