I made a beautiful pie

Strawberry Rhubarb - probably the most beautiful pie I've ever made. Not to brag but, well isn't that kind of what blogs are for? Thanks Mom, for making me a baker.

I got the recipe from my favorite food blog:


Except, I used my mom's crust recipe which never fails. You too, can make a pie crust!
1 1/2 C Flour
1/2 C shortening - I use organic vegetable shortening
1/3 C ice cold water
1 t salt
(double the recipe if making a top)



That's it! You need a pastry cutter, cloth and covered rolling pin. Cut together the flour, salt and shortening, then add the water a little at a time until it holds together when pinched (sometimes you need more, sometimes less). You want to touch it as little as possible, so once you think it's ready transfer to a lightly floured pastry cloth and roll out from the center with your rolling pin.


Flip your pie dish over on top of what you've rolled out and make sure you have about 2" overlap all the way around. If you have excess on one side, you can cut it off and patch the spots that need it by "gluing" it on with a little water.


Transfer to your pie dish, cut around the edge so you only have about 1/2"-3/4" of overhang, then pinch around the outside for a decorative edge.

You can do it!

Springtime Garden Adventures

This ones for the people that care about what's happening in my garden - my favorite thing to talk about. I know that's not everyone :)
I've been really enthusiastic about adding more to the garden this year and since it was such a mild winter I thought I'd get off to an early start. But then, I got nervous about starting TOO early, and I put off starting some seeds that then I never got around to. Dangit.

I did get a head start on tomatoes because they are always the prize of the garden and I feel like I never have enough; so this year I tried 8 tomato starts and 3 eggplants in what I thought was going to be a totally genius idea. I took TP rolls (this part I got from Pinterest) and filled them with soil, then set them into a lettuce container and put another container on top to create a mini-greenhouse. However, I'm just not diligent enough to make sure that the lid is on when it's pouring rain and off when it's really hot and on at night when it gets chilly and making sure the soil stays wet-but-not-too-wet. ugh. Sooo, they germinated... then they did nothing. Some of them are still holding on pretending to be alive and stringing out my hopes, but mostly, I've accepted that I'm going to have to make a trip to the farmer's market and bite the bullet. Notice there is one nice tomato start in a yogurt container from my sweet next door neighbor that doesn't speak English, but somehow we manage to communicate and share quite a bit throughout the year.

Curb alert! Chris and I carried this from down the street - a perfect garden table, plus storage FA-FREE!

I really thought this lavender wasn't coming back and was about to toss it when I thought I'd trim it back and noticed there was still some green to be seen. I gave it some time and lo and behold there is new growth! Hooray!

Stupid slugs.

I have had some garden enemies in past seasons. Mostly, my fights have been with cats that think my planters are nice places to sleep and poop. Gross. I've fashioned some good barriers to keep them out while the plants are still little. I've fought with squash bugs a lot - mostly they end up winning. Squirrels haven't been too much of a problem except for the time we grew sunflowers - they liked those. But this is the first time I've had to pick a fight with birds! They keep chomping on various leaves - especially the peas. I bought some netting to keep them away, but now I'm thinking there is a good chance they are not after the leaves, but the slugs on the leaves. I've basically waged all out war on the slugs, so if the birds want to be my allies, I will let them chomp my leaves a little bit. Actually, my chinese neighbor and I had a moment together as we were outside at 11pm killing slugs and sharing our various methods. She was using chopsticks to pick them up and dunk them in salt water - I was using scissors and salt water. Really gross but I probably eliminated about 50 slugs. 

I don't remember how I came across this video but I was pretty impressed with this guys garden, so I thought I'd try a couple of upside down planters myself. I'm growing a tomato (not sure what kind since it sprouted up out of my compost) and a jalepeno - I've got basil on top of both of them. I've heard that this approach is supposed to be better for keeping away pests, but I've already seen a couple of aphids on the tomato so we'll see about that!

My salad bowl! I have another one in the works. So nice to have fresh greens on your plate every night!

Beans and beets and some kind of squash (I planted pattypan and crookneck -
not sure which one came up) and a screen to keep the cats out!

These hops are out of control! We gave them higher poles to climb this year and they have already topped those out at about 16 feet! (Also note our neighbor's pretty roses) Chris and Micah just used all the hops from last year in yesterday's pale ale brewing!

 

Unfortunately this beautiful planter that Chris made isn't holding up. He's working on fixing it, we didn't know we'd still be using them after 5 years. not really built to last - now we know better!

