A gathering of blogger buddies

The invited guests for Phlegmfest are beginning to gather.  Miss D. and I met Gay Cynic at the airport yesterday afternoon;  he'll be staying with us for the duration (our first house guest in our new home!).  Christina flew in from the frozen north the previous evening, and Jim has also arrived.  Jennifer and Michael are due later, and there'll probably be others.  (In true blogger gathering tradition, no-one's sure who'll actually turn up until the event is over and we've counted heads!)  Sadly, it appears that FarmMom and FarmDad won't be able to join us, which is a real pity.  We were looking forward to seeing them.  Oh, well . . . we'll just have to wait until Blogorado later this year.

We got together at Old NFO's place yesterday evening, along with Phlegmmy and Lawdog, to sample his 95-year-old family recipe for jambalaya (verdict:  goooooood!!!  The link is for the benefit of overseas readers who may not know the dish) and sundry other tasty things.  As always at such gatherings, the conversation ran the gamut of almost anything you can think of, with much laughter and giggling going on.  This morning we'll all meet at a local greasy spoon joint (a rather good one, IMHO) for breakfast;  then the day will be spent doing interesting things together.

I'm cooking for the gathering tonight, making what I've come to call 'Mex Mix'.  It's my South African variation on Tex-Mex cuisine, with everything cooked in one pot to blend the flavors rather than being added bit by bit as one's tortilla or burrito is assembled.  It's spicy and rather yummy, if the comments of all who've tried it before are anything to go by.  I'll have to make a run to the shops this morning to stock up on guacamole, salsa, burritos and sundry other goodies to go with it.  (The wine's already chilling in the fridge.  For those who think that beer is the automatic choice to drink with Tex-Mex cuisine, well, I daresay we'll have some of that too.)

Oh - on a side note, here's something to make Lawdog fans insanely jealous.  Not only have we persuaded the man to begin editing and assembling in book form some of his best stories (including a number that have never before appeared on his blog or anywhere else), he's also trying his hand at a particular genre of fiction.  As you'd expect, his inimitable style carries over very well.  I'm looking at a printed excerpt from his latest effort as I write these words - it's sitting on my table next to my computer.  It's rather good, and I'm looking forward to seeing how his talents unfold in this new endeavor.  No, I won't post it here;  you'll have to wait until he's good and ready to release it.  Mine!  All mine!  (At least for now.)




Peter