Hey everyone! I've been quiet lately. I had a busy weekend visiting my daughter in Toronto to celebrate her graduation. It was a little bit of diplomacy, fun, celebration, everything all in one. Spending the weekend with her and my son was great, spending it also with my ex-husband and his girlfriend added another layer to it. But since I have worked hard to cultivate a civil relationship with him, we all had a great time together and it was fun. Plus, I got to spend time with my brother and his wife, which was amazing because I see them so seldom. It was a great family weekend... but I missed having Billy. But then there was the cat. Those of you who know me know that I'm not a cat person, but I also have two cats. And I've come to like the two little buggers. They're quite special to me. Even though I would rather they would wag their tail and bark, ha ha. Herman, my rather large and super personable cat, with an incredible personality, became ill on Thursday, and we had to put him down on Friday. I was in Toronto, celebrating the graduation while Billy was home by himself dealing with this. He's the cat guy, so of course he was devastated, but I was heartbroken as well. He was only four years old. Sometimes I called him Turd. He was my buddy, and I'm so sad he's gone. So talk about a range of emotions, right? Is it any surprise that I wasn't popping in here to give you my latest chitty-chatty update? Probably not, but I just did miss being in my community and engaging with all of you guys! We have a couple new members today, which is exciting! I'll create a new post for them so that they're not forever tied to the cat post. I want to keep growing this community and making it a special place. If you have any friends who want to join in, tell them all about us! Pull up a chair, pour a glass of wine, and let's talk. Or milk, or apple juice, or water even... The sparkling kind with a dash of lemon and lime? Oh, so nice! Ha! So I'm back, and excited to see where we're going, because I know that we are going to amazing places!

As always, I'm running a little late with this. An amazing thing happened last week... Riley, one of my prodigal daughters, came home, and I ended up being in a tizzy trying to cram as much time in as possible. But I wanted to make sure that I welcome our new members, so happy to have you here! @Jenna Kelly @Jenna Phillips and the quiet leader, @Björn Hagemann thank you for joining our space! I'd love to see a post introducing yourselves and telling us a little bit about who you are. Also, tell us a little bit about your favorite food or your favorite place to travel... We're happy to hear anything and share anything. Everybody, please welcome our newest members into the fold! We're so glad you're here.

Today I made us a pizza for dinner - here’s the good, the bad, and the ugly!! 1. Homemade pizza dough - 1 c flour, 1tsp yeast, 1/2 c water, 1tsp salt etc 2. Plain old canned tomato sauce with two cloves garlic, a lot of Tabasco, some brown sugar, some hot honey 3. 4 slices of bacon chopped up, sautéed with 1/2 a good sized onion. Drained after cooking. 4. Shredded pizza mozzarella in a bag, and a hand full of mini bocconcini Flattened the dough out to about 12-14 inch pizza. Spread the sauce on thickly while hot and this may have been my downfall. Spread the bacon and onions all over. Topped with a layer of mozzarella, not too thick. Then bocconcini. Then a full layer of pepperoni entirely covering the pizza! Heated my pizza stone in a 550° convection oven. It was great but the dough didn’t really cook much on the bottom. The top was crispy and beautiful but the bottom was not great. The combo of the sautéed bacon/onion mixture, the sweet and spicy sauce and the cheese and pep - probably the best pizza I have ever made (if the crust had cooked properly)!! Billy loved it, he agreed the flavour was exceptional!! Good thing it was a thin crust! And didn’t take a picture!!

Went to open the camper / cottage for the summer. Minimal planning, minimal hassle. It was a nice sunny day, a little chilly but still shorts weather. We lit a fire a roasted hot dogs!! It was lovely!! What are you up to today?

It’s funny, lamb is a bit of a thing in our family. We all loved it. Even the kids who tried to say they don’t like it, love it ha ha My dad was the OG fanatic in our family. No matter what the occasion, no matter where we were, he wanted lamb. He would often want to throw dinner parties when we were in France, and invite a number of people that we had connected with. Being a chef, trained in France, with all the beautiful ingredients at my fingertips, I always had wonderful ideas of great meals to make, and I’d have them planned out in my head and then my dad would say or we could have lamb. This was the subtle order that wasn’t to be denied. Not that I minded it was wonderful, but sometimes I just want to spread my wings a little bit and make something different. Something special. At my dad’s funeral, myself, and a couple other people stepped up to speak about him, and every one of us mentioned lamb 🤣 Nowadays, the price of lamb like everything else is crept up, so it’s a rare treat, but every time we have it, it just brings back so many memories. There’s so many wonderful ways to cook it: roasted with mint sauce, roasted with Bernaise sauce, curried, stewed, grilled… The options are endless, and for the most part, they’re all wonderful! What’s something that your family loves to eat over and over again? Is there a story behind it?