Antares and sunflower.

The sunflower is as high as the smaller of the two kitties' eye...

Carrot success! You might call it a "carrot" instead of a "stick"

Achievement unlocked!  After 5 years of gardening, I have finally successfully grown carrots!  Hallelujah!
 

Celebrating Matt's Birthday Again.

Hey, we just celebrated last night, but how about another celebration with my family?  We had Mongolian Grill and then after presents, we played a rousing game of Ticket to Ride.
 

Celebrating Matt's Birthday

Matt's birthday was June 26, but it was a busy time, so today is the celebration day.  We went to Oven & Shaker and Matt got the fruit pizza with arugula and I got a tremendously delicious kale salad and very well mixed drink.
 

PAE's Merchant of Venice

It's like we are angels, straight from heaven.
 

Portland Actor's Ensemble performed the Merchant of Venice.  This was a hard play to watch, because of all the uncomfortable Shylock parts.  That stew of antisemitism is peppered with all the fun comedy aspects of the play.  It's pretty uneven, and I thought the troupe did a good job managing the temperature changes of the story.

As you can see from this picture, the costumes were Italian via the "Jersey Shore."
 

Cats and summer.

Antares does this cute thing where he covers his nose with his paw while he sleeps.  Sadly, by the time I got out the camera he was awake and checking to see what I was doing.  So no picture of that.
 

Sentinel would like to be petted, please.
 

Or would like to continue napping.
 

In fact, they both will do that.
 

Man, oh man, do I have turnips.

Who knew they were so easy to grow!
 

Look at this guy!
 

Pretzel Dogs.

One of the things I will miss about the newspaper when it goes to four days per week is the food/cooking section.  I'm sure it will exist in some form, but I'm guessing it will be a much reduced form, and it has already been much reduced.  I get a lot of recipes from the Oregonian, some of which have become classics.

At any rate, the Food Day section of the Oregonian will regularly publish some complex cooking task that they market as, "wouldn't this be fun?"  Recently, it was a feature on making your own pretzels.  My favorite part about these features is that mostly they are fun, if you enjoy cooking, but they can be rather complex.  Take the Pretzel Dog recipe.

The dough must be made a day early and stored in the refrigerator.  Also, it is important to bake some baking soda in the oven a day ahead.  So there is some planning involved.

But if you have a big event coming up, sometimes a Pretzel Dog is what is called for.
 

 

They were delicious!