Thanks to Italian kitchens. . . . . . . . . . .

No, not from my kitchen this time!

Sometimes you just want someone else to prep, cook and clean up, don't you?

A recent hot evening drew us out of the house. Our a/c was still on the

 blink upstairs and it was Hades in reverse with the temp. reading 90F.

 So, a quick drive over to Midtown where we allowed Mia Francesca's

 chefs to cook for us, and the great staff wait on us.

Loved every moment, and even came home with enough of my

 Pizza Napoletano for another day!

Bob of course had a chance to eat meat which he rarely gets at home!  

Must admit the bowl of spaghetti and meatballs looked fabulous. . . . . .he said

 it was, and gobbled the whole plateful. Fortunately we don't eat lunch!

Photos via iPhone

Not all is perfection. . . . . . . . .

 . . . . . . . in the summertime garden!

Still have some sunflowers blooming, mostly the smaller ones - this spray

 of flowers is actually on one main stem and is beautiful. . . . . . and still

intact today!

Deer enjoyed a late night dinner out on Saturday!  

Sunday morning brought a few choice words from me when I found they had

 attacked the sunflowers and left a trail of petals, seeds and broken heads 

around the front garden! You can see how thick and tough those large stems are,

  however something chewed right through them to get the flower heads to fall to
 the ground, where 'it' (or perhaps 'they') had a real feast.

I stuck the larger heads into the bench seat. . . . . . . . . . . 

. . . . . . . and noticed this young male cardinal enjoying breakfast today!

Note: only one of the two heads remaining - wonder if the deer returned in the 

night and dragged the other one away.

On another subject, the squirrels are busy and hungry in the heat and I saw this little

one yesterday scuffling around for seeds under the bird feeder. Couldn't get a good photo, 

but noticed it has a deformed left front paw - it's there but turned backward. The little one

 still manages to dig, eat, and jumped up on the birdbath for water, thankfully.

FYI:  The green leaves are also sunflowers - growing naturally from the seeds

 dropped by birds!

Another member of the family who enjoy our garden looks really healthy

and loves the suet feeder.  We try to use mostly non-melt suet cakes at this 

time of year - the regular ones are so messy to deal with in this intense heat.

As for this year's fig crop, not sure what's happening. Hundreds of little 

green fruits fell to the ground while we were up north, perhaps from lack

of water. Now they seem to be hanging on and perhaps there will be

some to pick later. . . . . . . but none are ripe yet.

As for chores such as weeding, sometimes a weed comes up in just the perfect place. 

Another thing to ponder upon for lack of anything more pressing in the heat of the

midday sun! 

Summer Saturday. . . . . . . . . . .

Early this morning was perfect with almost cool temperatures. 

Now and then a tiny breeze rustled the outdoor flag but wasn't enough

 to play the wind chimes. 

Almost zero humidity is so special here in the south during the

 summertime and this morning we were gifted.

We enjoyed our coffee on the front porch, reading the newspaper, knowing 

how it will get hot later and we will be inside keeping busy until the evening.

I need to bake blueberry muffins - Bob bought far too many - and I'll

perhaps make a veggie pizza and cook on the grill as the sun goes down.

We do plan a quick shop at our local LIDL to pick up the veggies as I

also want to make that wonderful oven-roasted ratatouille recipe this 

weekend. I shared it with you last year and will do so again later.

Tiny new potatoes are hopefully still available as I love the looks of 

this easy peasy dish - from UK Country Living.

We don't have one of these!  Lucky you if you do.

I took this photo at our hotel recently and think it looks so cool!!!

Have a great time this weekend whatever you are doing.