Info Burung Kicauan

Happy daze are here again people!  The Chef's mom got out of jail the hospital (for some reason I typed jail and it made me laugh so hard I just kept it and crossed it out.  To be clear that woman hasn't even driven by a jail never mind been in one), today's mail contained an amazing pair of earrings I won in Daschies & Design's Eileen O'Neill giveaway, and Friday is upon us.  Yeeeeehoooooooo!!

What are your plans for the weekend?  I fully intend to take approximately 7000 naps, fold the laundry (yaaaaawwwwwwning already), get maximum outsideness when not napping or folding, OD on Dateline, Primetime, 20/20, and 48 hours tomorrow night, maybe see a movie and, of course, eat as many Stuffed Jalapeños as the Chef grills up.  He made them last weekend as an appetizer (along with those Bacon Wrapped Dates mmmmore please) and they were just incredible.  If you don't like spicy peppers you can either grill them a little longer to reduce the spice or purchase alternate peppers.  All the information will be contained within this post.  I have to say they are the perfect compliment to any barbecue plans you may have.  They're not overly filling and are a pleasant addition to any plate.

Here is the recipe and how-to...please enjoy!

Shrimp and White Cheddar Stuffed Jalapeños
Ingredients
6          jalapeños halved and scooped
4T       cream cheese softened
6T       white cheddar grated
1/2C   shrimp cooked and cut 1/4 inch dice
2ea     scallion sliced
salt & pepper to taste
paprika sprinkle for garnish

First gather your jalapeños, lightly rinse them, halve and scoop out their seeds.  The idea is you want to have nice clean little empty canoes that will be filled with the shrimp mixture.


Once halved and cleaned, set the peppers aside and gather the ingredients to make the filling.  Chop, dice, slice, and grate accordingly until you have this:


Transfer your chopped ingredients to a bowl and mix with the cream cheese and  half of the white cheddar until you have a mixture with approximately this consistency.  Be sure to reserve half of the white cheddar (3T) to top the stuffed jalapeños.


Next gather your jalapeños, lay them out and begin filling with the mixture.


Place on a medium heat grill and cook until cheese is melted (7-10 min). The longer the pepper is cooked the more its natural spice will decrease.


*Note:  When picking out the peppers select the straightest ones; they are easier to fill and will hold the mixture best. You can also use banana peppers or red jalapenos for less scoville units.  (That's Chef talk for less spicy peppers - he's so technical sometimes.  Love it!)

Enjoy your weekend everyone!!  Let us know if you try the peppers and how they turn out.  We love getting your feedback.

This weird-looking dude showed up at the platform feeder a couple of weeks ago. He's a leucistic common grackle. What caused his tail to be white is anyone's guess. Was it a flaw in his genetic material? The result of an injury or some dietary anomaly while a nestling? A fashion statement?

It's been a big blackbird year around the farm with larger-than-normal numbers of red-winged blackbirds and common grackles hanging around, visiting the feeders, foraging on the lawn.



I always enjoy it when we have these "marker birds" around—birds with a noticeable and often odd physical attribute. We've had bluebirds with a drooping wing or messed-up alula feathers. We've had a partially white junco. For one winter we hosted a tufted titmouse with an overgrown upper mandible. These are all birds that are easy to notice and keep track of because their physical anomalies make them stand out as individuals.

The current issue of Bird Watcher's Digest features an article about a juvenile rose-breasted grosbeak that lacked a beak! If the photos of this rose-breasted no-beak don't freak you out, try watching the video in our digital edition. Freaky!

By the way, here's your obscure fact for the day: Albinism in birds is caused by an absence of melanin in the feathers and body. This usually results in birds that are totally white with red or pink eyes. Leucism is caused by uneven distribution of melanin in the feathers and body, resulting in pale-looking birds or birds with patches of white.

Our white-tailed common grackle (which is leucistic, not albino) stayed around for a few days and then moved on. But if he returns, we'll certainly notice.

Okay so here's the deal with Nail Madness 2010:  I had to get that mess off my fingers.  I'm sure you're shocked.  Saturday is the usual day I treat myself to a mani/pedi (budget willing) and even though I really felt like sticking to the routine, all the events of last week prohibited me from being able to emotionally withstand another potentially angry exchange between the nail ladies.  Not to mention I'm to the brim with unwanted bad nail color and aggravated mayhem.

