What's Up in the Kitchen

Other than writing about my adventure at the Viking cooking school, I haven't written about food or cooking lately, obviously. I wasn't cooking very much the last few weeks, partially due to being busy with other things, and partially due to being glued to the TV for the Olympics. One of the things I've been busy with is finally -- finally! -- making some decor decisions and getting started on some house-fixing. The other is that I had a landscaping company come look at the disaster of a yard I have and talk about long-term plans for improvements.

The property has basically suffered from benign neglect for a number of years and needs some serious work to look "nice." That's going to be a multi-year project with a list of to-do items as long as both my arms. To start with, though, I wanted someone to come in and do some serious cut-back of some jungle-like growth of vines and brush along 3 of the 4 sides of the property, as well as trimming some trees, cleaning vines off the garage and house, etc. etc. The landscaper -- Eric Cook, Greenway of Nashville -- was nice and his crew did a good job. It put a serious dent in my pocketbook, but things look a lot more controlled. Eric had also suggested adding something attractive in addition to clearing stuff away, specifically some small holly and spirea on either side of the front steps. I had planned to eventually plant some things in those areas, so I told him to go ahead. It does look nice and spiffs up the front a bit. If I could find my camera (it's SOMEWHERE in the study, just exactly where is undetermined) I would post a picture. When the camera is located one day when I remember to look for it, I'll do so.

P.S. I remembered another factoid from the knife class ... brown and pink shrimp are always wild-caught. White and tiger shrimp can be either wild-caught or farmed. So there is your Culinary Fact of the Day.