Mud Pie

These are our pics from our Spain night that we forgot to include in our previous blog.




Along with exercising, sewing, and reading, cooking made it onto my summer "musts" list. Having a garden lends itself to cooking expeditions. I have done everything from pick, to can, to bake, to fry this summer. I feel like my life has definitely revolved around food. Through my cooking expeditions I have undoubtedly had my ups and downs. Actually, it seems like the more I have been cooking the worse I have gotten. I can't figure it out.

I have always been an experimental cooks of sorts; rarely cooking the same thing twice. However, I have found those recipes that are just too good not to make again. This summer, and in particular over the past few weeks, I just haven't been able to figure out if my failed attempts have been bad recipes, me, or just that I am in need of a break from the kitchen. It very well could be a combination. Often times I will find myself either taking a shorter route or substituting for an ingredient that I don't have on hand. But, I will say that I have also been pretty skeptical about some of the recipes I have used. My more recent failure was a Paula Deen recipe for peach shortcakes which was in much need of some sugar to be called a dessert. I had some peaches that we had put up last year that I needed to use up. Other food flops of mine this summer have been biscuits and pie crust. I had some fried okra that just turned out mediocre, too. Should I just draw the conclusion that I wasn't meant to be a lady of the South?

On the contrary, I can say that I have also made some delish dishes this summer. On the top of the list would have to be zucchini chocolate chip cookies; a beet salad with spinach, goat cheese, and pecans; and a pretty tasty gumbo. My most successful dishes have been inspired by what the garden is producing at the time, and, like I said, I have been canning. If anything this winter, we will definitely have food. I have enjoyed learning how to preserve the harvest (extended gratitude to Sam's mom and my mom). Thankfully, even though we had a pretty long dry snap this summer, the garden has been fruitful. I have canned 25+ cans of beans (this is what I am most sick of), 13 jars of blackberry jam, 10 pints of salsa, and 12 quarts of tomato sauce. I surely take comfort in knowing where my food comes from but will not hesitate to say how much work it is.
To bring balance to all of this food, Sam and I have also started training for a 6 or 7K. I am not sure what 4.2 miles is classified as. It is not only a run but a mud run. This means that you basically submerge yourself in muddy water and then go run the race stopping about every quarter mile to do an obstacle. When you think obstacles, think boot camp. This race is put on by the USMC. Proceeds go to Marine families. I don't really know what sparked this endeavor, but Sam, Jon, Christian, and I will all embark on this together. The race is September 25th, and I have been training about a month now. Running has never really been my thing. I have always thought I was terrible at it, and it just never appealed to me. I can say that running the past month has made it less of a chore because I have seen progress. I started out being able to run .5 miles, and I have built up to 3 miles. I guess you could say I have made a lot of ground. Sam is a pretty good runner, so he hasn't had to train as much. I guess once I build up to the 4.2 miles I will start running with extra weight to simulate running with mud. The following is a link to the Mud Run if you want more information: http://www.usmcmudrun.org/

Anyways, it looks like I am going to get a break from the kitchen as we are heading out West tomorrow for one last hoorah before school starts back!

Enjoy.