On a side note have any of you seen Allstate's new ad campaign?  I think they've been lurking on my blog because I have clearly sparked a trend with my new catch phrase.



I rest my case.  You're welcome Allstate.  Please have your people get in touch with my people (aka me) so we can arrange for an exchange of the moolah.  Mother Mayhem needs shoes. 

Meanwhile back in nailville the chipping, whacked out color and screaming match boiled down to me waking up on Saturday, whipping out the polish remover and cleaning up the fingertips mah-self.  It was amazing how I suddenly felt like a whole new girl!  Invigorated!  So after the post-beach sandstorm we got fancied up and decided to grab a bite. A couple of weeks ago I ordered the most cool knit Trovata shorts on Gilt...examine the evidence.

I grew up in a family of musicians and singers. When bird watching hit our family in the early 1970s and my mom started going out regularly with a local bird club, I had no idea of the intimate, natural connection between birds and music. Bird watching at the time was almost socially unacceptable—think Miss Jane Hathaway from The Beverly Hillbillies. But as we got to know more and more birders, we began to notice that many of them also had a deep love of music, or perhaps were musicians themselves.

Humans have always been inspired by the music of singing birds. And I've hypothesized that a musician's ears are naturally tuned for the sounds of nature, and vice versa.


When I got to The Beachland, the three bands on the tour—Hospital Ships, Wye Oak, and Shearwater were all loading equipment into the venue. I met Jonathan and we arranged to talk after their sound check.

After sound check, we went downstairs to the basement and what passes for the dressing room for the bands. It was far too loud in that space for an interview with all the bustling musicians and humming equipment, so we adjourned to a small storage room. Here's a peak at it, just to give you an idea of how totally glamorous is the life of a touring rock musician.

In this little storage room, with the other bands' sound checks thundering on the stage above us and the beer and soda flowing in tubes past us along one wall, headed upstairs to thirsty patrons, we had a nice hour-long chat.

You can hear the interview, which is episode 27 of This Birding Life both in the iTunes store (for free) and at TBL's home at Podcast Central. In the interview we talk about a whole array of topics, including the music-birds connection, birding on the road, on-stage hearing protection, life birds, and how attached one can become to a cheap travel guitar.


After the interview, I headed upstairs for a quick bite and a frosty-cold glass of hoppy/malty goodness, then it was showtime, baby! Hospital Ships took the stage first and played a nice set, followed by the Baltimore-based duo Wye Oak. I really dug Wye Oak. Throughout the evening band members sat in with one another on certain songs. It was clear that these folks had lots of mutual admiration going one.

Then Shearwater, the evening's headliner, took the stage. It was a grand show in a small venue—my favorite way to see live music. Shearwater's music defies easy categorization, though they usually get the indie-rock label. See and hear for yourself at www.shearwatermusic.com.


The room was full—according to Jonathan this was their most successful Cleveland show ever! Some of the audience knew every single word of every song. After hearing the live show, I can see why Shearwater's fanbase is growing. Adding to the immense talent of the musicians in the band is the fact that they all seem to be genuinely nice. Jonathan took the time not only for our interview, but also for a half-dozen fans who wanted to chat at length with him. After several weeks of touring, that takes some patience, I would guess.


I'm not sure why there's such a connection between music and birds for so many of us. I know I could not live without both music and birds in my life. And I'm glad I don't have to.

Two winners were selected by random number generator:

#113 - Style Attic @ Life at Five Feet

and

#137 - Lori @ Wildflowers

Congrats Ladies!! Style Attic and Lori - I have sent an email to each of you.  Please respond at your earliest convenience including your mailing address in your email so that I can get these Ebelskiver Pan packages out to you ASAP.


Thanks so much to everyone for entering this giveaway!! It was so much fun and I wish I could send one of these sets to each of you.  There was so much buzz over the Ebelskiver Pans that I might have to do another of these in the future.

A special thank you to CSN for providing the actual pans themselves.  I can't wait to hear how the winners use them.

I walked into Julie's studio yesterday afternoon to ask her something and a flash of zippy-swoopy movement in the birches just outside the windows caught my eye. I knew right away it was a warbler and not one of the 27 goldfinches, dozen titmice, or half-dozen chickadees that were flitting from trees to feeders to bird bath.

But how did I know it was a warbler?

