It’s a familiar story: boy meets girl, boy marries girl.

Boy designs a front yard patio for girl, girl coordinates aspects of installation of new pool, boy and girl suddenly learn what it is to be The Clients in a Landscape Architecture Project.

Hm, okay, not such a familiar story.  But wow, intriguing, no?

A familiar story...sort of...

Especially when Boy and Girl are Shawn and Blinda of Your Livable Garden, Houston’s most exciting 2 hours of weekly radio programming (available Saturdays 6-8am on KSEV 700AM, or anytime on www.livablegarden.com).

This week, besides recounting all the interesting aspects of having their new house landscape redone, Shawn and Blinda discuss that ever-popular herb, cilantro, with Janice Teas.  It’s about that time of year when you can plant cilantro, and it’s just the perfect herb for all sorts of cooking. 

My favorite way to serve cilantro?   Chop it up and put it on the table in a little bowl next to some chopped onions and a little salsa for any sort of dish meant to be South of the Border.  There’s really nothing so deliciously fresh as chopped yumions and cilantro on top of a taco.  Simple, vibrant, and crunchily delicious.  You must try it!

But that’s not all the deliciousness going on with the show this week.  Shawn and Blinda also interview Scott, purveyor of incredible grilling recipes through that magnificent blog, www.grillinfools.com . 

This week, Scott shares his Best Fall Grilling Recipe Ever, along with that tasty Halloween treat, Pig Candy.  The latter is not for the faint of heart, and I mean that in an arterial way.  Brown sugar and bacon are definitely foods of the gods, but gods that must spend time on the treadmill to keep their cardiovascular systems in check.  Drooling already?  Check out his site, or better yet, click on the audio file for this week’s show and listen to him describe it himself (again, that’s www.livablegarden.com ).

But back to the meat of the story.  Shawn and Blinda are on the other end of the landscape design/build spectrum now, and it’s really fun to see.  Not only was the gunite shot in this morning for their pool in the back yard, the sprinklers for the front were installed while Mirror Lake’s crew worked on their hidden basin fountain. 

Oh yeah, and the garage door guy showed up.  It was a regular party of subcontractors.  I think the neighbors are going to start dragging chairs out to their front yards to watch.  Or even better, they’ll call Mirror Lake to have a front courtyard installed where they may gather in style and comfort to watch all of this unfold.

But for those of you who can’t see this happening in person, here are a few photos to enjoy!

Shawn discusses the finer aspects of plumbing with Marcos

The foreman of Mirror Lake inspects Shawn's hidden basin fountain

Definitely the most exciting part of building pools

Loud, messy, and powerful...what's not to love about a gunite shoot?

Anyway, there will be more updates as the project unfolds…stay tuned!