Paper Celebration

Among other things, we recently celebrated our one year wedding anniversary. If you know us, then you know that when we celebrate, we do it right. Whole days, or even weeks are dedicated to a single important event. For instance, if you roll with the Summers', you don't get a birthday; you get a birthday week. What can we say? We just know how to have a good time.
The anniversary celebration kicked off by taking in the Montford Park Players rendition of King Lear accompanied by a 12 Bones picnic. A side note, you must know that everything we do, we do for a very thoughtful purpose. We chose to go to Shakespeare in the Park because this was our 2nd hang out pretty early on in the relationship gig. I really can't even call it a date. Our first "date" was Ultimate Ice Cream. From there, I invited him to go see Much Ado About Nothing with me and my friends Jon and Christian. Sam reluctantly came because he thought that Jon and Christian were both boys that he would have to compete with for my affections. Little did he know, and he soon found out because he decided to come anyways, they were another couple. 12 Bones was our meal of choice because it was where we had our rehearsal dinner. Keep in mind, we actually went to see King Lear the night before our actual anniversary. Technically, I guess we were celebrating the anniversary of our rehearsal dinner. :)
On a not so romantic note, after the play we decided to go play on the playground. The playground was dark, and we have heard that Montford can be a little shady, but we decided that people were still hanging around after the play, so it would be safe. We took the chance because at this playground they have the really cool old school swings with the metal handles that you have to pump with your arms. While we were swinging I saw four shady figures approaching, which I immediately brought to Sam's attention. As soon as Sam spotted who I was talking about, we scampered toward the car. They were making their way toward us pretty quickly, and I don't feel like they had very good intentions for they were hollering such things as "Hey shorty," and "Hey kitty-kitty." Unless they had lost their cat, we figured they were talking to me. And not to discredit Sam's chivalry, under ordinary circumstances he would have stood up for my honor, but was smart to just hop in the car. No worries, though, we made it safely home, all belongings in tact.

On Saturday, the day of our actual anniversary, we began our day with a little partner yoga. After this, we showered and donned our tie dye shirts I made for us at a party I went to. We were going to go on a hike, but decided just to go walk around Beaver Lake. Like the play, a lot of the "magic" also took place at Beaver Lake. We have spent many a day walking around there. I remember we also went there pretty early on, and afterward, Sam invited me back to his place for his specialty: quesidillas. Anyways, on Saturday, we got lunch from Artisan and took it to the bird sanctuary to eat. The reason we specifically chose Artisan for our lunch is because they catered our wedding. We enjoy going there. The people who work there are very friendly and still remember us. They were grateful to get to be a part of our special day again. While we were eating we saw a guy on a self-propelled bicycle attached to what looked like a parachute take off and fly away. I'm guessing there is also a motor that somehow figures in. I used to see the guy flying around at my old apartment. I have always been curious about him.

Upon leaving the lake, we moseyed around downtown at the Art in the Park and checked out the newly revamped park. It was pretty nice. I really like the spastic, spouting fountains you can run through; those are really fun. After this we got lemonade and returned home. We decided that we would cook dinner. We had peas from the garden, squash zucchini cakes (also made with ingredients from the garden) and crab cakes. We opened a bottle of wine we had saved from our wedding, and after dinner, we cut into the top of our wedding cake. It definitely didn't taste like frozen cake, it was delicious! While I know it is bad to carry a grudge, and I didn't really carry it all year, but was reminded of it on my anniversary, I got Sam back for shoving cake up my nose during the cutting of the cake :) Once dinner was cleaned up (and Sam), we looked at our wedding album, I tried on my wedding dress, and we listed to The Avetts sing the sentimental version of "Swept Away."

So this was more so our immediate celebration. If you remember, last year we went to Spain for our honeymoon and just arrived back in the states for the 4th of July. To celebrate our honeymoon, we went on a little local adventure. We went to Navitat! It was pretty amazing! If you are local you have probably seen the billboards around town with the squirrel in the harness. (FIY: on Tuesdays there is a 20% local discount) It is a canopy tour that takes about 3.5 hours to complete. First, you are driven up a large mountain in an ATV. Then you get to glide through 10 ziplines of various heights, speeds, and lengths. The lines start off pretty gentle, so that you get used to it. As the course continues, the zip lines get increasingly more intense. The longest zip was 1100 feet long. The highest was 250 feet high, and the fastest was 35 miles per hour. There were also 2 repels and two rope bridges. It was a great time. We thought it was totally worth the time and money, and we encourage people to try it! There was an 80ish year old man named Van in our group. It was his second time, and he was still in great spirits. Whenever he pushed off the platform onto the zip line, he would let out a loud "WHOOPIE," "YIPEE," or a whistle.

We also had a Spain night last night to relive our Spain trip. We cooked paella, drank our bull full of sangria from Spain, and listened to Spanish music, all while wearing our awesome matador and flamenco dancer aprons! As you can tell, whenever we go to explore a place, the food is a pretty important part.


