Small, economy version of Bluebell Wood

They say that imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, and it can be true for gardens as well.  Several years ago on a botanical geek trip that included the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Mrs. Phactor was quite taken by their Bluebell Wood, a shady expanse of large trees with an understory of solid bluebell shown here from their what's in bloom page of their webpage.

These are not the bluebells that North Americans are used to; these are actually Spanish bluebells, Hyacinthoides hispanica, and yes, this genus is more like hyacinths than our trumpet like native bluebells of the borage family.  "Bluebells" is a pretty common common name. To make a long story short, Mrs. Phactor decided to duplicate the bluebell wood, except the original is several times larger than our whole estate, so the plans had to be scaled down. Here's the result.  

OK it's not quite the same vista with only one oak tree making the "wood" and it's a different species of bluebell, H. non-scripta, English bluebells.  But given the size difference, the comparison is still favorable.  Hope the Brooklyn Botanic Garden isn't jealous. Considering that this was formerly all lily of the valley, it took some real dedicated effort to get them out and the bluebells in.  Say something nice about her bluebells.

Tapas for dinner

A tapas dinner party is planned for a week from now.  Tapas are small plate dishes in the Spanish tradition.  The trick is to have a array of dishes with some diversity, some hot, some cold, some with or on bread, some with seafood or ham or sausage, some with pickles and/or olives.  But yet you don't want just willy-nilly either. For reasons not quite clear to the Phactors we probably have more tapas cookbooks than any other category except for maybe Italian.  Tapas dinners are a good excuse, as if one was needed, for drinking a cold Spanish rose wine.  The Phactor had a stash of Spanish chorizo, not at all like the Mexican version, but he used it to make a lentil, chorizo, and kale soup, which proved mildly sensational. Now talk about thoughtful, Mrs. Phactor has replenished my supply of chorizo from her favorite online source of Latin food, Amigo Foods, including Lizano Sauce (Costa Rica) and the passionfruit concentrate (Brazil) she spikes her orange juice with, a behavior left over from our times in the tropics. This does not violate TPP's non-endorsement policy, which would turn this into just one more sell-out blog because it is in our own best interest to keep this place in business, but our volume alone isn't going to do it.  Why not have some reader participation?  What would you suggest we include in our menu?