Say it isn't so.......

Say it isn't so.....I love Cooking Light magazine but this is what arrived in my mailbox the other day - the last issue!  I'm in mourning. I've had a subscription to the magazine from the first issue. Many of my all time favorite recipes that I make year after year are from this magazine. They will substitute Eating Well magazine for the rest of subscriptions, it's just not the same, I've read it before. They will have the occasional special issue on the newsstand but the chance of me remembering to make the effort to check out the newsstand all the time just won't happen.  So for the immediate future I have many recipes marked to try so I'll be ok for a while.......

On another note - anyone out there watch the Macy's Day Parade? I will be watching, or at least dvr'ing it to watch later in the day - the Grants Pass High School Band is in it once again. It's a huge honor to be selected but this is the second time. They went to Macy's back in 2010 - there were only 18 bands in the parade, only 8 of them from high schools and our band was the only high school from the west coast. It was announced 1 1/2 years ago that they were invited to the parade again, since that time huge fund raising events have been going on. It takes a lot of money to get 230 students plus many parents, chaperones, supporting staff, uniforms and instruments to NYC - a total of 444 folks. Each band member had to raise $2000 plus spending money for themselves but then there was all the extra monies needed for getting everything else to NYC. Everyone left here on Sunday being bused to big airports to the north for red-eyes landing in 3 different NYC airports. While there they will also get to see the sights and attend a broadway show. This year I know 2 kids that will be there, a friend's granddaughter who I've been giving bags of cans/bottles to for her fundraising efforts and a neighbor's son. This is very exciting for our small town. I'm not sure when the uniforms and instruments left aboard trucks bound for NYC - hopefully no storms will affect the cross country trip. So, if you watch the parade be sure to watch for the Grants Pass High School band.

A note of what's going on - too little fibery stuff, too much other stuff....nothing exciting to write about but hopefully life will get back to normal in 2019.

It's strawberry season..........

 It's strawberry season here in Southern Oregon already. The strawberry stand at a big field of strawberries practically in the city was open on Friday so I picked up a half flat.........to start........

......and turned them into 10 jars of jam plus a bowl leftover for eating straight up. Hmm, fresh strawberry jam on my bagel this morning. I think I need to pick up some more berries for another batch.........and some strawberry bread, strawberry cake, strawberry smoothies.....there's nothing like fresh picked, totally ripe, strawberries..........

My heart goes out to all those affected by the fires in Fort McMurray, Alberta, CA. I just can't imagine the magnitude of it. We've had a fire that big in area but only on the edges of homes, nothing like what's happened and continues to happen to our neighbors to the north.

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there of 2 and 4 legged kids........

Mediterranean Orzo Salad

Yum - just put together this salad for the guild potluck today. Room temperature it tastes great, should be really good once cooled and the flavors have melded. Found this on The Pioneer Woman's website. I could see using this recipe all summer long adding other fresh veggies as they're in season, cucumbers would be great in it.  She must have added much more of the olives and tomatoes than I did - her pix are way more colorful.