My kitchen. Ilva over at Lucullian Delights challenged the food blog community to fess up and post photos of their kitchens, admitting that her kitchen is messy. Well, mine is usually too, but events had it be otherwise. You see, when it rains in Marin, the ants head for higher ground, and since my condo is on the second floor, they climbed right up here. I came home to find a whole ant army marching around the counter and cupboard edges in a very organized constant stream! Eek! Time for battle! So I tried peppermint essential oil, making coordinated dive bombing attacks with precision (or not) droplets of the concentrated essence in the strategic places along the columns. Every ant it hit was a casualty. However, this seemed to be a labor intensive endeavor to drop a drop of it on EVERY ant... hmmm... time to go out and get some other non-toxic stuff. So I picked up some Orange Guard. It was much more effective, spraying a wide spray of the orange essence infused spray. Satisfied I'd gotten all the ants, and cleaned away the remains, I went off for other endeavors.

A few hours later, I came back to find an army as big as the original! Well, at least my kitchen smelled really quite good, the scent of peppermint and orange hit you as soon as you opened the outside door to the condo. I decided it was time to contact Jerrie, my neighbor, to check if she's had any. We often coordinate on these things as the ants tend to run from unit to unit. After a few back and forth e-mail and a conversation, since it was just before the holidays I decided to call in the heavy artillery, and because they hadn't shown up at Jerrie's we wanted to head them off at the pass. So a very affable pest control person showed up and used some non-toxic spray to end the war once and for all (or at least for the season I hope). The ants are gone! And the side benefit since I had to clear all my counters is a clearer than normal kitchen space. So, it was easy for me to enter my photos via this post into Ilva's challenge. You can see that I put some of the counter items in the bread rising bowl on top of the bookshelf in the background above. (Yes, I have a bookshelf absolutely full of nothing but cookbooks by my kitchen!)

As long as I'm blogging again this morning, thought I'd share about a lovely jam - Pluot - and a company that makes a line of great jams and jellies - The Humble Gourmet. Everything I've purchased from them is stellar. I usually pick up my supplies at a Farmer's Market, but they also sell on-line.

Dad and I opened a new jar and used it on some frozen waffles I toasted for breakfast this morning. Have a Merry last day before Christmas Eve!! (I have to decide on a menu for Christmas Eve dinner tomorrow and shop).