the little things

summer list o' fun

I realized recently that I judge the success of my summer come September based on the number of "Summer Activities" I've enjoyed over the past few months. So far I am feeling very successful in "Operation Summer Fun." All required activities are listed, those with an X have been completed. Oh, and "required" just means I want to do them.

travel somewhere fun (um, Italy!!!)  X

hang out with Ann Arbor friends a lot  X

garden a lot  X

generally do whatever I feel like most days  X

pretty much forget about the stressful parts of school  x (small x because I waffle)

organize the house somewhat thoroughly  ___ (Room o' Fun X, family room X, bathroom X)

make pickles  X

various home improvement projects (recover found stools, reseal patio table) ___

pick strawberries  X

pick raspberries  X

pick peas  X

pick blueberries  X

go to an air show  X  (okay, so that was only added after I went)

cook more  X

take actual homemade food to friends' houses  X

actually harvest the stuff from the garden rather than watching it grow, ripen then wither  X (veggies harvested to date: radishes, arugula, lettuce, peas, beets, turnips, mustard greens, broccoli, herbs and flowers)

attend Manchester Chicken Broil  X

get unhealthy food from Art Fair vendors  X

go to Dominic's  X (done with that for awhile...$25 for a pitcher of sangria? seriously?)

go to the Farmer's Market on a Wednesday  X (twice! once on my bike!)

ride my bike more  X

make more pickles out of other things  ___

make deviled eggs and other summery American food  ___

visit friends out of town  ___ (August!)

go to Minnesota to hang with the fam ___ (August!)

go to the Days of Yesteryear ___

go to a state or county fair ___

go to a water park or at least a fun pool with water slides  X 

hike somewhere fun, especially in MN  ___

Okay, that's it for now. Ha ha ha...that's "it"...anyway. I'm sure there are other things I want to do that I'm forgetting. So far, so good!

more grains and greens!

Well, cooking grains and greens is a lot easier when you do it a bit at a time. So instead of picking, processing (triple washing to get out the grit, cutting out the tough ribs, etc.) and then cooking them all the same day I split it over two days! Brilliant! Yesterday I worked in the garden for awhile, harvested some turnips, beets, kale, and mustard greens, washed them, roasted the beets, steamed the greens and then just put them all in pyrex in the fridge! Then today I cooked some bulgur, pulled out the beets, turnips, greens, some fresh parsley and homemade vinaigrette from the fridge and mixed it together. Obviously it's delicious, if you like these ingredients, so I'm ecstatic! I only spent about 10 minutes putting it all together once the bulgur was done. Hooray for efficient healthy eating!  

oooooh, july!

Over the next week I'm going to eat as many grains and greens as I can (within reason, of course). We're going away for the 4th, so those days don't count; not a lot of restaurants are very into truly healthy foods. Anyway, the other day I made wheat berries with kale, and it was delicious. I used shallots instead of onions, and I'm never going back. They're so much better! Please notice how precious the wheat berries look in that photo--for once I didn't overcook them (read: completely burn to the bottom of the pan). Today I'm going to make hot cereal from bulgur and oats, because that's what we have around here. I'm using the recipe my friend Betty made up. It's on her blog, Caroline's Lunchbox. We'll see how it turns out with my random grains. Later I'm going to pull some beets from the garden and make some yumminess. I'm not that good at turning beets into anything interesting, because usually by the time they're done cooking I end up throwing on some vinaigrette and eating them warm. My goal is to actually use the greens, rather than sticking them in the fridge and forgetting about them.

Well, I made the cereal, and it was great! "Somebody" was using my camera, so I had to wait awhile to take a picture, hence the mushiness. When it was first done it was even prettier! Hooray for grain dish #1 today!

completely unnecessary tutorial on how to shell peas

Step 1. Get a shelling pea.

Step 2. Snap off the top.

Step 3. Pull the string.

Step 4. Open the two halves and look how

cute and cozy those peas are in there.

Step 5. Gently pull your finger down between the shells to loosen the 

peas. They're having a pea party in the bowl. Looks kind of fun, 

doesn't it?

The other day Drew and I picked strawberries and shelling peas at Rowe's Produce Farm. Unfortunately, we forgot to take pictures while we were there. (We also have no photos of the beautiful strawberry shortcakes that I made.) Drew wanted to make a tutorial for how to shell peas. Although it's pretty self-explanatory, there might be someone out there who needs help! 

italia

Well, when I don't write in my blog for 2 months I miss entire seasons. Oops. Well, in all fairness I did write a little bit in spring. So now it's summer, and so far it's going great! We just got back from Italy on Monday night, and it was an amazing time. Since there are over 1100 pictures from our trip, I'm going to post them in themes. Today's theme will be food; the most natural starting place in any discussion about Italy. 

Bologna: cheese stuffed tortelli (basically ravioli) with sage...the best pasta we had on the whole trip

Venice: spaghetti with shrimp, as in the whole shrimp

Lucca: some sort of gorgeous beans

also Lucca: salami for our pre-dinner picnic

Lucca: tortelli #2 of the evening, this one with bacon. Drew was on a quest to try all different tortellis (or tordelli, as it's called in Lucca)

Cinque Terre: stuffed anchovy

Cinque Terre: gnocci with pesto, which was 'invented' in this part of Italy

Cinque Terre: mussels, in case that wasn't obvious

Cinque Terre: black and white tagliolini (I think)...the black is from squid ink. This was tied for the best pasta we had in Italy (with the Bologna tortelli). Drew had trouble getting past the black color; I think it was a case of Green Eggs and Ham.

Roma: Italians love to eat Corn Nuts with their beer.

Roma: gorgeous tomatoes and tiny, beautiful plums

Roma: some of the amazing breads at a bakery we passed. 

Roma: pizza with zucchini flowers on it at a restaurant recommended by Steph and Aaron. 

Roma: same restaurant after we gorged ourselves on good food that didn't break the bank (for once).

 

embroidery

Yay! I'm learning how to embroider!!! Seeing as my mom used to work for Erica Wilson in NYC, this is something that's kind of in my blood. So I used a needle book from a cute felt book (I'm 99% sure that it's this one) as a jumping-off point and made this little number. Considering it's size, it took forever, but it was fun! The stitches I can do so far: satin, fly, chain, split, French knot, four-sided, spider webs, buttonhole, lazy daisy, ...those are the ones I can think of right now. I'm working on a wacky sampler that's done on corduroy. My mom is sending me some awesome contemporary embroidery books mostly from England. Summer is just around the corner, which will be great because working won't get in the way of my real life. Ha ha ha.