Strawberries in my old bike basket

And finally - my prized possession! My birthday gifts this year, a pear tree from Chris, and a big barrel planter from Emily  (yes they coordinated)!
My fist venture into growing fruit and I'm so excited (look! it already has a pear!). Also, it is the only tree in my backyard so it gets special love and attention. Also, I learned how to prune properly at Edible Schoolyard this year so I'm already looking forward to next Spring!

This is the latest experiment - Chris set up a soaker hose attached to our huge stock pot that I got on Craigslist several years ago. We have to dump buckets of rain water into the top for now but it's better than hauling watering can after watering can to keep everything happy.

Home Improvement and Tacos

This week marks our 5 year anniversary of getting the keys to 423 63rd Street. We love our sweet apartment and still think we have about the greatest deal in NYC. We recently repainted the living room for the first time since we moved in - changing from a warm yellow to a calm blue. Also painted the bathroom for the first time, hung shelves, replaced ceiling tiles and recaulked
the tub!





























The longest I have lived in any house was in Germany for 6 years at ages 1-7 years; so 5 years in these five rooms (six including the backyard!) feels like forever! Our house is up for sale and we would love to buy it but still need to figure out if we can manage it (especially before I get a job!). It's so hard to think about moving when you feel like you've settled into every nook and cranny of your home. Also, this move would be an absolute nightmare; our friends that have helped us move three times have basically laughed in our faces when we brought up moving out of here. One of the biggest feats would be the backyard. See, you don't just have dirt in NYC. If you want to grow things you must buy soil or compost it yourself. We've done both, and we have A LOT of soil filling pots and large, heavy planters in the backyard. Soil that I'm simply not willing to leave behind. It's mine. I invested time and money into it and it's coming with us when (if) we go.

In one of our five rooms, we like to make tacos. I took pictures of it one night:

Kitchen Adventures...

When we are not traveling, we bring the adventures to us. Adventures at home frequently come in the kitchen. When Chris and I met, the first thing he made me was "Steve Rossi Spaghetti" - basically pasta with stewed tomatoes, black olives, garlic and artichoke hearts. Squishing the tomatoes with our hands was like a Ghost moment, - I was totally impressed and a little weak in the knees. We still make this but now with homemade pasta and a little additional spice in the sauce.

The first thing I made for Chris was pancakes in my mom's kitchen - he was impressed with my memorized "from scratch" recipe (1c flour, 1c milk, 1 egg, 1T baking powder!). Somehow we both convinced one another that we knew how to cook when in fact we both admitted, we didn't know how to make much. For the first year in NYC we had pasta QUITE often - typically with sauteed chicken breast, peppers and onions. Some other staples of the first year or two:
-sloppy joes, mac and cheese, chicken ala king, fajitas, tacos, apple pancakes.

However, over the past 8 years of convincing ourselves that we knew what we were doing... we kind of learned what we were doing.


Chris has tackled Indian, Middle Eastern and Thai dishes and gotten creative to keep the kitchen from overheating in the summertime. Some of his other specialties are killer pizza, bread and beer!

I am typically drawn to pretty recipes. I like to make involved meals which I regularly get me overwhelmed - I am slowly learning how to time a meal and am reminded over and over again of the need to read a recipe through thoroughly before starting. Sometimes when I cook, we end up eating dinner at 10pm, but I will say it's pretty much always delicious!

We are also both very skilled at making a mess in the kitchen. Until we live somewhere with a dishwasher, "clean as you go" is something we need to work on. This is, in fact, Steve Rossi Spaghetti mess...

I have loved having this summer to cook and try to get something from our garden into every meal. This year we grew 3 kinds of tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant, green peppers, cabbage (which got attacked by something, complete waste of space), swiss chard, beets, carrots, radishes, peas, lettuce, potatoes and some herbs: parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme... basil, oregano, and mint.


I figured as long as I'm going to make picture perfect meals, I might as well start taking pictures! Here are some of our recent delicious adventures:

MAINE!

This all comes up because we just got back from another fantastic trip, this one may have topped them all. 12 incredible days in Maine.

