Great Finds!

First of all, let me gloat - I ate a TOMATO today!!  From my garden!!  Before the 4th of July!!  It was spectacular - I made BLTs for dinner (well, FLTs really - Fake Bacon, Lettuce, and Tomatoes) and it was the best thing ever!  I totally meant to take a picture while it was still on the vine, but didn't, then I meant to take a picture of it in my hand after I picked it this evening (for gloating purposes - to send to my tomato-less friends and family) but didn't - then I ate it, so now...no documented evidence.  but believe me... mmmmm!  So that was kinda my first great find.

2ndly, I found a mate for my much loved Clover Kritter Craft Case froggie  

This one is Kooly Kola! (is that how you spell koala? kola?  why does my spell check think both are fine when neither looks right?)  AAANNDD - to make it a truly great find (because honestly you can find them lots of places) it was in the clearance aisle at JoAnn's for 3.97!!  check that price tag!  Oh, and notice it's sitting on great find #3 - a Pimp Stitch pattern.  It's a great website - check it out if you haven't already - if you like super cute embroidery patterns, that is!  I found it through the Roxy Craft blog - also fantastic, if you like super cute amigurumi patterns, that is!  This embroidery pattern I downloaded was one of the free ones from the site's blog - it says "let's get this party started!" under the little party girl -- oh, how I love it!  The patterns for sale are reasonably priced too!  

Great find #4 came to me over the weekend when I was rooting through my recipe box (that being an old shoe box that's kind of falling apart, hardly a "recipe box")  to find something to make for my uncle's birthday.  I decided on my grandpa's rum cake recipe until I remember that I was baking, not just for me, my dad, and my uncle, but also for a pregnant sister-in-law and 3 kids!  dammit - we'll never eat rum cake again in this family!  Anyway, during my search I came across a little packet of old yellowed recipes, rubber banded together that came from my mom's stash which she gave me when I moved out, I think.  I opened it up, looked through an old pressure cooker guide/recipe book (you know - all cookware came with nifty little cookbooks back in the day, I think) and a bunch of other old newspaper recipe clippings from the 60's (clearly from HER mother, or aunts or something) then I found this 

 It's a recipe for a cucumber salad - the kind with vinegar and sugar.  My mom always made tons of it in the summer when she'd buy too many cukes from the neighbor kids who'd pull their crops around in wagons and stop at houses to sell.  It wasn't really the recipe that was what got to me though - I wrote that down myself years ago when I asked my mom how to make it - it was this, which I saw when I turned it over  

Yeah - a recipe for cucumber salad scrawled on the back of a Seagram's whisky label.  I'm just trying to picture the scenario where there's a conversation going on about cucumber salads, of all thing, and when someone asks for the recipe, the only paper to be found is the back of the whisky label!  It's the best thing I've ever seen!  

Ok, don't anybody kill yourself with whisky and fireworks this weekend!