Fatty McFatten and the 47 tomatoes

My friend Elin told me last night that she was asked to be on a panel with Dorie Greenspan, and I got very excited. Dorie is a very well-known food writer, who wrote one of my favorite cookbooks, "Baking with Julia" and has a blog that I read avidly. Not only that, my friend and Dorie are both farmer's market lovers, so I am linking to a recent post from Dorie's blog about her recent hauls from the Lyme Farmer's Market in Connecticut. I am sure when the two meet that they will have lots to talk about, both being pastry chefs who are fanatical about using farm-fresh produce.

Sidebar: Speaking of Lyme, the disease is actually named after Lyme, Connecticut, where a number of moms got together and discovered that an unusual number of their children had been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. My own Lyme disease is not going away as quickly as I had hoped.

But back to Elin. I asked her how her garden was going and she mentioned something about having 47 tomatoes.

"You...count them?" I gasped.

"Yes, I count them. I count every little one. I want to make sure that Fatty McFatten hasn't gotten to them." And then I think she may have raised her fist in the air and she may have shaken it while yelling, "FATTY!"

Fatty McFatten, it turns out, is a very fat and hungry squirrel, and the bane of Elin's yard. My friend Amanda piped in that her squirrel is named Charlie, and that it eats the tops of her lily of the valley as well as her sunflowers.

I don't have names for the squirrels in my yard or the rabbits- there are just too many of them. Do you?

Anyway, I think Elin and Dorie will have a good time chatting with each other. To be a fly on the wall- or a squirrel in the tree...

Shannon