the chef's new toy

One of the resident chef's favorite TV programs is a cooking show on Saturday afternoon. A couple of weeks ago the dish du jour was a fresh brisket cooked in a slow cooker. Nothing would do but Mr. C must have one. So I trolled through the internet and found one priced $50 less than the cooking show stated, ordered it, and it arrived today. He is delighted with his purchase and will inaugurate it tomorrow by preparing a whole chicken with lemon and rosemary. Tomorrow morning we will turn this thing on and let it do it's work all day. This gem is NOT going down to Mexico.

While the chicken is cooking we will be having the carpets cleaned. We have (or are in the process of doing so) moved all the furniture out of the carpeted rooms onto the front terrazzo and the back deck. The fresh, clean carpet will be a nice compliment to my new dining room drapes, delivered and installed today. I bought the fabric in Mexico a couple of years ago, not really sure where I was going to use it. At first I thought in the beach house bedroom but it is too light and transparent. We have a couple of street lights that shine in our bedroom so we need something a bit more substantial. I finally decided that the current drapes are at least 20 years old, shrank when I had them cleaned, and could be retired. These new ones, made out of a light, undyed cotton and lined with muslin, mimic the tile floors.  They look better than I thought they would.