Coffee with the Hortons

A week or so ago, I had arranged to meet with an old professor of mine on Monday (today) to catch up on our summers. But we'd forgotten that today was Labor Day and therefore he wouldn't be in the office. But instead of canceling or rescheduling, he invited me over to his home for a cup of coffee with him and his wife.

I have been to their house a couple times before for various networking/dinner parties that they hold every so often for creative minds in the Oklahoma area (they call it a Writers Block Party), but never have I been to their house on a quiet Monday morning for coffee.

It was so much fun! The two of them, along with a group of old friends, had taken a trip up to Montana this summer to explore Glacier National Park, so they told me of their adventures and put on this DVD in the background that was basically a slideshow of gorgeous pictures of the park. It made me so homesick. I miss the mountains!!!

We also talked about my plans for after graduation and about my internships in France and Philadelphia. They have children right around my age, so it was interesting to hear their insights as parents into the recently graduated life, etc.

And then, right before I left, we were talking about gardening and the wife mentioned that they had an overabundance of peppers in their garden that she didn't know what to do with. Well, I swooped in and took that opportunity to mention that I live in a house with a bunch of girls and that I was sure we'd love to take a few peppers off her hands. Not a problem.

Sure enough, she came back with a HUGE basket of delicious-looking little red, green, and yellow peppers. All of me! She doesn't know which ones are the hot ones though, so that should be an interesting experiment. And then, after gushing about how wonderful it would be to have fresh vegetables in our house, she invited me to come outside and look at her garden. And then she gave me MORE vegetables -- a pile of fresh baby tomatoes and a bunch of fresh basil leaves. Yum!

I can't wait to get all fancy-shmancy with my cooking, now that I have some wonderfully fresh ingredients to use. Anyone know of anything good to make that involves peppers, basil and/or baby tomatoes?