I am recovering from a spell of late-afternoon heatstroke, as it was a gubzillion degrees out today and I had a massive round of grocery shopping to do in order to prepare for a little dinner party that I'm having for friends tomorrow night. Although sometimes, in my head, I secretly envision myself jauntily tramping through tropical rain forests on a thrilling Insect Safari, the sad truth of the matter is that I have a very low tolerance for heat and humidity. Okay . . . I have practically no tolerance for heat and humidity. First I get irrational and cranky. And then I just get plain mean. Mean, mean, mean.

The menu for my dinner party tomorrow night is, I'm afraid, schizophrenically eclectic. I'm not exactly sure what happened here. I mean, I do actually know how to assemble a menu that actually goes together . . . I'm not total moron, but something just ran amok along the way. I'm going to choose to blame it on late afternoon heatstroke brought on by the aforementioned gubzillion-degree weather. So, the upshot is that I will be serving a salad with fresh spring greens, honey-glazed almonds, and a balsamic vinaigrette; a Greek barley salad with red and yellow peppers, olives, cucumbers, and Feta cheese; a multicolor pasta thingy tossed with diced tomatoes, onions, garlic, peas, thin slivers of prosciutto ham and sprinkled with grated Romano cheese; salmon marinated in an orange ginger glaze; and a white chocolate raspberry cheesecake for dessert.

So, okay . . . a schizophrenically eclectic menu, but the fun part will be getting to use my delightfully retro, most definitively mid-century modern Russel Wright dinnerware.

I had the amazing luck to have a poem accepted by BLOOM Magazine today, and I'm over the moon with joy as I have been secretly yearning to be in BLOOM since it first came out!

Just made the herbed barley salad today and it is delicious! Thanks so much for linking to the recipe! It will become a summer staple in my household. Hope your dinner went swimmingly!

- Shannon from Seattle

Shannon, I'm so pleased to hear that you are a Barley Salad Convert, and JadedJu, should you be moved to visit my neck of the woods I will gladly replicate said menu verbatim in your honor!

Bloom is a great magazine. I have a poem forthcoming with them, too. I will keep an eye out for yours.

That's marvelous, C. Dale . . . I'll definitely look for your poem too! I love Bloom!