My husband is the BEST at surprising me for my birthday.  This year we started the day going to our friends' home and visiting their amazing garden.  Then we all piled into the car and drove down the beach.  No one would tell me where we were going, but did I care?  No way - beautiful summer day, salt air, and a breeze!  Ahhhh!
     The drive seemed to go on and on and finally ended in José Ignacio, a smaller town on the beach north of Punta del Este.  It used to be a sleepy fishing village not too long ago, but now is THE place to see and be seen.  We ended our drive at La Huella, a very popular restaurant - said to be a favorite of Mick Jagger when he's in the area!
     La Huella is right on the beach - as in walk through the sand to get to the restaurant.  I loved everything about it.  It was my best birthday in Uruguay; you can't beat being surrounded by those you love!

     When life gives you dozens of cucumbers, make pickles!
     I swore back and forth, since I was a child, that I would never, ever, ever preserve or "can" food.  I spent every summer of my childhood watching Mama sweating over a hot stove filled with steam and canning jars.  Mama and Daddy went to the Farmer's Market in Mobile every summer and bought bushels of fruit.  As if that wasn't enough, they'd go to my uncle's house and pick figs and pears off his trees.  Then the canning would commence...
     We didn't have air conditioning back then and we lived in the Deep South.  I have no idea how Mama survived all that canning process. I remember waking up during the night hearing the can tops "popping."  You wanted them to pop!  If they didn't, they had to be emptied, the contents reheated, and the process started all over.
     But hey, we had so many cucumbers in our new garden.  HUGE cucumbers at that!  I decided to put my childhood "canning fears" to rest and make pickles.  It wasn't so bad!
MissCookBook link to Making Pickles!