8/2: Camped at Flander's Bay Campground on Frenchman's Bay. A beautiful spot right on the water. Arrived after dark and quickly set up camp. Walked down to the rocky beach and gaped at the gazillions of stars for a long while. Very soft ground!
8/3: Biked about 12 miles on Eastern Greenway, lots of mosquitoes! Biked another 12 mi. down to Schoodic Point, part of Acadia NP. Night 2 at FBC: Chris picked up lobster from a closeby restaurant while I cooked up some corn on the fire. Amazing campground meal!
8/4: Drove into Acadia NP. Set up camp at Blackwoods Campground, lush and beautiful, balsam firs, ferns and cushy moss everywhere. A little gravelly on the site, not quite as comfortable for sleeping but we had mats. A steady drizzle kept up through lunch but we decided to go ahead with our 20 mile bike ride. Chris wore plastic bags over his shoes and I wore his shoe covers and arm warmers which were both way too big. A pretty hilly ride but not too many cars on the road. We had a few clearings every now and then and stopped halfway during a sunny break and recharged with a Clif bar... then it started raining again. We laughed our way through it and loved every second. Back at the site we got warm, dry clothes on and drove to Bar Harbor for dinner at McKay's (more lobster!) and some souvenir shopping.
8/5: I headed back out to the road and picked a bunch of wild blueberries and Chris made some delicious blueberry pancakes! Packed up and drove to the top of Cadillac Mountain, picked some blueberries and did some yoga. Drove to Portland. My mom was there as a surprise for Bill's birthday along with his sisters, their husbands and an old friend. The surprisers went out to Seawater Grille for a delicious dinner on the bay that night. Back at the beautiful Danforth Inn we drank some beer and played billiards until late in the basement with Mom.
8/6: Breakfast at the Danforth then Chris and I rode our bikes to the Crab Shack in Cape Elizabeth where we were meeting to surprise Bill. We got there just after Mom and everyone else and Bill still had tears in his eyes and a huge grin on his face when we walked up the stairs.
We took a scenic route back to Portland (35mi total), showered and changed then headed to Bill's daughter's house for the birthday party and lobster boil!
It was great to get to know Bill's family a little better and toast the great person he is.
We planned to camp at the Burke's that night but the noise of the rain and foghorns drove us inside to cozy couches. (Thanks Burkes!)
At some point during this day Chris comes to the conclusion that there is too much to do yet in the only 2 days we have planned, and proposes that we stay another week. It doesn't take long for me to agree.
8/7: Planned to drive to Eastport to camp, but it's raining pretty hard and we're tired so we drive to Bangor and stay at the Charles Inn. It feels good to get all of our stuff reorganized, take a shower and sleep in a bed. We walk over to Paddy McGrath's for a pint and sleep like a couple of rocks.
8/8: Back in the car! We complete the drive to Eastport and set up camp at Seaview Campgrounds. Our site does, in fact, have a view of the sea. The fog horns are wailing again and as the night rolls in we feel like we are actually camping in a cloud. We snack on chips and salsa and cook up some kielbasa for dinner.
8/9: Leftover kielbasa with scrambled eggs for breakfast as well as some wild blueberries from our site with yogurt. Reorganized our stuff to take the essentials with us for a little camping adventure. Drove to Lubec (easternmost point in US), parked at the West Quoddy lighthouse and strapped our packs to the back of our bikes. Rode 18 miles of hills (not something I'm used to with an extra 40 pounds on my bike) to the Bold Coast Trail. It was a beautiful day, 75 degrees and sunny and the 6 mile hike through seriously rugged terrain was tough but fun. It seemed like as soon as you got used to one terrain it would change: craggy boulders, climbing tree roots like ladders, crossing creeks on natural bridges, an easy mulchy trail amid the delicious scent of balsam firs, a rocky path engulfed in the smell of seawater, a soft mossy path, and tall grasses where the trail almost disappears (what did I forget?). It was simply incredible. It took us about 4.5 hours to hike the 6 miles and we came across 3 other parties: a single guy, a middle-aged couple and two young women with a dog.
We reached the remote campsite when my legs were about to give in. It was the first site of three but we were pretty sure we were the only two people around. There was a fire ring and a pit latrine and a fantastic view of the ocean. (I was SURE I would see a whale... didn't). We had an hour of sunlight left and our flashlight died so we hurried to set up camp and Chris hunted for firewood. It turned out that the moon was so incredibly bright that we didn't even need to hurry. We got the fire going, Chris boiled some water he'd collected from a fresh spring (the water was brown and tasted like iron, but according to him it was fine for making coffee).
8/10: 5 a.m. RAIN. Crap. Pulled on the rain fly and snuggled back to sleep for a couple more hours. Still raining. We could sleep for another hour and see if it stops? Still raining. Oh, well. Time to break everything down and head back to the car. Plastic bags over the socks, packs on and back out into the varied terrain. Now we had more creeks, swamps and rock-hopping to do and this persistent rain is what makes this area so green with moss and ferns that it was hard to do anything but embrace it. My steps started to get heavy and slow and we were SOAKING wet, but the rain did stop eventually and we were mostly dealing with the aftermath. We picked blueberries along the way and felt refreshed each time the scene changed.
8/11: Back to the Charles Inn in Bangor to dry out. We set up our tent inside the room and draped most of our belongings over the chairs, TV, doors, and dressers. We thought we deserved a really good dinner and found it at Fiddlehead Restaurant (lobster lasagna for Chris, salmon with fiddleheads on top for me).
8/12: Packed up our stuff and took our time heading to Searsport. Stopped on the way for breakfast in Ellsworth and worked out our sore legs stopping into a couple of antique stores and other cute shops. Stopped at Atlantic Brewing Company for a tour, some samples and lunch and bought plenty of beer to take with us.
This was the most cushy camping we'd done on this trip or ever. More family style long-term camping. There were lots of RVs and I think over 100 sites, but we were quite separate in a "no kids" section with beautiful ocean views. We had perfect weather for the whole stay and got to feel a little more settled with three nights in one spot. Made some delicious campfire nachos for dinner.
8/13: Slept late, and snacked a leisurely breakfast of yogurt and fruit. Drove to Deer Isle a little over an hour away and rented a Kayak at Old Quarry Campgrounds. This seemed like a much more chill place to stay than at Oceanfront which had a few too many rules for our taste. We had the kayak for 4 hours and after about 45 minutes we realized we were going to need beer. We paddled up to Stonington and I ran up to get some at the Fisherman's Friend Convenience Store (I had luckily thought ahead here and brought my ID because everyone seems to card in Maine). We paddled across to Rock Island with a sandy beach and hiked around a little bit and took in the beauty of Deer Isle. Chatted with some friendly Canucks upon our return and decided that we could easily spend an entire week on Deer Isle, kayaking from island to island to camp, eating lobster and drinking good beer (maybe next summer?).
"I can't describe Deer Isle. There is something about it that opens no door to words." ~ John Steinbeck.
8/14: Woke up to another beautiful day. Drove to Kennebunkport and rode bikes around gaping at the huge coastal homes. Ate lunch at the original Shipyard Brewery - Federal Jack's Brew Pub and bought some saltwater taffy. Started heading home, noticed traffic was looking pretty bad so we stopped and saw Cowboys and Aliens (really). Passed through Ogunquit which looks like a pretty cute little town with a strong gay community. Chris drove the remaining 6 hours home through some pretty heavy rain and we were unloading the car at 1am.

