So after an entire spring of working on getting the backyard put together, getting the garden done and growing, we ran into another problem... weeds and bugs were everywhere! We had truly created a nightmare there in our little garden. Every day Charisse would go out and check it, and find some new plant that some new bug ate or have to pick out some new weed that popped up and grew 3,856 feet tall overnight. "You're no help" was the response from Charisse when Eric replied to her cry for help taming the garden was "I build just build it. Besides, you like doing this kinda stuff right?". Turns out Eric did get to tackle the weed issues, by "building" the pebble bed around the stepping stones. Apparently hauling thirty 50 pound bags of rocks from the cart to the car and from the car to the garden counts

We're back! Well, okay we didn't actually go anywhere but Blogger did last week for a few days. Posts vanished, comments died, who knows what else broke over in Google land, but its tough to complain about a free service. Anyways, Bloggers back, we're back, lets get back to work, starting with Russian Leek Bread, and a Mother's day recap. First off: Mother's Day was the other weekend and we hosted a surf and turf brunch of both families. Nothing beats lobster, tri-tip and mimosas at noon on a Sunday. Even the cat liked the menu. Or the menu liked the cat. We're still not sure about that one.What we are sure about is that somewhere along the line Charisse decided that Russians all like Leeks. Confused? So was Eric but by the time he was done taking photos what Russians like didn't matter, what mattered was how quickly he

It seems like every time we dig down deep and pull out the cast iron skillet, theres cornbread involved, this time cornbread invited it's good friend blueberry to the party and what a party that makes. For anyone who's ever had blueberry pancakes on a Sunday morning and gone through the rest of the day feeling happy and full of good feelings should be prepared to have that experience at the dinner bell. With every bite you hit a pocket of blueberry goodness and it makes the world seem that much better. Especially on days when the time leading up to that bite has been a little rough. Like on Monday when Eric decided he would bring the dog to the office. What an adventure. By adventure we mean disaster. We got Koda all set up in the morning: bowls for food and water, some toys a bag of treats

When we first got married, there was a standing death threat hanging over Eric's head (and it was a good thing): "eat your vegetables, or else". That's right, "or else" and everyone knows what that means. Growing up, Eric never really had to eat veggies and living on his own provided no external cause for him to change. Turns out the external change was more of an internal change that he had to make before anyone could really push him into loving veggies. Turns out getting into food and cooking as really forced this on him as nearly everything exposes both of us to new foods and new ways of making food. Take mixing beets and carrots. If you'd have asked Eric five years ago what a beet and carrot was like, he would probably have answered "uhm, kinda orange and red-ish? Aren't beets the red ones?" He may or may

Because hockey playoffs haven't taken over our house enough, when Charisse wasn't looking Eric let the sneak into the kitchen. Actually it was less sneaking and more along the lines of "Hey, lets make hot wings!" "Why do you want hot wings all of a sudden, you don't even like them that much?" "Because we're playing the Detroit Red Wings! get it? And then I can chomp on one and yell something like "take that Datsyuk!" "You scare me sometimes". And so it was that Eric broke out the hot sauce, the ground ghost pepper and the grill. While she tried to keep us on track and the obsessive hockey nut that is her husband in check, Charisse threw up her hands and went to watch TV once the infamous Sharks Gnome made an appearance. As big as hockey watching was, the real big event was Charisse's Birthday BBQ. Since

We've got a winner! Thanks to a randomly selected comment, Danielle over at A day in the life wins the gift card! Contact us Danielle so we can get your address!