Life on the Vine

I mentioned in an earlier post that one of my girlfriends, for her New Years Resolution, set a goal of cooking one recipe out of every cookbook she owns during 2013.  She apparently has quite the collection.  I thought it was a fun idea and contemplated taking on the resolution for my own.  I even took a photo of my cookbook shelf just in case I decided to take on the challenge and blog about it.  I figured I'd need to cook about six new things a month in order to get through my nearly 70 cookbooks.  I'm far from that goal but I have been trying some new stuff.  Just in the last few weeks I've cooked three new things out of two of my newly acquired Rachel Ray cookbooks from our local used bookstore.  You may be able to tell from the photo that I own several, about 10!  Without fail, Rachel Ray's recipes always take me more than the 30 minutes advertised, usually because of how long it takes me to prep everything; however, her recipes and her food NEVER let me down.

Spring has arrived in the southern Arizona desert.  Spring arrived quickly in an unexpected burst of blossoms on the two trees in our front yard.  I think one is an ornamental cherry tree but I'm not sure about the other.  Tom thinks it might be a peach tree.  One of our three (!) rose bushes is blooming and there are more roses every day.  This is accompanied by poppies in my father-in-law's yard and a green quilt of leaves on the usually spiky, barren spines of the ocotillo, one of my favorite cacti. While Tom and I have visited Arizona almost every year since we've known each other, visiting during all four seasons.  These visits were a long weekend here and a couple weeks there.  Never have I experienced a full cycle of the seasons.  And, since this is also our first Spring in our temp house, I'm pleasantly surprised by trees that blossom and rose bushes too.  I wonder if I had mistaken resigned myself to no blossoming trees with this move to the desert.  It'