Home At Last! with Patty Gironda

Our home was recently featured on the 2012 Piedmont Auxiliary Candlelight Tour of Homes and as in years past, the tour brought large crowds of happy tourists looking for inspiration for the Christmas season! It was great to catch up with fans of Home At Last!, past guests of Casa Bella Bed and Breakfast, neighbors and friends!  The weather was perfect and allowed everyone to walk the districts or enjoy a quick drive to the other areas without too much effort!  Our decorating theme, "Let It Snow" was simple but elegant. We hung large snowflakes from our 14-ft ceilings, suggesting a peaceful, snowy evening.  Through-out the main floor and stair banister the snowflake theme was repeated and even served as place mats under gilded mason jars filled with white roses.

I've been on a quest to use up items stored in the "deep freeze" zone! Surprisingly, the meals created from these mystery ingredients have yielded some pretty awesome and quick dinners. I had a thought today that I might have need for a "freezer journal". As I add foods to my freezers I would place a dated entry in my freezer journal. Just a thought. My current method of writing on the zipper bag works fine if I bother to write on the bag. I've also had success placing a note in the freezer bag filled with individually packaged tablespoons of items such as tomato paste. A recent dig revealed a lost bag of lightly-smoked picnic ham from the Porchetta episode of Home At Last! It was well-wrapped in foil and placed in a freezer bag.  Thawed and sampled I was pleased with its condition after three months of excile in "the zone". Paired with a small amount of homemade bbq sauce (also from the depths of my fridge) and a quick...