Just the latest around here

I think it goes without saying that I've been awfully busy lately. The last few days have been a wee bit quieter because Jorge is off at the lake with his sisters, Milo, and nieces. I had too much work to be able to take another day off, though. Which means that for the 2nd year in a row, I did not spend my husband's birthday with him. Even though he's the one who told me not to bother making the drive to the lake, I'm sure I'll be subject to guilt-trips and recriminations over this one for at least the rest of the year.

To make up for it, we're celebrating tonight instead. To start, we'll have a selection of yummy antipasti and homemade spreads, then dinner will be roasted beef tenderloin with potatoes au gratin, individual eggplant parmesan stacks, and a beet salad with pecans and blue cheese. And for dessert, lemon cheesecake made with real Philadelphia cream cheese, a luxury item of extreme value and rarity in Africa. We'll even crack open one of our treasured bottles of wine from Solm's Delta in South Africa - the Africana Reserve, no less. So it should be a nice night!

Alicia and the girls are here for a few more days, but on Tuesday I'm flying off to Uganda for a week, where I'm helping the Ministry of Health with a pavilion they've mounted to highlight nutrition work in Malawi, for the African Union Heads of State Summit. This is a political event, so very much different from the technical workshops and conferences I'm used to attending. I'm hoping it will be interesting, but I really don't know what to expect.

Well, I'd better get back to my cooking!