I'm not completely sure. There are clues that the human brain can gather, sort, and decipher in a matter of milliseconds. All I saw was one quick swoop from one birch to another and my brain instantly said "Warbler!" If I had to 'splain it, I'd say it was something about the size, color, and style of movement—all things that I'd seen before, deduced, and confirmed. But I'm only grasping for an explanation here. All I know is that I instantly knew what family that feathered thing belonged to, and I was determined to see it better.

The warbler, in a show of fair play, hopped from the back of the bird tree to our side, which sent us scampering for binoculars and cameras. It was a female yellow-throated warbler! And this surely signalled the start of fall migration—in late July!

For the next 10 minutes we watched her glean insects and tiny caterpillars from the birch leaves. Man, our gray birches ALWAYS deliver the warblers. This might be the single most bird-friendly tree species on our farm, even though they do not do well in our clay soil and hot, dry summers.


Each late summer through mid-fall we get our annual influx of yellow-throated warblers. They nest down along the creek on Goss' Fork and after the breeding season is over, they come a-hill-toppin' up to our ridge top farm, looking for food or perhaps just exploring before the start of migration.

One of our first falls here at Indigo Hill, as we were out on the deck enjoying a fine morning of birding, a male yellow-throated warbler dropped out of the sky and landed on our stone chimney just two feet from us. It then flew to the deck railing a foot from us. Then it landed on the tripod leg two inches from my knee. It cocked its head as if to make certain we noticed his fine fall plumage, newly molted in for migration. Then he swooped over to our newly planted sycamore. This last act was almost too much for me—I grew up calling this warbler by its original name sycamore warbler.
My final view of Lady Sycamore, just before she slipped away. I dig her golden slippers!

After I left Julie's studio, heading back downstairs to do some podcast recording and editing, a young male American redstart and a female cerulean warbler also came through the birches. I missed them, but I certainly didn't miss the start of fall migration!

I don't know how yours was, but my weekend can best be summed up in two words:  too short.

I'm sure we all feel a dab of this every Sunday evening/Monday morning, but I can usually haul myself out of it.  This time, not so much.  After all the goings on last week I could really use an extra day off.  How about you?

Friday night I got take out and vegged on the couch with my favorite Primetime, 20/20 and Dateline episodes.  If there's a suspicious character within a 20 mile radius I think I could pick him out.  The I.D. Channel is my fave!  On Saturday I slept late while the Chef visited his mom in the ICU.  She was still a little groggy, but did sit up for a bit which is great news.  Later in the day while she was resting we hit the beach for a couple hours and relaxed in the wind and the sun.  It got a little crazy at times, but was a heyday for kite fliers and surfers alike.


Sunday was a flood of relaxation and barbecuing.  The Chef hooked it up big time with some yummy appetizers (recipe later this week) and we finally dipped into the fabulous Sangria he made last Monday...it's been resting for more than a few days with everything that happened, so was even more perfect.

Let's pour one out ladies and gents.  Here's to Monday - and this week going by quickly!

Sangria
2 ea plumb, peach, nectarine cut in 1/8
1 ea apple and lemon cut in 1/8
1/2pt strawberry cut halved
1/4pt cherries halved and
3C red wine
6oz peach schnapps
6oz coconut rum
12oz pomegranate juice
Club soda

To begin with, this recipe is easy.  The Chef has made several versions and I think this is our favorite to date because of the Pom Juice, Peach Schnapps and Coconut Rum.  So without further delay, let's get to it.

What you need to do first is cut your fruit.  To cut fruit with stones - first cut the fruit in half and then remove the pit.  From there cut each half into 4.  For the apple - first cut it in quarters and then cut out the core.  From there cut each piece in half.  Strawberries are self-explanatory.

As the fruit is being cut up, add it to your Sangria pitcher.  I use a martini pitcher because I'm secretly enamored with the glass stir stick.

Seems like a lot of fruit, but is the perfect amount.

Next simply combine the remaining ingredients and gently stir.  Have you ever used Pom Juice in your Sangria?  The Chef swears by it and I would have to agree that it adds a certain something to the taste.


Once all ingredients are combined let the Sangria marinate overnight in your refrigerator.

To serve: fill glass 3/4 with ice, pour Sangria over top and add some fruit. Finish with 1/2oz club soda.

Fruit on ice.

Pouring it out - is it Friday yet?

Ready for the Club Soda.

Mmmmmbubbles.  This was mine.

But this was the Chef's.  Cool bubble action!!

