New Year New Projects

    New Year, new project and this one is all for me!  It's been years since I did a quilt just for me and when I saw this book on a recent shop visit with Friends Marilyn, Jan, Barb and Sally it spoke to me right away.
  I love birds and I have black fabrics that I've been hoarding over the years.  There are crows in the woods behind the house so it all fits.  I've started on one and there are nine in the quilt.  Of course I'll change the fabric choices a lot and I'll probably do the border differently than the pattern because all of those little triangles send chills down my spine.

 Here's the first one in progress.  It's amazing what you can get done if you don't take the nap!

   I had lunch with Friend Karen the other day and she - or rather her husband, Dave - sent along a gift bag of the newest goodies to come out of his smoker.  We received bacon, two cheeses and a bag of smoked almonds. We had some of the bacon this morning.  Now, let me say this.  We are bacon people.  After living in South Haven and eating the bacon from Bob's Processing, we really are spoiled for the good stuff. Bob's bacon has a flavor like no other.  We still buy several packages whenever PH is in the area.
   We auditioned many butcher shop bacons since we moved and only one comes in a far second.  In a pinch I bought some but after tasting Dave's, well, his cuts the line and stands tall behind Bob's Processing.
    Tonight we will taste the cheeses, but let it be said, PH loves smoked cheeses so I think we're good.

 The smoked almonds, though.  Oh, my.  I didn't want to waste them by just eating them so I searched the internet for "ice cream recipes using smoked almonds" and found a recipe for salted caramel smoked almond ice cream.

This was a leap of faith for me.  I don't care for caramel much.  But our daughter always orders salted caramel ice cream when we go out.  But she doesn't do nuts. Quandry. 
   I made two batches. One with nuts, one without and there was just a little bit of each batch left that didn't fit in my quart containers so I made a very small serving with nuts for SIL to try tonight while daughter eats hers.  The quart with the nuts?  I'm going to serve that when we have Friend Karen and Dave here for dinner with the rest of our group.  It's an annual thing and I think this will do the trick.