After The Rain - Can You Say S Car Go? Plus Salad for Foodie Friday

Après La Pluie - After The Rain

I'm joining everyone for Tablescape Thursday, Susan's fab weekly party over at

Between Naps On The Porch.

I'm also joining Foodie Friday over at Designs By Gollum with another favorite
summer salad recipe. Check at the end of the post for the recipe.

Snails -  Love them on the plate, despise them in the garden.

One of my jobs in the garden when I was a little girl was to "collect" the snails.

Way back then there weren't the effective products to control the snail population

in the garden that are available today, so usually they were just picked by hand.

We had a bazillion of them in our gardens in Germany and I would harvest them

and keep them in aquariums with mesh over the tops. In the midwest I don't remember

them being a real issue, but here in California a rainy winter can bring on a bumper crop.

As our Spring rainy season continues into May......this after several years of near

serious drought conditions with few snails, the snail population is exploding. I use

a pet safe product to control them, but there are soooo many of them this year.

I learned to eat snails as a kid growing up in post WWII Europe and still  love

them today.  It's been awhile since I prepared them....Mr. TLRT is NOT a fan.

So when I began to put together this tablescape, I realized that I haven't used

or even seen my escargot trays or accessories since we moved here 3+ years ago.

My guess is that they are still in one of the packed boxes in storage in the top

of the garage.

Not gonna start unpacking more dishes today, so you'll just have to imagine

the cute tongs used to grasp the shells and the trays that the escargot should

be served in. Straight from the oven with sizzling garlic butter, the shells are held

in the tongs and the savory little morsels are pulled from the shells with pointy

little forks.

The escargot themselves come from a can, NOT the garden! They

are cleaned prior to being canned and their shells are cleaned and sterilized

prior to packaging. Always served with the best French bread you can find, the better

to sop up all that tasty buttery goodness!  They are a delicacy to be savored.

Amanita muscaria - Then there are the mushrooms so popular in childrens' books, as Christmas ornaments and other decorations when I was a kid.

You may remember the mushrooms used in today's  floral arrangement, they also appeared

in another tablescape here on TLRT a couple of weeks ago:

Black and White and Red All Over - Spring

And there is a post for Vintage Thingies Thursday today that shows these wonderful

fungi in one of my books from my childhood.

When I saw these plates from Anthropologie by French designer Nathalie Lete,

I just knew they were going to come live at my house.

So after all the babble from this blogger,

here is the Après La Pluie - After The Rain tablescape.

The Feur de Lys plates are also from Anthropologie, the sterling is American Directoire, crystal is Vera Wang "Infinity", napkins and crystal candlesticks from Home Goods, votives from Michael's, napkin rings from Crate and Barrel decades ago, and the vase is a contemporary one made to look similar to vintage Manhattan glassware. The little silverplate bowls are from Tuesday Morning ..... gotta love them at three for $10. The roses are 'Penelope' , a hybrid musk by Pemberton in 1924, from my garden.

Mushroom - Avocado-Tomato Salad

Equal parts sliced or diced mushrooms, avocado and tomatoes.

Balsamic vinegar, olive oil, fresh lemon juice mixed with your favorite seasonings.

I like a lemon pepper mix or Spike's all purpose seasoning mix (it has a small amount of

MSG in it if you are sensitive).  These are Crimini brown Italian mushrooms, especially

tasty!  This salad is best dressed very lightly so you get the distinct flavors of the veggies.

Pine nuts are optional.

Enjoy! And thanks for stopping by,
Candy