Seasons 52

If you have never eaten at Seasons 52, you are missing a real treat. Blaine Sweat, the creator of Olive Garden and Bahama Breeze, added this restaurant to his list of accomplishments. Because they serve what is in season, one of the first to do so I might add, the name reflects that. Additionally, all of the entrees are less than 500 calories with appropriately sized servings. Beginning with the first one on Sand Lake Road, Darden has slowly begun to "roll this chain out" to other parts of the country. Mr. Bruce completed one in Bethesda, MD last year, and because he's known as a master at difficult projects, he was assigned four more in California. This has proven to be more difficult than even he imagined, largely because CA, and in particular, Santa Monica, has more rules than you can shake a stick at. While visiting my sister Carol in Beverly Hills a few weeks ago, she mentioned that the locals call it "Soviet Monica" and it turns out she was not kidding.

You may be wondering why I'm going into all this, and who could blame you? Because of all the difficulties he's faced, when discussing where to go for our Friday night date, I said the only place I wanted to go was Seasons 52. He balked. Who could blame him after thinking about it practically every minute of every day, however, my idea was that he needed to, once again, experience the finished product to inspire him. It pretty much worked.

I can't remember if it is the top of the glass inscription, or the bottom, but whichever is the pour line. Clever, huh? The atmosphere is moody, the decor fantastic, and most everyone is shocked to learn it is a chain restaurant.

Our server was great, the food fantastic and all in all it was a wonderful date. Let's hope when Mr. Bruce is once again solving construction problems he'll keep it in mind.

Because he was in California all last week I once again skipped the Winter Garden market, opting instead to mostly hang around the house, practicing with my new stuff. That said, there is a saying, entirely true in my experience, that the best camera you own is the one you have with you. While perusing the flowers at Lowes, to try once again to circle the tree, I saw this fantastic Tiger butterfly, a member of the Swallowtail group. 

Reaching into my handbag, out came the Olympus with the pancake lens. Surprisingly, this one kept still long enough to get several shots. The underside of the wings are just as beautiful.

 Love, love, love the color orange.

We had a light dinner poolside,

watching June 2012 pass into the history books, reflected in the sun room windows.

It was surreal because I was facing the windows watching the sunset, but in front of me was the moonrise with the start of July 2012 only hours away.

Time keeps on ticking, ticking, into your future. Ain't that the truth?

Don't you just love it when all the wonderful summer fruits show up in the marketplace? Coming home with raspberries, cherries and grapes, not to mention the blueberries in the fridge, we have been in fruit heaven. Reading recently about serving bing cherries on crushed ice for dessert, we tried it for ourselves on Saturday night.

Delicious! Previously I'd heard about how wonderful frozen grapes are, so that may be our next experiment. This does not freeze the cherries, just gets them super cold. Try it!

Despite practicing like crazy, I'm having my struggles with my new equipment, which is leading to buyer's remorse. What was I thinking? :(

Sunday, when I finally showed up at the market, Mr. Bruce had one wall totally hung which, if I do say so myself, looked terrific, primarily due to his curating skills.

May I just say that hanging a booth week after week is much harder than it looks? Plus, because we are in the same spot, we like to keep it somewhat fresh. Bruce is much better at this than I am because I do it willy-nilly, whereas he takes a more measured approach, starting on one end, and working from there. Try as I might, this method never seems to work for me. THAT is precisely why I let him do it most of the time! Nevertheless, despite his curatorial brilliance, once the day was done, this wall looked exactly like it did at 9AM. Before you go getting all sad for me, let me just say that the other wall, which looked equally as good, did not go unchanged! In fact, drum roll please.....within the span of about 20 minutes I sold two large canvases!!! How about that? I was prepared for a super slow day due to the extreme heat, however, once again, I was wrong, for which I'm very grateful. Plus, the buyers were new to me which is always a good thing because, inevitably, they return for more at some point. Woohoo!!

I was only too happy to have visitors in the morning. You may recall the Whited family, of whom I've written before. They have four daughters who are similar in age to our four sons. Amanda, the number three daughter brought her darling new boyfriend Aaron to meet me. Meeting through mutual friends, they couldn't be happier despite the fact that he is spending most of his time at Yale working on a PhD in chemical engineering. They kindly agreed to let me photograph them.

Darling young folks. Amanda's skin is to die for!

Okay, so I mentioned it was hot, and you might have thought I was exaggerating. As a matter of fact, it was even hotter than I realized. Starting up my car to drive it to load the stuff I glanced at the handy thermometer display and lo and behold, it read 100 degrees!!  thermometer read 100 degrees. Mostly I tolerated it just fine, but once home, I was pretty well spent, going to bed, early, early, early! As in 7:30! I slept like a baby too, waking up around 5:30 this morning feeling right as rain.

Now then, you are mostly all caught up? Wonder what will happen today? Soon enough, you'll know.

Happy Monday all,
Gail