Amazing.


This is a long post, I know. Jon Barsness is a man of fewer words: "Maine is fucking beautiful." It's true.

Professional Vacationeers

First picture of us together :)

Today marks 8 years of Chris and I as a "we." I like doing stuff, and in these last 8 years I've gotten to do most things with my partner (or by myself and supported by him).


Chris and I often compliment ourselves on how great we are at vacationing. We are pros. We have gone on some amazing trips, and I've decided to keep a little log of our adventures. I used to be really good at journaling, but not so much anymore. So, mostly the details here are for me to remember our adventures, but if you enjoy them - they're here for you too. Also, if you need any help planning a trip, let us know!
Here are a few key pictures from our big adventures in the past 5 years (I make Chris kiss me in a lot of pictures...)

Munich & Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany (Sep, '06)


Kailua-Kona, Hawaii (Jan, '07) & Maui, Hawaii (Dec, '07)


Portland, OR - Crater Lake - Redwood National Forest (Jun '08 - Honeymoon!)

Skiing in Rutland, VT (Feb, '09), Paris (July, '09)



Skiing in Vail, CO with Bonds (Feb, '10)

Not to mention countless trips to Wisconsin, Kansas, Missouri and Maryland to visit family and many camping trips (Poconos, Adirondacks, Tobyhanna, Del Water Gap, the list goes on...).











This year we also returned to Vermont in February and skied at Killington and Pico.

** For some reason when this publishes it doesn't look the way it does in the draft so the pictures aren't necessarily aligned with the labels. Oh well.