what's on the table

this is my first contribution to the august domestic arts challenge recently posted here. what better way to start than with some lovely sunflowers from the farmer's market? actually, i wish i could say that these were from our yard, but no dice. next year, i think i'm going to plant one of the crazy, giant sunflower varieties next to our fence and see what comes up.
this pint of sun gold cherry tomatoes went into the checca sauce for this "veggie meatloaf" recipe from "everyday italian" which we're eating for dinner tonight. here you can also see the ladybug-covered clear table covering i'm using to protect the linens from a certain unpredictable two-year old eater. hobby lobby was having a sale on "home decorating fabrics" and i guess vinyl qualifies as a fabric. all i had to do was cut it down to size a bit.
drawing more inspiration from ms. de laurentiis, i made this italian style chili (with fennel seeds alongside the cumin, topped with parsley and parmesan cheese) for dinner the other night with sweet corn and swiss chard from the farmer's market. giada called for ground chicken, but there was none to be had at the store, so i went with ground turkey instead. pretty tasty and lighter than the typical ground beef and tomato-based chili, which made it a good summer supper.
i baked up some cornbread with thyme from a recipe in this month's cooking light, but might have gone a little overboard with the thyme, which is growing in a pot on the deck. the bread had a really strong herbal flavor and i think it tasted a little like soap. maybe aveda soap, but soap nonetheless.
a proper post about our new rain garden is long overdue, but i'll leave that to rob, who was the mastermind behind the project. on monday evening, we found this hawkeye caterpillar (black, gold and white! does anyone know the proper name?) eating dinner in our garden--devouring whole leaves and flowers in seconds. it seemed appropriate that this little guy was plowing through butterfly weed in order to fatten up and become...well...you know. so we left him alone. twenty-four hours later, the same caterpillar was in the very same spot and he was still eating. most of the flower buds were gone by this point and that made me a little sad for our fledgling garden. i apologetically remover the hungry little (big) caterpillar to a big weed forest under the deck. we'll see if he finds his way back to the garden...