What a wonderful year it has been, and what a wonderful anniversary. Apparently year one is known as the paper anniversary. Sam's parents got us a big container of different paper products. I was thinking that money was paper, but was disappointed to find out that it was actually cloth. I guess that is why it can be laundered. I think we can now officially stop celebrating the big occasion. We are looking forward to year two, and we know that for us, there will always be a reason for celebration as we live life to fullest and continue to be blessed!!

On a non-anniversary note, right after Navitat, since we were already a little north of Asheville, we drove up to Kennett Square, P.A. to visit my brother and three nieces. We engaged in three pretty intense days to of playtime, but it was all very enjoyable. Listening to live music in the park with a picnic, a street festival, visiting a craft brewery, getting good ice cream, going to Longwood Gardens and seeing the spring flowers in bloom, visiting Fort Delaware, and spending some good quality time with the girls are just a few things that we did while we were up there. Sam has also picked up a useful skill: the ability to play peek-a-boo and read a book at the same time, thus entertaining two kids at once. My brother Mark also set out on the next chapter in his life. He moved to Idaho for a really exciting job opportunity. I am excited for him as this opportunity offers a lot of potential in many regards. In less than a month we will travel out that way ourselves and explore some of the surrounding parks. We gave him a proper send-off by throwing him a shindig that involved banana splits. Get it? Make like a banana and split.
P.S. did yo notice that the cats didn't make an appearance in this blog?

The Cat Days of Summer

Today officially marks the beginning of my summer break. Sam has been out for a few days longer, so me having to work until even a little later in the year has seemed that much more excruciating. The end of the year doesn't leave you very fresh. Yesterday, me and my content team were trying to plan for next year and come up with a pacing guide. It really just wasn't happening. Sitting around staring at each other as we tried to throw out ideas and wrap our heads around next year was just visible proof of how burned out a person gets at the end of the school year, especially one that has seemed to last FOREVER...yesterday WAS June 15...what do you expect? So thinking about next year at this point was useless. Ask me to have fresh, exciting, creative plans on August 12. To further prove my stress I went to the dentist yesterday, overall good report, but I have been clenching my teeth lately. I have seriously just started noticing it over the past few months. But anyway, I have to get a night guard. Super lamo!
I am now officially tucking away school "stuff" into the dusty depths of my brain. HELLO SUMMER! Words that come to mind: Freedom! Reading! Yoga! Cooking! Relaxing! Gardening! Heat! Humidity! Curly hair! Cats! Shedding! Snakes! (my list has gone from good to not so good!)

So far the weather has been pretty perfect for gardening: lots of warmth and sunshine mixed with intermittent rain showers to keep the stuff growing. While this is boding well for the garden this year, there are some not so positive sides to the heat and the rain. We just recently (Monday) could stand no air conditioning for any longer. After consecutive days of 85+ degree weather and not much of a cooling off at night, the house was well-gross. While we were beginning to be uncomfortable, you can bet that those two woolly mammoths we own were getting pretty miserable. We would come home and they would just be lounging on the floor as if to say this is the lowest point in the house...we would really just like to crawl under a rock...you try surviving this heat with all of this hair! So, I think seeing them so miserable was the deciding factor. We were a little hesitant because the past few months' low electric bills were pretty fabulous after a pretty brutal winter. Speaking of brutal winter, the cats have had a HORRIBLE shedding season this year. The worse they have EVER had! Word on the street from a groomer of a friend is that because of the long frigid winter we had this year, all animals grew thicker coats. He said that all of the animals he has groomed this year have had exceptionally thick coats. Well you might say 2 things: 1.) Weezy and Delilah are indoor cats. 2.) Get them shaved. To answer to your observations, yes they are indoor cats, BUT because they grew such thick coats just shows how incredibly hard it is to heat our house and how cold it was in here this winter. And, yes, I have definitely thought about getting them shaved. Instead of sweeping,which just stirs up the hair, I am vacuuming.
Another downside to the current weather trends is that the frequent rain is leading to a more frequent need for mowing. A few weeks ago, when we let the the grass get just a little bit high, Sam happened upon a black snake. It was a pretty large snake. Probably about 5 feet long and 2-3 inches in diameter. Sam is terribly scared of snakes, and wouldn't have noticed it had the snake not had its head lifted out of the grass. Sam poked it with a long stick to get it to slither along into the next yard. We didn't want to kill it because black snakes are supposed to be good for keeping rodents and other, more dangerous snakes away. However, I did hear that black snakes are a pretty big predator of birds, which already don't really stand a chance around here with all the feral cats. I really feel bad about having a bird feeder hanging from our front porch. I feel like it is just bait for the birds, and the cats have become a little too accepting of us in their neighborhood because they have started to leave us presents (i.e. 1 and a half dead birds on the porch today).
Heat also means that my hair is curly. I really don't know why it takes me until this time of year for the past few years to realize that I can wear my hair curly with very little effort. Winter, while cold and isolating, makes for a very nice hair and skin season. It takes way too much effort during the summer to have perfectly straight, smooth hair. It takes a fraction of the time to just air dry it and have curls. Plus, it isn't as hot because I don't have to use the hair dryer.
MMMmmm chips and salsa! (and saucy curls!)
Our matching humidity swooshes! Check out the bang curls!

