A Weekend To Remember

When the hubster and I were looking to buy a place (as oposed to paying rent on our apartment), we looked everywhere.  EVERYWHERE!  New Jersey, Queens, Brooklyn, Long Island...  okay, we didn't look everywhere, but we looked in a lot of areas.  There were a lot of things that we wanted, and a lot of factors to consider.  One thing that was at the top of my mind, however, was a yard of our own.  Seems silly really, when we lived right beside the largest and most beautiful park in Brooklyn.  But I wanted a fenced in area (written in a Billy Bob voice) of my very own.  A place where I didn't have to gather up all of my belongings when my child needed to go to the bathroom.

Our house has a small yard both in front and back, and the back is fenced off.  Unfortunately, the backyard was almost competely decked.  Fortunately, I have a husband who doesn't mind doing a little dirty work.  He and my fabulous father-in-law took up about half of the deck (on the hottest day of year!), then I helped him spread soil back there, and then a friend helped him lay down sod.  Now we have a nice deck and a nice backyard!  For that, I must give hearty thanks to my sweet husband, my fabulous FIL, and the wonderful JP!

Now my vision of this backyard included several things, but one of the best things that I dreamt of was having friends and family to visit while hanging out and playing in the backyard.  We got a good taste of that this last weekend when KW and her family visited, and it was worth all the work that Hubby put in to our yard!

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Don't watch "Black Swan," unless you like to watch ballerinas mutilate their bodies.  (And I'm only halfway through the movie.  Not sure if we're going to finish it or not.)

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Winter Greens vs. Souther Greens

When I was in DC a few weekends ago, my friend JD Superstar made a delicious salad that had brussels sprouts.  I love brussels, and I loved this salad!  Halfway through eating it, I asked her what the other greens were, to which she replied "Collard greens."  Our other friend KW and I were both shocked.  We were both under the impression that we didn't like collard greens, but there we were chowing down like we couldn't get enough of it.  JD Superstar sent us the recipe, and it actually says to use "winter greens," and luckily for me (cause I'm not big on greens and don't know how to classify them), JD Superstar explained that this could include swiss chard, lacinato kale or collards. 

Fast forward to yesterday, KW and her family are visiting and I decide to make this salad.  I had already made this salad once for my little family, and I decided that the regular stores collard greens weren't up to snuff.  So KW and I headed to Trader Joes to see if they had some better quality collards.  I don't know, because the first thing I saw was a bagged salad of "Southern greens."  This included mustard, turnips, collards and spinach.  It was all cut and washed too.  That was enough for me.  I got it, and they worked perfectly!

I will probably default to using this mix from Trader Joes from now on mostly because it made my life easier.  But I have to wonder, what defines "Southern greens" and "Winter greens"?