I used to be so good. I used to participate in  all the food blogging events  from SHF to HHDD. But something along the way happened. Life I suppose. And I am so out of the loop that I couldn't tell you what things were going on...except one. ..La Festa Al Fresco. Co-hosted by two of my close food blogging buddies, Lis of La Mia Cucina and Ivonne of Cream Puffs in Venice. It would be in true bad form for me to miss out. I figured I would get going on it early(we have until September 3rd...but I didn't want to press my luck lately). It's quite simple really, prepare a dish(from appetizer to dessert doesn't matter) using a fresh, seasonal ingredient(preferably from your region). I however, did not follow directions very well. For my seasonal ingredient I chose dried cherries. Now those are not fresh I know but I really wanted some bread pudding and I didn't want real cherries, I wanted dried(they were fresh at one time). Cherries are at the end of their season here in the Pacific … [Read more...]