Three Beautiful Things 06/26/13: Rose Garden Pictures, Cooking at St. Mary's, Cleaning at St. Mary's

1.  I haven't been taking as many pictures as I did before I started working in earnest in my yard and in my gardens.  Today it felt good to peruse the ninety-two pictures I snapped at the Portland Rose Garden and post ten of them on Facebook.  Here are two pictures that friends of mine have enjoyed:

2.   Father Bingham Powell is hosting a series of small group dinner in order to talk with parishioners at St. Mary's about the remodel of the parish hall and kitchen.  Tonight I was the chief cook and bottle washer and made a three cheese and basil tomato pasta dish with green salad and a loaf of bread.  I also got the cookies and ice cream ready for dessert.  It was a good thing I got started on the cooking really early.  It's very difficult to cook in some one else's kitchen -- it's hard to find things, hard to use knives I'm unfamiliar with, and hard to work with unfamiliar stove burners, bowls, and pots.  But I did it!  And the four church matriarchs, all long-time members, complimented me many times.  They loved the food.  They also split a bottle of pinot fusion from Sweet Cheeks Winery.  I hope it wasn't the wine talking when they said such nice things!

3.  I devoted myself to trying to do the running of the dishwasher and the cleaning of the kitchen right.  I hadn't run the dishwasher for a long time.  I tried to remember all the things I've heard people who are kind of territorial about the church kitchen complain about and tried to do the opposite.  I enjoyed being as meticulous as I'm capable of and I hope I don't get a report back that I screwed something up in the kitchen.  I'm sure I turned everything off, cleaned everything, and left the place looking pretty good.