Speaking of heat, I just got steam burnt on my finger checking out our cabbage rolls in the oven! Ouch!
Although I will say, we are beginning to eat more and more meals that rely wholly on what we are producing in the garden, which is pretty exciting. Last weekend we had a salad, minus the feta, that was made completely from veggies grown in our garden. Today we are having cabbage wraps that contain broccoli, peppers, squash, onions, and cabbage grown from the garden. There is nothing better than eating home grown stuff! Hopefully a reduction in the grocery bill will justify the air conditioning being turned on :)
On a positive note, we are truly grateful for everything we have and jobs that allow us to have generous breaks. We are kicking our summer off in style by celebrating our 1 year wedding anniversary! Which we are ecstatic about. I mean how many couples do you know that make each other laugh to the point of tears on average two times a week? I think we are just going to hang out and retrace our steps that we took about this time last year. The big thing we are doing for our anniversary won't happen for another few weeks. I am hesitant to reveal too many details, because I am pretty sure we will have a whole blog dedicated to the occasion ;) Other summer plans for me include recovering the bar stools in the kitchen, scrapbooking our Spain trip last summer, cooking, yoga, reading. Sam plans to carve, do some geneological research, finish a children's book he has been working on, and gardening. How many people can say they have a few months to dedicate to pursuit of personal interests? We are very fortunate. We also have a pretty big trip out West booked. We are going to visit my brother, Mark, who is moving to Idaho for a job (he will be greatly missed). We are going to Yellowstone, The Tetons, Jackson Hole, and SLC, hopefully while we are out there. I am currently reading a book recommended by Sam, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, which is pretty excellent. We are co-reading a book by Barbara Kingsolver called The Lacuna, which is also pretty excellent. I like reading a book with Sam. It is neat getting to read a book out loud and talk about it. However, I hope to finish my solo book by Saturday. On Saturday I hope to start reading The Gastronomy of Marriage. It is a food memoir; I'm a sucker for food memoirs ::shrugs:: plus it seems like perfect timing because it is our anniversary. Well, I feel that this is a sufficient update. The next update should be pretty exciting and maybe more relaxed since we will have had more time to be engulfed in summer! Let's hope on a double rainbow!
A little pre-summer grilling. Sam looking manly!

P.S. On a very fun plant note, our orchids re-bloomed! I have never had luck with orchids! They just popped open over night! I also have a beautiful calla lily that is so big it fits in would fit in the palm of your hand!

If you build it, they will grow... and bugs and weeds will follow

Hello fellow brethren and sistren of the soil. Farmer Sam here with a quickie garden update.

Well, here's the spread and the woman.


Now, I'm not sure this picture will do the plot justice. This is the lower end, and it is hard to see the other half. You should know that all of this is not mine. Kellie's parents and two of their friends have been planting some stuff here too.


