rude awakening

We went to the Adirondacks last weekend.


Or was that a dream? Hours spent reading by the fire, snowy walks on the lake, long baths in a cast iron tub.


No internet, no cell service, no phone.

The yachtsman made his famous seitan vindaloo, his famous biscuits. He, famously, took naps on the couch with the dog curled up in the crook of his bent legs. In my dream it was so beautiful I vowed never again to complain about winter.


And then we drove home and I stepped out of the car into a puddle of icy slush and the wind slapped me across the face like I was its bitch and I was all like, "Fuck this." I was like, "Rage, rage against the dying of the light." I was like, "Two roads diverged in the woods and I— I— what the hell am I doing living in Vermont?"

how i spent my summer vacation

We return now to our regularly scheduled programming.

whoopie!

It was a banner weekend, my friends, complete with swimming, sailing, and reading for hours in a porch swing. Dark & Stormies were consumed. Chester learned to swim (I catch myself saying that we taught Chester to swim, as if we had anything more to do with it than throwing the ball into the lake). Did I mention there were homemade whoopie pies? Happy Fourth of July to me.


I had even less to do with the making of those whoopie pies [thanks, T&I] than I did with teaching that puppy to swim, but I did find out where the recipe came from. Happy Fourth of July to you.

happy memorial day

The yachtsman, the pup, and I spent the weekend in the Adirondacks.


I appear to have developed acne while we were away, which is pretty exciting. But I didn't do much cooking, so I can't post any recipes, however I can direct you Burlington-area Vermonters to buy the premade crab cakes at Shelburne Meat Market and serve them with this sauce over a little arugula.

*Photos by the yachtsman and his Hipstamatic; credit for the premade-crab-cake idea goes to the Huzzahs, via my Greek stepmom.

my old man

We've headed back to the Adirondacks to celebrate the yachtsman's 61st birthday. There will be champagne wishes and caviar dreams, jaunty hats, naked women jumping from cakes, circus peanuts, Lawrence Welk impersonators, limousines, ribbiting frogs, cigars, bubble machines ... the usual.

Happy weekend to you, too.

c. 1974

sunburn. without a view. unless you count the tv.

I would like to regale you with stories of my 4th of July weekend -- the hours spent reading a trashy murder mystery; the capsized sailboat (the yachtsman blames me, but he was the captain, and I was just following orders); the post-capsize swim in my underwear; the easy, delicious pasta we made for dinner; my wonderful, funny, generous family of in-laws.

But instead I sit here with a freezer pack on top of each thigh, so sunburned I cannot think straight. Or walk straight. Or take these freaking ice packs from my legs. Literally, I remove the ice packs and my thighs are on FIRE. Have I mentioned that I cannot walk? I predict there will be blisters. I am considering stealing some of my dog's pain medication.

So instead of stories, a few photos:

Roasted beet salad with a view

The yachtsman with a view

Tea with a view

BLT with a view (thanks, Sue!)

Couch jedi with a view

gruel in the adirondacks

The yachtsman and I are off for what I would like to call a much-deserved long weekend, but I'm not sure what I've done to deserve this mini-vacation. I don't know how much I'll be posting there, but I did just barely find out we're supposed to cook dinner for 11 people tomorrow night, so there will most likely be photos of that catastrophe event. I'm thinking of serving a nice cut of Spam with a side of Funyuns. If people complain about the food, I'll try to distract them with the view.

the frog ate my cupcake

We went to the Adirondacks on Saturday, where a four-year-old made cupcakes while I bathed in a claw-foot tub. Maybe we should have kids.

Fellow egg worshiper and niece Lucy.

The yellow color is from those fresh egg yolks.

I don't think child labor laws were broken if she didn't get paid.

Cupcake with a view.

the yachtsman wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot oar

It was a short long weekend in the Adirondacks, during which time I took up with ham in a pretty major way. I'd thought I didn't like ham (actually, for about twenty years I thought I was a vegetarian, another story entirely), but it turns out I only like certain ham. This ham was so good, I ate it as regular ham (three days in a row), and then I ate it in my mother-in-law's grandmother's "signature recipe," Oklahoma Ham Loaf. While not particularly photogenic, Oklahoma Ham Loaf is actually pretty tasty.


I'm currently working on my own signature recipe, which I hope will be a pork product topped with a pork product, but will more likely be toast topped with peanut butter.