Meeting and greeting

This past Sunday I hosted the MFA meet-&-greet. Now my house is mostly very clean.

No grilling this year. Instead, five (yes, five) salads:

Mixed greens with feta and pecans. My vinaigrette.

Wheat bulgur and corn salad. 

Rice salad with edamame, pistachios, dried cranberries.

Chick pea and parmesan salad.

Watermelon, tomato, feta salad.

I also made some beer bread.

And then there was some fruit.

And some brownies and chocolate chip/espresso chip cookies. The Hello Kitty cookies I did not make. Alas.

Finally, a couple of pics of the table.

Whew. That was a lot. But a good time, I think.

A school night

Sigh.

In any case, watermelon gazpacho:

And The Bread:

And leftover rice salad and the ever-lovely asparagus and peas with basil and shallots:

August shouldn't feel like the end of summer

But it does, when classes begin as early as they do this semester. It's just wrong.

Meantime, here are some delicious things...

Salmon-potato-asparagus salad with a sun-dried tomato vinaigrette, with a slice of The Bread alongside.

Next, an irresistible pad thai with tofu...

...with a side of Best Ever asparagus and peas with shallots and basil.

Then, very simple gnochetti with tomatoes and kale. Nothing to it.

And, as a test run for next weekend's MFA meet-&-greet, a rice salad (wild rice & basmati, edamame, pistachios, dried cherries).

Finally, on the kitten front, we are making progress, as documented below.

Actually, they are now mingling freely, but this pic captures the spirit of the relationship...

How could I...

... forget to post some very important pics? Namely, this apricot and blackberry crostada that I made for my lovely friends Gail, who was visiting town too briefly, and Laura.

And then a few beautiful little tomatoes from my garden...

... and, hmmm, some bread, though I can't remember what kind...

Now, we're caught up.

Oh, August

—So that was July. Much travel. Lots of reading (Lawrence in Arabia and the Bate biography of Keats were the main things; both are recommended). Not enough cooking. But now it's August, and I'm back home, happily.

Some recent highlights, beginning with this eggplant, zucchini, yellow squash, tomato bake that my sweet friend Beth and I shared.

And then a couple of other typical meals... whole wheat gemelli with chicken, pecans, dates...

And a farro salad like the one at the always lovely La Quinta resort (or maybe theirs is like mine... yes, I think that's more accurate). 

This buckwheat bread seemed wintry, at first, but then it just got better and better, especially with some hummus.

And last night, I made these oatmeal-date cookies (with cardamom). Delicious.

Finally, it's Kitten Time here. This is Miss Myrna Loy. She is about 10 weeks old and quite precocious, she wants you to know.

A tomato, some apricots, whatnot

The season's first tomato (not counting cherry tomatoes). An Early Girl. Yes, I won the Samyn tomato growing contest. Given the weather, how could I not?

Quite a bit of basil visible in the background, too...

More of what I think of as "regular food," which is my favorite kind. Chicken with the aforementioned basil; salad with the real-wine-red-wine-vinaigrette mentioned a post or two ago; a slice of The Bread grilled.

And something rather special: "little apricot cakes": lovely is definitely the word.

Finally, summer pleasures include some reading and some sewing (napkins with mitered corners). The attention and care required for the latter are part of the appeal.

Lots of things

Much walking, the usual cooking and baking. These are the highlights.

A lovely hemlock.

A Tiger Cake!, exclamation point required. For my students.

First, on a paper plate, in class...

And then, the last piece, at home after dinner...

It swirled nicely, didn't it? And all by itself, just like the recipe promised.

Today I made a delicious asparagus soup. There are lots of recipes. I used this one, from Epicurious. No cream, though, yes, a dollop on top. And I sautéed the asparagus before adding it. 

The spinach salad has a red wine vinaigrette that I made using this recipe from Food 52. Actual red wine makes the difference here.

And that's The Bread, which I've not made for a few weeks.

Finally, some flowers. First, impatiens on the deck.

And, finally, coneflower (echinacea). I have one on each side of my front porch. They're slightly different, one more orange in the center, one more red...

Oh, almost forgot: here's a little lavender and some Lake Michigan rocks, including a Petoskey stone. The pic is a little dark, but if you know what you're looking for, you'll spot it...