Another birthday, not my own...

We had friends J & J here for dinner last night, to celebrate J's birthday. They had taken us to one of the local restaurants in January for my birthday, so we returned the favor, and I guess a new tradition has begun.

We decided to have dinner here, being that (in my opinion) I can cook better than the local restaurants in town. (Not so with the Houston restaurants, but we're not in Houston anymore, Dorothy.)

I made shrimp scampi for dinner, using the "Kitchen Boss" recipe that was on the TLC channel a couple of weeks ago. Buddy, The Cake Boss, now has his own cooking show, and it's a wonderful half-hour filled with his Italian family's recipes. I've tried a few of them now-- each delicious, easy to do, and (proof positive) my husband said the scampi was first-rate (that's coming from a man who's had shrimp scampi in some of the best Houston and New York restaurants).

Instead of making a from-scratch side-dish to go with the scampi, we surprised J with Hancock's Lobster Mac & Cheese (ordered from Maine, FedEx-ed frozen). I'm not a fan of macaroni and cheese, but I saw that dish made on the Food Channel (Bobby Flay's Throwdown) and it looked so good that I ordered some for my husband's birthday back in December. How can you go wrong with fresh Maine lobster mixed into a thick and creamy and decadent macaroni and cheese casserole? Two words: you can't. It is, as everyone says, to die for. (Horrible expression, but it is.)

So besides my own tossed salad and focaccia garlic bread, we splurged on the shrimp scampi and lobster mac & cheese, and I made a carrot cake for dessert. The dining room is all decked out with the St. Patrick's Day decorations, so everything looked very green and very festive last night. A birthday party for the four of us. The next birthday for this fab-four comes in September. Between now and then, we'll have to find out J's favorite foods. I think anything she doesn't have to cook herself would be J's favorite-- she doesn't do the cooking, her husband does.


The days have turned quickly to summer..... very warm, nearly hot during the day, just a bit cool at night...... blue sky, pretty clouds, the birds are singing, the hens are laying, the cats are catching butterflies. I wish they wouldn't do that, but cats are going to be cats when they're outside. This afternoon, Sweet Pea caught a beautiful lime green butterfly with splayed wings. I'm guessing it was a young monarch that hadn't come to full color yet. I tried to get it away from Sweet Pea, but he wasn't giving up his prize. My apologies to the monarchs.

Speaking of apologies, I'm sorry to say that the dead wild pig is still on the side of the road. Some kind soul moved him over some so he's closer to the ditch. Before that, his body was right on the side of the gravel-scattered cement (or whatever the road is made of). That pig is huge, so moving him couldn't have been an easy task. I'm guessing that someone took a tractor with a front-end shovel-thing and scooped up the pig and moved him over about three feet to the ditch. Everyone is hoping that the county will send a truck out to take the pig away. In a few days, that pig's body is going to be getting ripe and the aroma isn't going to be pretty. Thankfully, the body is far enough away from everyone's home, except for the man at the beginning of the road who raises horses and cows. But with his own livestock and their own smells there, I'm sure he won't be noticing the 'perfume' of the decaying pig.