If you have an ingredient that sends your Sangria to the next level, we would love to hear about it.  In the meantime, bottoms up!  What did you do this weekend?

And thank you again to everyone for the kindest, most heartfelt comments and emails regarding the Chef's mom.  Your thoughts and prayers are so much appreciated and dear to our hearts. 

Here's a parting shot of Saturday's kites and kite surfers taken with the Hipstamatic.


p.s.  Today is the last day to enter for the Ebelskiver giveaway!!  Comments accepted at the giveaway post until 11:59 PST tonight.  Good luck everyone!!

Quick post here this afternoon ladies.  It's balmy in SoCal and I'm taking a little break from Chef's latest cooking adventures - where I've aptly and proudly been named Sous Chef (she says as she brims with pride) - to bring you a breaking news update.

Looks like Forever21 has a bit of its own aggravated mayhem to deal with.  I was watching HLN Prime News with Mike Galanos who just did a piece on Forever21's new Love21 Maternity Line.  Apparently the line has caused some waves out there beyond the internets because of what some are claiming is an irresponsible message being sent to the brand's teen customers.  Love21 Maternity has launched in Arizona, Alaska, California, Texas and Utah, with Arizona, California and Texas being ranked amongst the states with the highest teen pregnancy rates.  Market research or coincidence?

Silk-Chiffon Foliage Maternity Top

Now I don't know about you, but Teen Mom is one of my absolute favorite shows (guilty admission).  I'm so caught up in Macie, Amber and Catelynn/Tyler's stories (forget Farrah who should be standing in the corner for eternity - sorry haters you know I'm right - so over her. yawwwn.  but i just neeeed to know - is her mother in the clanker?!?) that I beamed with delight when the new season started last week.  When I first started watching last season I was just sick over the whole thing.  It's heartbreaking!  I got so caught up I actually considered contacting Catelynn and Tyler and asking them if they wanted to live with me and go to college out here.  No jokes.  Then the Chef told me to snap out of it and the season ended so I did. wah.  Now, Of course I am certainly not condoning teen pregnancy and I don't like that MTV and that sicko Dr. Drew are capitalizing on their circumstances, however I do like that there is a very accurate portrayal of how excruciatingly difficult it is to deal with teen pregnancy and its aftermath.

Longline Sslv Maternity Cardigan

And back to Love21 Maternity - the first top pictured above is something I would wear for summer currently - and I am nowhere NEAR pregnant.  In fact, it looks like it could rival one of Nicole Richie's pieces from her Winter Kate line, which I love and adore, seen here, here and here.  (Maybe I should be doing a this or that post!  Guess I kinda just did.)  I actually do own a version of the second top and love it.  So all in all - can we blame a corporation for doing its research and meeting the needs of its customer base?  Further, isn't it a bit juvenile (no pun intended) to claim that Forever21 is encouraging or glamorizing teen pregnancy when teen pregnancy has been here long before Love21's maternity line?  I mean this is not a chicken or the egg type situation, after all.  And beyond all that is the sheer fact that Forever21 is not just for teens now, is it?  I mean I am 22 or something and I still stroll through there now and then for a find...

What are your thoughts surrounding the Love21 debate?  I know a lot of you find incredible deals there and immediately thought of you when I heard this (while taking my ten minute California state mandated break from assisting the Chef - slavedriver).  Would you consider a piece or two of this line even in your pre-pregnancy form if the designs were cute and, of course, form flattering?  And, more importantly, what do you think about the cluster and fluster this seems to have stirred up?

I'm thinking it's going to result in another win for the brand!  And for all the cute pregnant ladies who have limited places to find affordable and fun fashions...whether they are pre or post age 21.

xoxo,
Carrie

Did you know there is a section in the California Penal Code for Mayhem?  I had never heard of such a thing until a couple weeks ago at the couples shower when one of our other friends mentioned that he worked with a woman who had been convicted of aggravated mayhem.  I asked what it was, but can only recall something about one woman biting another woman's ear off or something.  I swear I am not making this up.  Anyway.  The reason I can't really remember is because I was secretly captivated by the expression "aggravated mayhem" and only half heard the rest.  In fact I turned to the Chef and whispered "I'm secretly in love with this aggravated mayhem."  He shook his head and was like "I know you are.  I saw your eyes light up as soon as he said it."  Woops!

Basically it's been living in my mind.  Sometimes I just blurt it out for fun.  "Now there's some aggravated mayhem." Catchy, isn't it?

