Summer Eats: BLT

One of my favorite moments of every year is when I get my first home-grown tomato of the summer. My step-dad has had a garden ever since I can remember, so we always celebrated and cherished the first tomato harvest. The store bought ones are just never as good! I think my favorite way to enjoy them (besides just in slices with a dash of salt) is on a sandwich Harriet the Spy style. A close second would be adding them to a BLT. It doesn't get much more classic than a BLT! Toasted bread, crispy bacon, lettuce, and a fresh, juicy tomato (and ok, I admit it, I add mayo). My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

I promise I've cleaned my stove since frying that bacon. I cook most nights, and I'm not one to completely clean after every meal. Once a week is good enough, right? (Hopefully my mom doesn't read this) Anyway, moving on. My friend Sarah had given me those huge lettuce leaves, so I used that on my sandwich. She got it in her CSA, which also included some dill, so the lettuce had a bit of a dill taste. It was actually kind of good! Who knew?!

Confession: I wanted to do this post primarily so that I could take pictures of this magnificent sandwich. Can you tell I like BLTs? They are definitely in my list of top 10 favorite foods. I think they are a bit too light for Rhett, so if I make them again this summer, I'll probably make them for lunch. If you've never had a BLT, I highly recommend you make one! Just make sure you use good tomatoes. A mealy tomato will ruin it.

What are some of your favorite summer foods? Hopefully you're all enjoying the endless supply of summer fruits and veggies as much as I am!

My New Adventure: Hello, Jackson

Over the past few months, I have been working on a new blog called Hello, Jackson, which is all about featuring small local businesses in the Jackson community. I got the idea after one of our really high-end local restaurants closed, because some of the comments made about it were just ridiculous! Here are a few that I saved because I'm kind of a weirdo:

After reading a whole thread of this stuff, I was a little irritated. Jackson actually has quite a few local businesses, and a LOT of good restaurants (local and chain), so these people just need to be edjumucated. I don't know why I took some of these comments so personally either...like they were  attacking my taste in food and my willingness to spend money. I should really just stay off Facebook sometimes.

I started rolling the idea around in my noggin about starting a blog that would feature local businesses, and my friends seemed to think it was smart. I worked with my talented coworker and friend, Scott, on the design, and here we are! The first post is up, and I've got feelers out for the next few posts. I got a lot of great response on the Tulum post, which just made my heart really happy. I want the next post to be on this new Cuban food truck that just opened at the Farmer's Market. I had their empenadas on Saturday and they were DELICIOUS!

If you're local, you can check out the blog and facebook page {here} and {here}. I'd love to know your thoughts! I'm actually having a bit of a debate about this one place I want to feature. They have a few other locations in other cities, but it IS a family business. I'm waiting to hear back from my contact, but I THINK the family is based in Jackson. If it is, I feel like it should still work for the blog, since the whole point is to point people away from throwing money at corporations in favor of throwing money back at the community. A family business isn't a corporation, and a local family would at least be putting money back into the Jackson economy. I'm basically just having an internal dialogue now, so I'll wrap this up...

Another reason why I am extremely excited about running this blog is that I can practice more photography! I absolutely love food and product photography, but I have basically no experience with it. I'm hoping this will help me expand my portfolio a bit.

Life Aquatic, Georgia Style

I mentioned in my last post that we visited the Georgia Aquarium while we were in Atlanta, so here are some of the pictures from that outing. I am one of THOSE people taking pictures off all the exhibits. Hey, at least I'm not trying to take fish pictures with the flash on! Right? But seriously this aquarium was OFF THE HOOK! I've only ever been to one other aquarium, the one in Gatlinburg, and this one blows that one out of the water (pun absolutely intended).

There was so much to look at! We got there about 30 minutes before they opened, so we didn't have to fight too much of a crowd. It was extremely crowded by the time we got ready to leave, so I was grateful for Rhett's insistence on getting there early! My absolute favorite exhibit was the observation room, where you get to watch the whale sharks swim around. They are absolutely stunning, and when you throw in all the rays and other fish, it is just a majestic view. I could have stood in that room all day, I think.

After we looked at all the exhibits in the aquarium, we went to the Dolphin Tales show. They have a "no photography" policy, but I still snuck in a shot. Slap my wrist...ok we're moving on. The show was amazing! The story and musical numbers were a little weird as an adult, but I think the idea was to make it cool for kids. Dolphins are just fascinating to watch! I am so jealous of the women who get to work and perform with them. I'm sure it's a really hard job, but how rewarding would that be?! I would love it.

Have any of you been to the Georgia Aquarium? If you haven't been, and you find yourself in Atlanta, I highly recommend it! It's spendy, but the money goes to further their research, and they are doing some great things for the aquatic world.

Always 10

This past Friday Rhett and I FINALLY got to go down to see the Braves retire number 10 and honor Chipper Jones. We bought tickets as soon as they went on sale, so we've been looking forward to this for a while. I booked us a room at a Double Tree in Buckhead so that we could eat a delicious cookie before the game. The hotel was pretty nice, although the 6AM trash convention outside our room was an unpleasant surprise. I have never seen it take that long for a trash truck to pick up the trash. I gave up trying to go back to sleep at about 6:20. Ridiculous!

Anyway, after we checked into the hotel and had our cookies, we headed over to the nearest Marta station to catch the train. The whole Marta system is pretty neat! With game day traffic, it was quite tight on the train, but I imagine on a regular day it's probably not so bad. Some of the stations are definitely sketchy though. I probably wouldn't ride it alone, I'll just put it that way.

We were worried about getting to the game on time since we had to wait so long for the train and the shuttle, but we made it just in time to see the number retirement ceremony! If you're not a baseball fan, this is a ceremony to honor a retired player and hang their number up at the field. The number will never be worn again by a Brave. It's Chipper's forever! He was inducted into the Braves Hall of Fame earlier that day too.

It was just SO AWESOME to be there to witness this moment. Rhett has been a Chipper fan as long as he's been a baseball fan, which is a long time, so I know it was really special for him. The game went really well and the Braves came out on top! There were several good plays and some home runs to keep things interesting. This was probably my favorite major league baseball experience to date.

After the game we hopped back on the shuttle, then on the train back to Buckhead. It was nice having a crowd around so I didn't feel so vulnerable. We did see a guy get arrested at the Marta station on the way back, so that didn't do much to put me at ease. I'm probably just a wimp, but I'm used to my little North Jackson bubble :)

We woke up the next morning (early because of the stupid trash pickup) and headed to the Georgia Aquarium. This post is already pretty long, so I'm going to save the aquarium for another post. It was an AMAZING weekend! Even with the 6 hour drive there and back + horrible traffic, I loved our weekend.

Family Zoo Outing

Back in April we took a day trip to the Memphis Zoo with Rhett's family. It was a lot of fun and turned out to be pretty good weather for walking around outside! It's always a gamble at the zoo since it can get pretty hot, but it was actually pretty cool that day. Rhett and I had fun playing with the kiddos all day and just getting to spend time with family.

KP is getting so big! We just saw her this weekend and she is talking up a storm. It's amazing how quickly they grow. They are so fun at this age though!

As a photographer it is hard for me to have a husband who won't cooperate for a picture...

This was the second time the whole family has gone to the zoo together. The last time was a year or two ago, and it was equally as fun. I hope we get to do it again next year!

Have you guys been able to go to the zoo yet this year? It's a really fun Spring/Summer activity, and I kind of hope I get to go again this year! The Memphis Zoo is quite amazing, and it seems to get better each year.