Happy Birthday to The Husband

Today is The Husband‘s birthday! I talked to him and Nicholas several times today (they’re still down the shore) and it sounds like they’re having a great “boys” weekend at the beach. Today was filled with swimming, visits to the park, rides at a local amusement park and ice cream. Little surprise that Nicholas was fast asleep early tonight!

They’re coming home tomorrow morning, and I’m planning a nice birthday dinner to celebrate. The Husband loves Osso Bucco and I have never made it before, since I don’t eat veal. Anyways, thought I’d surprise him with it for dinner. Haven’t figured out the rest of the meal yet, but planning on hitting the grocery store tomorrow morning, so I better get with it.

Got a lot done today, various errands, and organizing/cleaning the house. While out, I met my Mom at Tuesday Morning to scope out their cookbook deals and snagged two, one of them being Food Festival USA. They always have such good cookbook bargains there – this one was only $3.99. It “captures the diversity of America’s numerous food festivals, presenting 250 recipes from all 50 states, region by region. From the Bluefish Festival in Clinton, Connecticut, to the Walla Walla Sweet Onion Blues Fest in Washington, the book offers state food-production profiles, festival information, and, of course, recipes from the events. These range widely, from Dead Heat Kentucky Burgoo and Green Chile Stew to Peanut Butter Chiffon Pie and Black Forest Cheesecake.” A quick flip through it revealed lots of good recipes that I’m looking forward to making. If you’re interested, I noticed Amazon has a ton of used copies available, starting as low as $1.51! Can’t beat that!

I also stopped by the dollar store tonight. The Houston SPCA has a list of items they are in desperate need of, to help care for the animals they took in from Hurricane Katrina. Simple items like spray bottles, pet food bowls, roasting pans (for litter boxes), and more. I managed to get a nice stash of stuff for them at the dollar store, and will be shipping it out on Tuesday. Just in case you’re interested in helping, you can get more info here (scroll down for the complete list). Although this is primarily a food-related blog, I can’t ignore what’s going on in the Gulf Coast, and hope you don’t mind small references here and there. :)

For Rocco DeSpirito fans, he’s giving Rachael Ray a run for her money with his new cookbook, Rocco’s 5 Minute Flavor. Although it’s not being released until the end of the year, you can preorder it at Amazon now. I don’t have his other cookbooks, but this one looks like it could be interesting.

Went out to dinner to the Lone Star restaurant with my parents tonight. I was deeply craving their Baked Sweet Potato with butter, sugar and cinnamon and my Dad suggested going there without me even mentioning my craving; great minds think alike! I got their Bleu Burger (delicious!) as the main course and love the charbroiled taste of it. Yum!

OK folks, all for tonight. Off to catch up on my Netflix stash … watching Million Dollar Baby tonight. Tune in tomorrow to find out the rest of the Birthday Feast. Until then…

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