Coming up on 500 posts, shrimp dinner and a good book

I am coming up on my 500th post.  I am at 489 with this one.  I should really  have a give-away or something, but since I can't decide if I am a food blogger or a book blogger, I wouldn't know what to give away. Besides, no one has ever given me a signed copy of a book or an ARC or sent me a food product to test out.  I guess I am just a plain old blogger, who likes to cook and read books. And who also likes to write random stuff so that my family and friends could read it in an easy to find place.  (I could probably take the time to handwrite them a real letter and they would be THRILLED, but we are living in the 21st century now. I have to keep up )  
Who knew that I would make new friends, who, I might add, read my blog a lot more often than my family and friends do?

It's kind of fun to say  "I have a friend in Louisiana...."  Or "my friend in Montana",  and my husband, the Handyman will look confused and say,  "we don't know anyone in Louisiana"  and I will say, "I know that," and then go on explaining what I was going to say in the first place.

It's really hard to put into words why I would feel someone whom I've never met is a 'friend', but I do.
While I love all the cooking posts, I love, even more when bloggers tell me, by their stories,  a little bit about their world, where they come from, what they like to do.  I feel as if I'm  able to visit different regions as a blogger voyeur.  Food bloggers are much more apt to give a part of their world away, than Book bloggers are.  I'm not sure why.  Book Bloggers get right down to business and start talking about the book.  Which I love too.
I love going to my book clubs and being able to say, "That book is a really hot topic in book clubs", or some such thing.   They think I'm so intellectual!  (Little do they know).
It's fun to share my hobbies with my friends in the blogging world.  I just don't know what to "share" with you all on my 500th post.   Just the glory of me surpassing the #500?  My kids never fell for that either.  Or my 8-year old grandson...Gramma, that's not a very good prize, just being happy for you.  (and that is why I usually let him win...because for me the prize is just fine...being happy for him).
Anyway, I digress....I am coming up on my 500th post.  WOW!  Hard to believe.  I'm really glad to have met/made some nice friends in the blogging world--Foodies and Bookworms!

That is just the right statement for me to segue into my dinner tonight.  I came home from work and started right away to make   Southern Red Rice with Shrimp  from  the kitchen of Deep Dish South.  I was so organized, I had my kitchen cleaned while the dish was in the oven. We were ready to sit down and enjoy our meal....so excited to have something with Creole seasoning.... except...I didn't turn on my oven.  I discovered this after the timer beeped 45 minutes later.
I had 2 grown men in my kitchen drooling ---but they had to wait another 45 minutes to eat.  We finally got to sit down at almost 8:00.  But--it was worth the wait.  It's a slightly spicy shrimp and rice dish.  Very yummy.
For the recipe please visit Mary at Deep Dish South.

Then I sat down with my new book  (new, as in next in line to be read by me)  during the extra 45 minutes.  I got to start  "The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott".  I can tell already, I'm really going to enjoy it.

I'm going to leave you with this link to my "picture blog",  just in case you wanted to see where I went this past weekend.   And here is a picture of someone who came right up on our deck to see if we had food- -sadly for her, we only had our camera.  
You can check out more pictures on the link.....my friends and family are supposed to link over there, because they really might be interested in these pics.... but I have a feeling that more of my blogger friends will take a quick peek.  That's just how we are.