i have to work tomorrow?

it seems too much like saturday to go back to the office tomorrow. guess that also means i need to make lunches, huh? man. i'll tell you. we just went to see pirates 3, not being aware that this would take a 3-hour time committment. we still have dessert to eat! (don't tell brian, but it's a peach grunt with homemade vanilla-bourbon ice cream.) i have this things with secrets in the kitchen. maybe so he doesn't have time to form an opinion before we dig in? so, local food month. i'm trying to get into the mental swing of things. faithful readers know that chips and salsa are a requirement in this house. a quick perusal of the chip aisle told me that the brand we've been getting most often is the closest - made in chicago! not bad, not bad. that's within 250 miles. 240, to be exact, as google maps flies. tonight i made my first pico de gallo, which suffices as a salsa. why did i wait so long? why don't i make salsa all summer? there's no time like the present to start.

sure, the basil isn't really what anyone would call traditional, but it's fresh from the garden today, and basil + tomato = tasty in any combination. the pico de gallo ended up going really well with heavier flavors of grilled mushrooms and kidney beans in the burrito.

does anyone have any fantastic tips for cooking beans evenly? maybe i just need more than that one-inch covering of water. most of the beans turned out soft and delicious, but we found a few hard ones in the bunch. not inedible hard, but unpleasantly hard. tips?