Martha's Marvellous Munchies

Get that peach out of the way, James - there's a new contender on the giant fruit scene! These mammoth melons were on sale for just $2.99, so we had to get one even if it takes a month to work our way through it. We put it on the bathroom scale when we got home. It weighs 23 lb. The alarming thing is that the average pregnant woman gains 30 lb, i.e. somewhat more than the weight of that watermelon. And I sure wouldn't be happy if you told me I had to lug that around everywhere for several months! Hmmm.... While we're on food news, I've been having a happy cooking day today. Several cayenne peppers ripened all at once so I made a giant pot of chili. Martha's giant chili 1 big onion, chopped 2 big green (bell) peppers, chopped 4 home-grown cayenne peppers, chopped finely 3 lb minced (ground) beef 2 big cans chopped tomatoes 1 small can tomato paste 2 regular cans kidney beans, drained and rinsed 2 cups (16 fl oz) beef stock 3 bay leaves, spoonful ...

Just for fun, although attempting to do this highlighted my lack of advanced computer skills and took twice as long as it was meant to. It still could be better, but you'll get some idea. Data source Data source So then, Fort Worth starts off at a warm but pleasant 80F and heads pretty steadily upwards towards the high 90s, with a cooler blip around the 9th. Minimums are around the 60s-70s, ie about the same as Bristol high temperatures. Bristol manages a minor heatwave around the 23rd, but otherwise ranges between low 50s and high 60s. Still pretty cool at night. Now we're into June we're basically in the 90s and staying there. Haven't really hit triple figures yet - that joy is still to come. Whether or not you Bristolians are jealous is entirely up to you. Personally, as you will have gathered, I prefer my climates temperate, but I promise not to whine about the heat for at least, say, two more blog posts (or until it hits 100F, whichever comes ...

Well, I haven't posted for a while, so I had a quick virtual riffle through the photos to see what I could come up with. A few weeks ago we went to a dragon boat/kite flying/Chinese culture festival, which wasn't a huge affair, but all the bright colours were good for photographs. Chinese lanterns, of course. These are actually Aztec dancers. What the Aztecs have to do with a Chinese festival we couldn't guess, nor did we ever discover. I suspect if you turn up in a fancy enough costume they let you in. One of the four dragon boats. Any group or workplace could register a dragon boat team, and they competed throughout the day. A lady we talked to said they only got about an hour to practise, so it was a good thing each boat had a competent steerer! Launching a kite. Formation flying. My stunt kite died its death a long time ago owing to the nose hitting the ground many times too often, but seeing this made me itch to have kite strings in my hands aga...