Catching up...

Yes, the blog still exists!! I fell into a trap and can't get out! Lots of posts and then none. Overall, I do suffer from a lack of balance in my entertainment choices. When I got my Kindle, all I did was read. A new season of my favorite shows, I'll watch Hulu. The next season of True Blood in the mail, I'm glued to it, until I've seen every show. If you notice, our first month of this blog had 18 posts, clearly it was a new toy. I stayed steady at a reasonable five posts per month, dropped off the face of the earth all summer, got back in October and died again. This time I'm not even going to resolve to change this. Either I will or I won't. In the meantime I am still recording and photographing meals, although lately that's stopped, since the backlog can only get so big. We did make a book out of the blog postings, let me know if you'd like to buy a copy, it's gotten great reviews so far. That was my shutterfly phase.

What have we been doing all pseudo winter? Eating. Drinking. Hosting parties. Oh, yeah, trying to limit work to 50 hours a week and get to the gym. So, nothing really. I love to host parties. AC loves people, so it works out. Last summer we added a fire pit to our backyard. It replaced a large patch of grass at the bottom of a very uneven hill that was hell to mow. We filled the hill with mulch and rock, put in a fire pit and called it a day. If you're into low maintenance landscaping, I highly recommend it. You don't actually have to use the fire pit, there is no maintenance required if you do, and none if you don't.

So I'll start with our 2nd annual fall fire bonanza. The highlights: three fire pits, a ton of beer and a fabulous s'mores tray. The s'mores tray was born last year. We Christened our fire pit with our niece and nephew who suggested we make s'mores out of Lu's cookies, aka Petit Ecolair aka little schoolboy cookies. You know, the shortbread topped with chocolate stamped with a little schoolboy. It was a pretty awesome discovery. So the party presented the perfect opportunity to go all out. You'll notice the traditional hersheys the aforementioned cookies, ghiradelli filled wafers, graham crackers, chocolate cupcakes, brownies and amaretto wafer cookies. It was a hit.

Thanksgiving. I offer three dishes, food porn if you will. We were asked to bring vegetables and a dessert, AC discovered two recipes we will use again, yes, AC actually uses recipes. All things are possible.

The first was Roasted Red Onions with Tomatoes and Red Wine  courtesy of Lynne Rosetto Casper, one of our favorite sources of inspiration. These onions were awesome. First, they were beautiful and VERY photogenic. Second, they truly captured the very best a red onion could be. Soft, meaty, sweet but savory, absolute success.  Third, the recipe was easy, but required just enough care to feel like we were making a contribution to the laborious process thanksgiving meals can be. Note: the cooking time listed on the recipe is grossly inaccurate. It will take a couple hours. Also, we needed to add more liquid towards the end of the roasting, we used more red wine.


The second dish was equally delicious. Leeks Simmered in Olive Oil another Lynne recipe. This was reminiscent of a Greek lemon soup. Tangy, light, sweet, the rice adding the perfect texture. The leeks were soft and buttery, the parsley giving it a bit of a tabbouleh-ness. All very Mediterranean. Also very easy and very satisfying. It's good to mix it up a bit.





Finally, the dessert. I was overly ambitious and decided to make a pumpkin cheesecake, using my springform pan for the first time (I think I've had it for five years). I have never used the pan and have never made a cheesecake. Furthermore, I decided to significantly change the recipe from cream cheese to chevre. This was a mistake, yielding a beautiful result with a taste I didn't enjoy. The adults at the table, all foodies, liked it because it wasn't "too sweet". I could barely choke it down and my 14-year-old nephew, read, teenage boy, didn't eat more than a bite. Yes, a teenage boy. That says it all. The chevre was a good idea, next time I'll go half chevre and half cream cheese. It was just missing a familiar creaminess, tang and flavor. In my opinion. We were able to finish the leftovers thanks to the AC's whipping up a caramel sauce that would make anything taste amazing.

Oh well, live and learn. It looked pretty though. Oh! One great trick with the pan, hit it with a hair dryer before attempting to remove the sides, worked like a charm.

So, there you go, the highlights of fall. I leave you with two more submissions, just to kick off the first post of the new year.

Oatmeal. Ordinary recipe, extraordinary toppings. Be inspired.

Oatmeal, pears marinated in St. Germaine and topped with brown sugar.

Oatmeal, apples, lavender, nutella. Yes, nutella.