Here Endeth The Drought___

If you live in the Valley of the Sun in the Sonoran Desert you heard the wonderful sweet lullaby sound of rain early Saturday morning.

Not a big event in many places, but when you've not heard that sound since October 19, 2005, it was cause for celebration. The official Sky Harbor Airport reading was 1.4 inches. Where we live it was a gracious 2.4 inches. The parched earth just soaked it up like a sponge and you could almost hear the trees sigh with relief.

A friend who abandoned city life and moved away from civilization said it was so dry that even the cactus were perishing. No more of her delicious Prickly Pear fruit jelly.

Our wonderful Irish neighbor, K, was in her baking mood--preparing for St. Patrick's Day. She called & said to come take possesion of our annual loaf of warm Irish Soda Bread. I hurried over for a visit with K & her sweet puppy and took my prized loaf home. Soda bread is so named because it was originally devised as a bread that could be made without yeast. K is an excellent baker and is very generous with the raisins. We started eating ours last evening. We used it as the base for our dessert of strawberry shortcake with whipping cream. Delicious. There are lots of recipes out there for this wonderful bread. Try it, you will like it! Wonderful warm with butter & honey or jam. Can't do better than that on a rainy day--dessert in the desert!