Well, this here that your lookin' at is my little piece. Got a few peas goin' good and some broccoli. Back behind those strung up greasy cut short beans (that you can't buy at a store) are some potatoes and such that Kellie's parents have put in.
Now, we got one thing that ain't goin' too well and that's eggplant. Dadburn bugs been eatin' 'em up. Some sort of black poppin' bug. Eat ever one of 'em just like these. Actually, this picture looks like a picture of dirt because that's about all there is to it.

Well now, here's something funny.
Have you ever seen a pepper growin' straight up like that? It's a Hungarian Wax, and maybe they do that, but someone could have also grabbed the viagra instead of the fertilizer.
Well, now here's a pretty picture!
Beans getting ready to grow up strings!
Now, with a garden this size, we'll probably have a TON of food. Which means we are ready to quit teaching and sell produce full time. Well, maybe eventually. We are exploring avenues to sell produce. Perhaps tailgate markets, perhaps boxes full of produce. Let us know if you are interested or have an idea!
I'm also trying to grow avacado trees on our front porch. MMMMmmm guacamoleeeeee...

Speaking of food, tonight I made lettuce wraps that were a thousand times better than that chain Chinese food restaurant.Here's the recipe. Basically, just make the sauce, or come as close as you can. Then pour it on a mix of sauteed veggies (pepper, onion, carrots are a good start), maybe a meat (we did tempeh), and peanuts. The roll it up on some fresh head lettuce, straight from my parents' garden. Delicious.

Special Sauce

• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup water
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar (we used white wine vinegar)
  
• 2 tablespoons ketchup
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1/8 teaspoon sesame oil (we didn't use this)
  
• 1 tablespoon hot mustard
• 1-2 teaspoon garlic and red chile paste (use what you have here)
  

For dessert, the wife surprised me with ice cream, fresh strawberries, and chocolate sauce! Well, that about "wraps" it up. Our friends Matt and Tanya, purveyors of delicious bread, owners of Yellow Dog Bakery, have had some deer problems in their garden in RALEIGH. And my friend Andrew's been busy with a garden of his own.

A kitchen update will be coming soon.

Savasana in Savannah

I know we promised this earlier, but life has been crazy lately. For example, Kellie came home today to a dying bird in the front yard and a half eaten mole on the porch. The bird was later carried away and killed by a feral cat just as Kellie stepped outside. On top of that, I have a literal pain in my neck, weeds in the garden, and the possibility of Kellie's Hoodfinite (Woodfin + Hood) students who might try to steal my basil plants on the porch because Kellie kicked them out of her class. And Kellie spilled yogurt in her new car, got a bruised hand trying to clean it up, and her back just about went out on her. Oh summer, will you ever arrive? May is the hardest month. But, on the bright side, we got to see our dear friends Mathew and Becca married and many man dear friends who came in for the wedding. Anyway, as promised: a pictoral tour of our relaxing vacation.

I'm not even going to lie to you. We are addicted to coffee. We started off every day with a cup o' joe and a jaunt on the beach.



Kellie sometimes did cartwheels. That yoga sure is paying off.
Not so much for Sam's attempts...This was a really beautiful church. St. John the Baptist I think was the name.
Sam in front of Flannery O'Conner birthplace.
Cool old graveyard.
Sam in front of the Pirate's House. a pirate tavern. There were real pirates here. Seriously. Just look at the one wearing glasses in the picture.Sam with Capt. Jack Sparrow. We totally snuck into this totally free pirate tour at the Pirate's House.

Sam and some wench he picked up in the Pirate's House.
Kellie the Waving Girl of Savannah.
Capt. Summers

And his wife...We are not lost.

We just needed some ice cream.
Savannah at night.
See any ghosts?

This is the Mercer-Williams house, where the book "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" takes place. A murder happened in this house in the lower left front room. Someone was shot with a Nazi luger. It is a GREAT book. A must read if in Savannah.
Sam being Forrest Gump where the movie was filmed. Life is like a tee-shirt with Chief Sitting Bull on it: Awesome.

Sam's folks. Ah happiness.Sam in a bee hive. What?

Savannese Wisteria.

And the end. Sadly, it came to an end way to fast. But we had a great time! Look for better and more frequent posts this summer!