Everyone knows that Labor Day marks the end of summer. And since this year it flew by, I thought I'd post a few of the highlights of ours. Taking a look back....
We got married over Memorial Day weekend, so most of May and June flew by without our realizing it. We went to beautiful St. Lucia for 8 days of water biking, sweating, eating, reading, and drinking! By the time we got back to the states, it was already mid-June.
And if we already hadn't indulged
enough, we
decided that we would initiate our quarterly food creation. Our concept is that maybe 4 times a year we will create a sometimes gross, indulgent, crazy food combination idea and test it out. Who knows, maybe we'll come up with the next best food idea! So...enough of the suspense. Sometime after the honeymoon, we decided to "make" Chinese Pizza. We love General Gau's chicken and rarely even eat it. Couple that with our favorite
local pizza, and voila! Chinese pizza.
Turns out, its not that good. Total fail. The pizza really overpowered the General Gau flavor. Miraculously, neither of us got sick from so much fat, sodium, and MSG. whew. Food Creation #1 complete.
We got the travel bug again just a few short weeks later for the July 4th holiday weekend. I asked N to surprise me with a short weekend away-- I love surprises. We decided to go to New Hampshire to get away from the busy highways and crowdfest of Boston--but everything else was a surprise. First stop:
Canterbury Shaker Village. Very cool, and beautiful weather made for a nice quick stop in our travels. Before leaving, we sampled some unique craft soda: rhubarb and wild blueberry. Delicious. I think rhubarb may be quickly becoming one of my favorite kinds of produce.
Second stop:
Flume Gorge in the White Mountain National Park. N had visited as a young boy and knew I would love this kind of thing. There was a short 2 mile walk/hike through and around the gorge. It was much cooler up here in the mountains, but the walking kept us warm.
Third stop: After that we ate at an underwhelming meal at the Common Man. Then N found a cute B&B. There was an oddly creepy teenager working at the welcome desk....we figured out it was probably the innkeepers daughter. We gladly took our room keys from her and hoped she didn't have an extra set herself. One thing N didn't realize when he booked, was no TV in the room! So we spent the rest of the night borrowing books from the inn library and reading until we fell asleep.
The next morning, Yelp-master N found an infamous Pancake House called
Polly's Pancake Parlor on his iPhone. Delicious pancakes after waiting around 45 minutes--buckwheat, cornmeal, and regular. We also tried a
homemade english muffin. Wowzers. If you are up in NH, make some time to stop here! We drove back to Boston after breakfast, happy with our adventures.
In between all of the traveling and post-wedding organization, I decided I needed to fulfill my creativity void with another Wilton Class. I'd already taken Course 1&2, and Course 3 was on my to-do list, the Fondant Class. I enrolled at the Michaels Burlington in July for the 4 classes that comprise the course. I was pleased that there were only 4 students in the class. Over the years I've found that large classes mean less time with the instructor, and there's more variance in skill level, which means quick learners and slow learners. We had a great bunch of women, and I've found some great resources online including cakecentral.com and globalsugarart.com. My instructor runs her own cake decorating business in the area:
CakeSplash.
Our final assignment was the cover an entire cake in fondant and decorate it with our flowers we'd been working on the previous 3 classes. I'm happy with my first effort. Not perfect by any means, but decent enough to get me excited about trying new ideas in the future.
As
July marched along, my blueberry radar went off. My friend, C, and I went to our favorite blueberry patch to pick. We each got about 4 quarts, and started scheming what baked creations we could concoct. Of course, I knew blueberry muffins were in my plan. And boy were they delicious! I decided to make Texas-size jumbo muffins, especially since I'd rather enjoy one large muffin instead of feeling the guilt of eating an inevitable second regular size muffin. This pic illustrates my attempt at food styling (note: I bought large sugar granules online-they make it look so pro, don't you think?!)
And finally, my first kitchen-related accident. On August 16, I sliced open my finger by trying to rip off a half-opened can top. Luckily it was only a can of pineapple, but I did a
really good job--10 stitches. Siiiiiiick. It's still healing 3 weeks later, but I wanted to share the gross-ness! Thank you macro camera lens, and newly-awesome left handedness.
And finally, a few weeks ago my parents came to visit us for 4 days, so they could go to the ocean. We also made time to visit the breath-taking
Crane Mansion with them. The pinnacle of the visit was the view from the mansion out to the sea. It is called
Allee, and as you can see on their website, it is a rolling lawn that draws the eye out to the sea, flanked by lush trees. Can I live there?
That pretty much sums up our summer. I won't normally be posting this long of an entry, but we did so much stuff that I couldn't pass up the chance to share!
Everyone knows that Labor Day marks the end of summer. And since this year it flew by, I thought I'd post a few of the highlights of ours. Taking a look back....
enough, we
Turns out, its not that good. Total fail. The pizza really overpowered the General Gau flavor. Miraculously, neither of us got sick from so much fat, sodium, and MSG. whew. Food Creation #1 complete.
We got the travel bug again just a few short weeks later for the July 4th holiday weekend. I asked N to surprise me with a short weekend away-- I love surprises. We decided to go to New Hampshire to get away from the busy highways and crowdfest of Boston--but everything else was a surprise. First stop: Canterbury Shaker Village. Very cool, and beautiful weather made for a nice quick stop in our travels. Before leaving, we sampled some unique craft soda: rhubarb and wild blueberry. Delicious. I think rhubarb may be quickly becoming one of my favorite kinds of produce.
Second stop: Flume Gorge in the White Mountain National Park. N had visited as a young boy and knew I would love this kind of thing. There was a short 2 mile walk/hike through and around the gorge. It was much cooler up here in the mountains, but the walking kept us warm.
The next morning, Yelp-master N found an infamous Pancake House called Polly's Pancake Parlor on his iPhone. Delicious pancakes after waiting around 45 minutes--buckwheat, cornmeal, and regular. We also tried a homemade english muffin. Wowzers. If you are up in NH, make some time to stop here! We drove back to Boston after breakfast, happy with our adventures.
Our final assignment was the cover an entire cake in fondant and decorate it with our flowers we'd been working on the previous 3 classes. I'm happy with my first effort. Not perfect by any means, but decent enough to get me excited about trying new ideas in the future.
July marched along, my blueberry radar went off. My friend, C, and I went to our favorite blueberry patch to pick. We each got about 4 quarts, and started scheming what baked creations we could concoct. Of course, I knew blueberry muffins were in my plan. And boy were they delicious! I decided to make Texas-size jumbo muffins, especially since I'd rather enjoy one large muffin instead of feeling the guilt of eating an inevitable second regular size muffin. This pic illustrates my attempt at food styling (note: I bought large sugar granules online-they make it look so pro, don't you think?!)
And finally, my first kitchen-related accident. On August 16, I sliced open my finger by trying to rip off a half-opened can top. Luckily it was only a can of pineapple, but I did a really good job--10 stitches. Siiiiiiick. It's still healing 3 weeks later, but I wanted to share the gross-ness! Thank you macro camera lens, and newly-awesome left handedness.
And finally, a few weeks ago my parents came to visit us for 4 days, so they could go to the ocean. We also made time to visit the breath-taking Crane Mansion with them. The pinnacle of the visit was the view from the mansion out to the sea. It is called Allee, and as you can see on their website, it is a rolling lawn that draws the eye out to the sea, flanked by lush trees. Can I live there?