and we're back...

four generations of women. a lakeside house with pool and spa. antique and thrift stores within walking distance. good food. good beer. hot afternoons. nights cooled by balmy breezes. yeah, we had fun. and lots of it. the only bad part was packing up to come home!




pizza dough: group effort for a last-minute meal...



my sole attempt at a self-shot photo of myself and the kids. it didn't turn out, but i love it anyway. and check out that life jacket...

organic, from-scratch waffles made on this super-duper-fancy professional waffle maker. they were yum!



ready to go thrifting, with babies in tow...
but first, a historical schoolhouse (which was vintage heaven and surprisingly hands-on!)...



lucy churns the butter...
lucy wanted to know why her "car potty" (an old chamber pot) was on display...
on my "making use of scraps" to-do list... knitted rag rugs


there were so many antique and thrift stores in town--we quite literally didn't have time to hit them all. here are some fun finds (with my purchases coming in a later post...)

"thrifting with the girls??? get me outta here!"

well. it's always good to be home in one piece, but our hearts are a little achy for that swimming pool, and breakfasts taken on the deck overlooking the lake. good thing we've got another trip coming up soon--this time, it's camping!

the simple things...

a fantastic fourth, much of which was spent celebrating the little things. great friends, excellent food, bottles of wine. kids running around all bare-skinned in the backyard with handmade streamers. so good--every last detail.

i can't lay claim any of it, however. my amazing friends did most of the legwork. frying up the chicken, roasting the veggies, preparing the sides. making a few sweet decorations to brighten the yard. amazing souls, my friends.

lucy, hudson and i are off for the week, taking a little vacation. i'm calling it an "un-cation" since jeremy can't come (an annual "girls and babies only" retreat). we'll see. our bags are (almost) packed and lucy knows that there's a swimming pool. 'nuff said. see ya when we get back! happy fourth!

at the pop-up...

last week, we went to this new little thing that's been popping up. the idea is certainly intriguing--artisan foods (local, sustainable, organic and prepared by well-regarded chefs) usually found only in the very best restaurants, available directly for the consumer to heat & eat at home. pizza doughs, sausages, jams, english muffins, soups, pastas, cookies and other things of the like. it sounded like a good time, and so we made the trek out to grace street catering. there we found a bunch of tables, vendors offering up delicious looking stuff--at pretty steep prices. not much of a surprise there, right?

of course, i can make my own pizza doughs and cookies. jam and pasta are on my to-do list. i assume english muffins wouldn't be all that difficult (anyone done it?). i just couldn't drop $14 on a pound of sausages when i can get comparable, local meat at the farmers market for half the cost. and the becker lane pork ribs--of which michael pollan has said "whenever i hear that becker lane pork is available anywhere in the bay area, i go out of my way to get some if it"-- well, i didn't have $45 in my pocket, so we skipped those, too.

but we still had a nice time as a family, checking out the scene. we didn't go home empty-handed, either--i got a quart of summer squash soup ($10) and 8 madagascar vanilla beans (for making extract, $12 for all). we also had a nice pre-dinner pizza (mushrooms, red onion and fontina) before heading home to dig into our soup. not a bad outing!

look at the girl with the fast feet!bare-chested at the pop-up. supposedly there's no better way to do it.

i was amazed that the jam vendor (blue chair) uses real, metal spoons for their tastings instead of plastic throwaways. that's a LOT of spoons.

pizza and people-watching. hudson was a happy guy!

the soup was excellent and i'm sure i'll have plenty of opportunity to try making my own soon--our squash plants are kicking into gear.

ALSO! i got spotted by a reader (and her sweet little daughter). i must admit, i walked around for a moment feeling a little bit famous. until hudson spit up on me. and then i just went back to being my regular self.

:)

homegrown...

the only issue i see with homegrown strawberries is that it's proving impossible to keep up with demand. this comes from a girl who shows only moderate enthusiasm over farmers market or store-bought strawberries, and almost always turns up her nose at a berry that's spent time in the fridge--perfectly ripe or not.

she will, when asked, offer up a few bites to baby hudson. today she even gifted me with a berry, though it had a bite out of it and had been rolled around in the dirt a few times. no telling what was going on there. odd. i did, however, rinse it off and eat it. there's something about a fresh-picked strawberry. perhaps it's in that the flesh is a bit warmed by the sun? so juicy and sweet and delicious. lucy's right--there is no comparison.

we have about 30 strawberry plants. not all are producing well--i need to get some mulch on them to help hold in all that water they need. from these plants, we get about 5-8 berries a day. something tells me that next year we'll need an additional 30-40 plants. maybe then there will be some left for me?