Sometimes, all I want / need / have time to share here is an ‘oldie but goodie’. Today is a day like that.
Two older cooking posts stand out for me this week, especially as we are in the dog days of summer when ripe tomatoes are rampant, bursting with flavor and begging you to do something special with them, and backyard grills fire up reassuringly consistently across the neighborhood on weekends.
Tomatoes Destined for a Bloody Mary
We had tomatoes from the farmers market that were ripe and ready for action, so The Grill-Meister dug up this recipe from the cookbook index in the Refreshing & Season Sips category under Cocktails & Beverages.
It had been awhile since he made it and he took some liberties – not straining the juice quite as much and forgoing the de-seeding of the peppers – so it was a chunkier, spicier version than I remember. OMG, it was DELICIOUS! Check out the Bloody Mary I made with it.
Because it was already spicy, the steps to turn this savory juice into a Bloody Mary were few: put ice in a tall glass, add the desired amount of vodka (Tito’s, not too much), throw in some vigorous shakes of worcestershire, squeeze in half of a lime, and fill the glass with Tom’s Spicy Tomato Juice. Then garnish as desired, and Voila! This drink definitely fit the description of “a party in my mouth”. 😁
A Reminder of a Fab Pork Marinade, and Dad
I’m working on a fun research project analyzing old cookbooks, especially the plastic comb-bound collective / community types, and one of the treasures I rediscovered in starting to pull together my ideas and the collection was the one featured in this post from 2016 about a great marinade for grilling pork.
As you’ll note if you read it (and you should, to get the recipe if there’s any chance at all you’ll be grilling pork this weekend), I wrote the post after a visit with Dad in which he pulled this book out of his own collection and recommended the marinade. He died just over a year later and now the cookbook, which started its life in our family as my Mom’s, is mine.
Coincidentally, or perhaps not, there was a new comment on this 10-year-old post just this morning, a simple, “Yay for Dad!” from Robin Ward, who has her own food blog.
When I run into something old more than once in just a few days, it feels like more than a coincidence… it crosses over into serendipity. I was meant to be reminded of that pork marinade, and it will be a blessing to a dish on our summer dinner table soon.
And perhaps that little trail of serendipity is why I was especially receptive to a new kind of blogging prompt this morning.
Stream of Consciousness Saturday
I stumbled upon a post that was inspired by and linked to a prompt from something called Stream of Consciousness Saturday, or SoCS. Intrigued, I went to the original prompt page and found something I think I’ll participate in from time to time. It’s a new prompt on Fridays to write a post from a stream of consciousness, without editing, to publish on Saturday. It can be long or short, but not something you stress over with numerous versions. I need a little of that in my blogging life! I tend to write, think, rewrite, edit, think some more, and then, agonizingly, hit the Publish button, so there’s definitely room for more spontaneity here in these pages. The prompt for today was to begin your post with the word, “Sometimes”. So I did.
Have a great Saturday, all!
©️ 2026, Glover Gardens
