No Show Mr. Taco

Our local month didn't turn out exactly how I thought it would. I think we'll try again next year when we don't have a wedding to plan and were not in the middle of the Northwoods for a week. Still, I am proud of how we did.

Well, we finally got our freezer this week. After having all our food stored at our neighbors we finally got it all back. Our new freezer is already full, which left our main freezer with free space. The first thing I did was make lemon-lavender popsicles. 

 The honey that's in the pops reminds me of lemon-honey cough drops. The honey mellows out the sour nature of the lemon.

We've had a few harvests this week from our garden. Our first tomato! Lots of red Thai chilies and our only 2 ears of corn. Note to self: Plant more corn next year. 

Scott actually had off today and made me breakfast.

I've been going back to Mark Bittman's everyday pancake ever since my sister introduced them to me this summer. They're a mix between crepes and American-style cakes. I grew up on crepes, but I do like to have an ever-so-more substantial pancake.

Since we are getting close to the big wedding day, we've been bringing down mason jars that we've been collecting for our entire year and a half engagement. Bell mason jars are cliche at this point, but fuck it, they look cool.

We enjoyed our pancakes with the syrup from Chelsea's wedding.

We headed south for a meeting with our potential caterer.

The journey to the south side is always roundabout. You either have to head through downtown, Theodore Wirth or this hidden trail that borders 394 and Penn Avenue.

The path takes you to the Walker Art Center.

We biked all the way to Chicago and Lake to meet the Los Ocampos's catering guy. He never showed up. I finally got him on the phone. He was out of town for the labor day weekend. Way to lose my business.

It's too bad because I really liked this restaurant.  But if you forget to meet with us how do we know you'll show up to deliver the food?

Since Los Ocampos screwed us, we decided to get lunch at La Loma. They cater too, so we decided to use them instead for the wedding. They have many veggie tamale varieties so it made more sense.

   I ordered chicken mole.

I got the taco platter. I love my tacos. 

Scott complained, "I only take pictures of you, you need to take more pictures of me."

I really meant, I take too many of the photos on our blog. 

Anyways, we ate tacos while this gentleman played some earnest pseudo-karaoke. He had a tape recording he played his sax and sang along to.

We needed some buttery crackers, so we stopped at the Produce Exchange. They didn't have any, so we just picked up cherries, green beans and a few other odds and ends. 

Brooke wanted to get these sodas for the wedding. They're locally made, but I'm sure we couldn't afford it.

Wish I knew about these during our local month. 

We were still peeved about the no show Mr. Taco.

We also got some toilet paper from The Produce Exchange.

We rolled down Lake Street to Savers. We thought they may have some goodies for the wedding.

I'm always weirded out by the barbie dolls in plastic bags.

We went there to get cloth napkins for our wedding. They didn't have any at all. I was a little surprised.

Then we headed towards downtown for our next destination.

Brooke loves the central library. She needed some children friendly cookbooks. I waited for her while she searched the cookbook section.

She figured out that all the children's cookbooks are downstairs in the children's section. We found a copy of the Silver Spoon for Children. It's like it's older brother, except with illustrations, easy-to-follow directions and 1/1000 the size.

Scott enjoyed the comfy chairs in the Children's section.

We still needed cloth napkins, so we checked out Marshall's on Nicollet Mall. We didn't find any napkins, but we did find this absurd inflatable cupcake carrier.

And a new hairbrush. 

Our sunflowers are working great as a natural fence.

We don't really grow them for the seeds. Next year we're going to plant both sides of the yard and intersperse corn and sunflowers. 

As you can see the grass needed to be cut.

The pumpkins have turned orange. I'm not sure if they are supposed to get bigger or if they are sweet pumpkins. I may have to make pie soon.

We also got more potatoes and more Thai chilies.

Scott cut the lawn.

Having been out of town for  over a week the yard had become unkempt. 

While I cleaned and reorganized the garage.

Peanut found a a bird in the garden and ate it.

The neighbor kids had come over at the same time. Every time we tried to get close Peanut growled. Eventually he found a private place in the garden and ate the poor bugger.

We also got our first watermelon yay!

It was a little bitter. I think it needed to stay on the vine for another week.

 The neighbor boy asked if he could help. I had him sweep the sidewalks. When he got to the front yard he said, "Oh man this is a lot of work I think I should get money for this." I said I'd pay him a penny an hour and he agreed.

I also trimmed the driveway area and then Brooke went back and cut down the weeds in the chain-link fence.

We used our first tomato from the garden in the rice pilaf.

It was perfectly ripe.

Peanut took a nap on the table just before dinner.

We made kofte with bulgur. They're basically middle eastern meatballs shaped like footballs.

Scott does dishes like 3 times a year. I had to capture a photo to remember it. Actually he's been doing dishes a lot lately. He must be doing them all at once so he can have the rest of the year off.

I hope that's how it works.

The books I ended up getting at the Library were The Silver Spoon for Children, The Lunchbox Book, The Healthy Body Cookbook, and The Food and Wine 2011 Cookbook. 

Despite no show Mr. Taco, we had a productive day.