Archives - Weekly Update

On Wednesday, I wrapped my head around the fact that it’s fall by wearing orange, which felt very pumpkin-like. That moment passed, and I was back in turquoise on Thursday channeling pool water.

Last weekend, we pulled an old favorite cookbook, Bobby Flay’s BOY MEETS GRILL, off the shelf and made the flatbreads you can see above. Tom made pizza dough instead of flatbread dough (they are very similar, and we did not have enough time for all the steps in Flay’s recipe), and it still was terrific. Want to try it? I found this video online where Flay demonstrates how to make it, and here is the recipe for one of the flatbreads that we made. This cookbook came out in 1999, but I still love it! I made roasted tomato catsup from it a few weeks ago, and it was fabulous! And I made a regular burger into a delight on an onion roll.

The leaves are falling off the trees so fast that I cannot keep up with them with my glue gun. Oddly, the moonflowers are coming out in rapid succession; maybe they favor the cooler temperatures. The herbs are in great shape, as are the poblano and jalapeño chilis. We’ve layered on the solar pool cover, which looks like giant circles of bubble wrap, and the heater is seeing some duty to get the chill off the water.

Fall arrives on Wednesday at 4:21am EDT, and I am soooooo not ready for this. And I am not planning to drink or eat pumpkin spice anything as my own form of rebellion. I already got a flu shot, another signal that summer is ending.

We all had a wonderful break and came back full of ideas, which is what happens when we get out of our usual routine. When I was not sitting in a lounge chair at the end of the pool, I floated in the pool --- and read. The staff came out for a pool party. We colored as you can see in the photo above. It was relaxing!

We did a lot of entertaining al fresco. As always, the dinner conversation turned to books. Surprising to me was how many of our friends are not avid readers. They either dabble in reading or are consumed with other entertainment. Some said that they were slow readers, which I think may affect the pleasure of reading a book. Wondering if you find the same thing with your friends. If so, what do you recommend to them to get them reading?