a few more years shall roll

Yes, you read that correctly. The two highlights of my Saturday (food-wise) were the pint of fresh figs I bought from Crabtree Farms, a local farm just five minutes from my house, and delicious homemade chicken tamales from Tienda Jalisco.

I was out grocery shopping since I’m having a few people over for dinner tomorrow evening, and I stopped by the farm to see if they had cilantro (which I learned is a cool climate plant that doesn’t do too well here in the Mid-South). They did have pints of the most beautiful figs, and I snatched up one to snack on and to have with some goat cheese and honey tomorrow as part of dinner. Look how beautiful they are:

Seriously, so good! I had to take a bite of one while I was capturing the shot:

By the time I was at the farm, the torrential downpour had already started (like we haven’t gotten enough rain this week, thank you very much!), and I was soaked, but determined to try to find cilantro. I tried two small groceries (one Guatemalan owned and one Mexican owned), and I came away with chorizo and these delicious chicken tamales instead of the illusive herb, cilantro. At Tienda Jalisco, they have homemade tamales (pork or chicken) for $1.50 each. When I’ve stopped by before, they’ve either run out or had pork  ones, which I like too. Today, though, they had chicken, and I ordered three. See below:

Everything I’ve eaten from this place has been great. Homecooked, authentic, and, best of all, in my neighborhood.

All that to say, I got distracted from my cilantro hunt, and I decided to change the recipe a little so I won’t need it anyway.

The non-food highlight of my day: my first choir practice with the Resurrected choir tonight. Imagine, if you will, me, who can’t sit down at the piano and pick out a tune without the written music despite 9 years of lessons, trying to learn songs without the music in front of me. Or worse, on the second song, having a hymnal in front of me and realizing that we were singing nothing like the music written there. Oh, it was good for me! I need fresh challenges in my life, and this will certainly be an enjoyable one.

Yup. I am pretty excited that Andrew is coming to do a concert at Covenant College. My work here is done.

Seriously, though, I am really looking forward to not only having him in concert, but having a student luncheon with him. We do this kind of event with guest speakers that come to campus, giving them a chance to get to know our students and and vice versa. With Andrew’s thoughtfulness and good humor, as well as his experience in the music business, in getting his writing published (two novels so far), in creating community among artists and others, I think we’ll have a great conversation. The demand for seats at the lunch has been HIGH!