This week can be best summarized, ironically, as aggravated mayhem.  Maybe I should have seen it coming.  First my friend's mom, then the whacked out sun burn after being doused in SPF 85, and now the Chef's mom.  In the middle of all this I literally witnessed and got caught in the crossfire of some aggravated mayhem of my own that resulted in this nonsense:


I mean can you even tell what color that is?  That would be a no.  I got these things repainted a day and a half ago (not that you could tell with the nice chip job that's already occurring) amidst the biggest nail battle royale of all time.

There I was on Tuesday evening with my nails all chipped up after just having had them done on Saturday afternoon.  Unacceptable.  So I roll back into the salon to get them repainted.  Can you say deep freeze?  Now I may not understand Korean, but I do understand body language and non-verbal cues.  Picture it:  in I stroll to my usual place.  I sit down because there are 2 customers and 3 nail ladies working on them so I have to wait.  I pick up a trash magazine and begin reading.  One customer leaves.  The free nail lady says come over.  I get up to walk over.  Mid-stride one of the others YELLS at her in Korean.  And I mean yells.

Now I'm head down trying to act like everything is normal.  I sit down.  The one who got yelled at raises her voice a little back to the yeller.  As I'm sitting there all hell, I mean aggravated mayhem, breaks loose....They all start full-on screaming at each other in Korean.  The other customer is done.  She scurries out.  I'm caught in the crossfire.  Is this a Seinfeld skit?  One hand's polish is removed and the other hand still tore up.  They're all yelling at each other.  It's like cats in a bag.  They run the other lady off!!  The remaining two start clearly talking about her right in front of me - you could just TELL - even though this all went down in Korean.

So there I am both hands polish off, one foot off one still on and they pick up the phone and start calling and tattling to the owner while still trying to do my nails.  Ever tried to paint a nail with a phone connected to your ear?  Not so much.  They would call, scream, get screamed at, hang up and then the entire process would begin again.  Rinse and repeat for at least 15 minutes.  Can you say tension?  As a result I've got whacked out, unidentifiable color that's already chipping off - 2 coats on some nails, 3 coats on others and no top coat - never mind that I don't even know what the hell the color actually is. See what I mean? Aggravated mayhem is on the loose this week!! 

To top it all off tonight when I stopped at the bank to do a deposit the neighborhood crazy homeless guy who has been roaming the streets for a couple months now flailing his dirty arm cast that's sometimes on his leg (?) simultaneously twitching and hollering at the top of his lungs while downing a 40 of beer with his free hand was beating up on the very ATM I needed to use.  Hitting it full force. When I looked up from my deposit slip and saw him approaching my car at a rapid pace suffice it to say I fired it up, hit reverse and sped off faster than you could say, "pass that 40".  Life's too short.  Bills can wait.

Speaking of aggravated mayhem...

Amsterdam Clog - by Dulce Shoes

I might be committing some of my own when these babies show up next week.  Hope the UPS guy doesn't accidentally hit me in the head with them when he throws them on the stoop. You know, aggravated mayhem style...(sorry I couldn't resist).

Have a great weekend everyone!  Posts will go back to "normal" next week.  Hopefully with a recipe and a few fashion finds.

xoxo,
Carrie
p.s. - Don't forget to enter for the Ebelskiver Pan and Turning Tools...we could all use a few chocolate filled pancakes in our lives.

I wanted to check in and first give a blanket Thank You to each and every one of you who left a kind note and/or said a prayer or sent a healing thought in the Chef's Mom's direction.  We appreciate your well wishes so very, very much.  It's been a crazy couple of days here.

As of now his mom is in the ICU and still sleeping.  Her surgery appears to have gone smoothly and she has woken up only briefly.  They reinserted her breathing tube because she is sleeping so soundly - which I'm sure I would be too after having 8 or 9 hours of surgery during which some people cracked open my chest, rebuilt the arteries around my heart, physically manipulated my heart and then sewed my chest back together with steel.  And just think - she was in that hospital and in surgery in less than a 24 hour time period so this moved very quickly.  Yikes.  I can't even begin to imagine and am thinking I will only be eating only salads for the rest of my life.  Or until next week when I fall off the wagon.  I'm ba-ack (at least a little).

Anyway, Chef and his family are hoping she will be more coherent tomorrow so they can see with their own eyes that their mom is going to fully pull through.  Unless you hear otherwise from me...she is on the mend.

