Evening View From the Dolphin Restaurant in Harpswell, Maine

The sun was setting.  We were drinking.  Then eating.  What's not to love about that?  Well, the Red Sox won.  That night.  G and I started with a huge serving of mussels.  I could eat them once a week and be very happy but the best mussels were from Back Street in Brunswick before they went out of business.

Today I went to the grocery to get two eggplant so I could make another huge batch of ratatouille with the zucchini and peppers from the garden for my low calorie dinners.  I had so many squash to use up that I made zucchini brownies (with Splenda for me), a chocolate zucchini loaf for G, and next up is a batch of Turkish zucchini fritters which are full of cheese and fresh herbs.  The herbs are from the garden as well.  I promised myself I would try very hard to use what I grow in the garden this year.

I am quite proud of my bell peppers.  The addition of sulfur to the soil when I transplanted my seedlings to the garden has done wonders.  The walls of the peppers are thick and they taste so good. I have many, many green peppers on the plants but I try and wait for them to turn red before picking them.  I also have some golden yellow bells and jalapeños.

We are harvesting a few red tomatoes each week.  They are Early Girl Bush which I started transplanting in late April and with the addition (another experiment of mine) of iron in the planting soil along with Epsom salts (magnesium) the tomatoes taste wonderful.  Some years they are rather bland.  Not 2014!.  We have had them sliced (these are big tomatoes) with fresh mozzarella and fresh picked basil leaves. Simply dressed with good olive oil, Balsamic vinegar and salt and pepper.  I also serve some crusty bread warm from the oven to sop up the juices.  There are plenty of green tomatoes still out there so August and September are looking delicious.

On the cucumber side of the garden, I have very few pickling cucumbers and quite a few of the long burpless ones which is turning out to be okay with me as I usually just slice them and mix with sour cream and dill.  I may skip the pickling ones from now on unless I can find Kirby seeds.

My toes are still taped and feeling much better.  I have not signed up for my physical therapy to strengthen my left leg which is weak but I will call on Monday and set something up.  I threw away several pairs of shoes.  I check to see if my ankles and feet rotate to the outside edges and if they do--I get rid of the shoes.

The diet is going along.  I am having some difficulty finding things to eat (that I want to eat) and that are not low carb/high calorie.  I took to low carb like a duck to water but gained weight (eventually) instead of losing because I believed that "eat all you want" advice.  Do not eat all you want.  You have to still count calories on low carb.  It's 2500 instead of 1200 but it's not a lot of food either way.  I am alternating between 600 to 800 calories every other day and 1200 to 1500 on the other days.  It seems to be working.   Chewing gum helps.  And it also helps that my pants are already feeling looser.  Loose clothing is my biggest motivator.

I am trolling for new books to read.  Any suggestions?  I have Dan Brown's Inferno on my table and I haven't started it yet.  I was also thinking of reading Wolf Hall again as I really enjoyed it. Both are books I purchased at the book sale so I don't have a deadline for getting them read.

We are watching the fourth season of Damages on Netflix and still have House of Cards to look forward to.  G has been watching Orange is the New Black but I have not.  I am still miffed to have missed watching the last 2 episodes of the Americans.  And Netflix only has season one on DVD.  I may have to buy Hulu or Amazon (whomever has it) to watch season one.  Buy, watch and cancel. I wish a family member had a membership and would lend me their pass code number, but no luck.