Time for GoodByes...

It's done! The last tomatoes in the garden have been picked. I get so sad each and every year when it's time to say "Good Bye" to our garden. It's so bad, I dread the weather forecast every night that will tell us frost is on the way.

Well, the inevitable has come to pass. Last night we were supposed to hit the freezing point. It's still dark outside, so I can't tell what our garden looks like. Do I want to look?

Anyways, here are some photos of what our garden looked like yesterday. It was a perfect day: Warm and sunny and hard to believe that our lovely jungle of tomatoes, basil, peppers, zucchinis, and more had come to the end of it's existence. Thank you so much, dear Garden! We shall mourn you all winter. You have given us an abundance of tasty delicious veggies and hours of fun in the sun.

As if this wasn't bad enough,  there is another sad Good Bye. My favorite Italian cookbook author, Marcella Hazan, passed away this week. In the newspaper they compared her to Julia Child, saying she did for Italian cooking what Julia did for the French cuisine. I am not sure that's true. Seems that everyone one talks to knows about Julia because of that popular movie about a certain blog. People draw a blank when I mention Marcella. Maybe somebody will pick up on that topic now?

If you don't know about Marcella you must go get her book The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking! I promise it won't take you oodles of time and expensive ingredients to cook a perfectly yummy dinner for your family. Marcella has a tomato sauce recipe that has all but 3 ingredients: fresh ripe tomatoes, butter, onions. Now you tell me why people buy those nasty sauces on supermarket shelves when you can cook up a perfectly fine sauce very easily? Time I suppose is a factor. Who has 45 minutes to spare? Well, if you do have a bit of time get the book and try some recipes from it.

Fresh Veggies for Chicken Cacciatora

I cooked up Marcella's Cacciatora Chicken yesterday afternoon. It took me about 30 - 45 minutes to brown the chicken and layer the chopped vegetables in a crock pot. Then I let it slowly simmer on the lowest the setting all afternoon. Come dinner time the kitchen was filled with the most wonderful smell. All I had to do is cook some pasta or rice to serve it on. It was a feast! Thank you, Marcella! You will be sorely missed!

Now I got the sad sniffles. It's October 4th. My mother would have been 77 years old today...My dad managed to pass away on her birthday in 2005. Now I think I have accumulated plenty of reasons to have myself a good cry. But the kids need breakfast and a ride to school...