Thank you again everyone.  I never would have thought when I started this blog a few months ago that it would be such a community of support.  You are the best.

xoxo,
Carrie

We've got some craziness going on over here people; an interruption in scheduling, if you will, so this is not the planned post.  Allow me to explain.

Saturday was an extremely sad day for me.  In a bizarre twist of fate, just before bed at 2am on Saturday, I googled an old bestie's mom's name to make sure the telephone number I had for her in my mind was still valid after 10 years because I planned to call her and catch up later in the day.  Imagine my shock when it was her obituary that greeted me instead.  

I can't even begin to describe how stunned I was staring at that computer screen.  My heart crashed to my stomach while memories of my friend's very young mom laughing and talking with us flooded my mind.  There were flashes of feelings, vivid close-ups of my friend, her mom, their cat hiding in a grocery bag (?), and pain.  Wave upon wave of emotion swept over me within seconds and I burst into tears.  (haven't really stopped)

It's fascinating to me how these two people from my past have been on my mind constantly for 6 months, and I chose to look her up on the very day of her memorial.  What are the odds?  This is an experience I will never, ever, forget.  A gnawing reminder to slow down and listen to the inner voice.  I am filled to the brim with regret.

image via notebookdoodles

I don't want to go into any more detail than this, which I trust you understand.  My friend and I have spoken at length and the entire thing is devastating, which goes without saying.  More than anything I really wanted to share the circumstances around the discovery because they were so "coincidental" - yet in hindsight so absolutely guided.  On that note, I'm going to swallow one lump in my throat and dart off to another.

The Chef's mom had some chest pains on the tennis court yesterday so went to visit her doctor today.  Ended up having an angioplasty and, in an absolute scary and shocking turn of events, is having a quadruple bypass in the morning (today, Thursday).  Everything is happening very fast, so I'm going to bed to get some rest.  I tend to pass time by anxiously shopping online to distract myself, so don't be offended if I post some find or fifty tomorrow during the day. 

Normally I would not go into so much personal detail, but for some reason felt compelled to share this with all of you.

Jesus take the wheel - literally.

On Christmas day I was ecstatic to find an Ebelskiver Pan under the tree just for me (thanks Chef!).  I had been eyeballing and commenting on it for months every time the Williams-Sonoma catalogue showed up .  That morning we put the pan to good use and haven't turned back since.  On the 4th of July, while everyone else in the nation was enjoying record high temperatures, the Chef and I were sitting by the register contemplating hot chocolate or apple cider.  Freezing!  We whipped up and gave a quick how-to for some dessert style Ebelskivers as shown in this post.

Here's a tasty little reminder of the red, white and blue breakfast we enjoyed:


Just a few days later the kind people at CSN contacted me to do a review or giveaway.  (I have to say they have been so pleasant to deal with and the expediting/shipping process was amazingly seamless).  When I scanned their product offerings and saw the Ebelskiver Pan I immediately thought of all of you!  The response to the post was so positive and so many people shared the excitement I first experienced when seeing the pan. So I opted for 2 of their Nordicware Ebelskiver pans and then jetted out to get a couple sets of the Turning Tools specifically for use with the pan - just to add in as a fun bonus for each lucky winner.


And now:

UP FOR GRABS:  Two Nordicware Ebelskiver Pans each with a set of Turning Tools specifically made for this pan.  What's pictured just above could be yours!

THE DETAILS
*This giveaway is open to all U.S., Canadian and Overseas readers.  The entry period will run through 11:59pm PST Monday, July 26, 2010 and the winners will be announced on Tuesday, July 27, 2010.  Each winner (one set for two separate winners) will be selected via random drawing.

HOW TO ENTER
*For one entry please visit CSN (if you haven't already - there's a ton of great finds on the site) and then leave a comment on this post that includes a valid email address or your blog url so I can contact you if you win.

*For an additional entry you must sign up to be a follower of this free bird via Google Reader, AND leave an additional comment on this post stating that you have done so.

*For a third entry blog or tweet about this giveaway and leave a separate comment with the link back stating you have done so.

Soon you could be eating the most excellent dessert for breakfast...or perhaps some jalapeno cheese ebelskivers topped with scallions and a dash of sour cream for lunch or dinner?  I leave you with Saturday's latest:


Enter away!  Best of luck everyone!!