success!

Yesterday, Tyler & Tom went fishing.  They said that they were both reelin' 'em in all day long.  This was good for me, too: we had a very tasty dinner.

Toms fishing

As if Tom needs an excuse to go fishing... one of his friends, also Tom, invited him up to Keystone this week.  Although there were photos of larger fish, I thought this was the prettiest... so I wanted to show it off.  Let the summer games begin!

another successful gourmet dinner club

 Last weekend we had another delicious gourmet potluck dinner.  Unfortunately, I fell down on the job -- I only photographed two of the four courses.
Hopefully my eclipse photos will help me redeem myself.  They may not be spectacular, but since they were done while I was hand-holding the camera (I ran out of time to set up the tripod!), I still think they're pretty cool.
Pretty low-tech, too.  I did these by holding the plastic "eclipse-viewing" glasses in front of the camera....

The plastic glasses gave a remarkably good view, I must admit...

bring on the vegetables!

 The long awaited day is here: the day that Tom puts his beloved tomato and pepper plants into the ground.  He started them from seed a couple of months ago in our basement.  He's been carefully tending to them: bringing them outside on warm days, sheltering them from wind, watering them, encouraging them... And today is the day that they get to find a new home in the garden.

 Tom has ambitious garden plans this year (the seeds are already in).  If all goes well, the garden will produce enough not only to sustain many of our vegetable needs for the summer, but also for a good chunk of the winter.  (Tom will freeze soups, sauces, etc. from the harvest.)

So now all we need to do is keep our fingers crossed: no hail, no hail, no hail!

works of art

 Here are some examples of chocolates being sold to restaurants.

 I think these chocolate shells are used similar to pastry shells -- filled with more chocolate.  YUM.

These truffles were from a chocolatier in Longmont (about 10 miles north of where we live).  These were really works of art -- each hand painted.  They were so beautiful that it seemed a shame to eat them (but we did!).

let them eat cake!

There were about a dozen really gorgeous cakes.  Since I only brought my camera phone, I don't have dozens of pictures to share... but believe me: they were impressive.

competition cupcakes

 Here were some of the cupcakes being entered into competition.  Obviously, we didn't taste these... but they were awfully cute.

Chocolate Festival 2012

 Who knew there was such a thing as a chocolate festival?  Not I... but I assure you -- I'll be returning in future years.  This event is apparently held yearly in Denver, and also every summer in Winter Park.  ~80 vendors show up to display their goods.  It's $5 to get in, and then $20 for 25 "tasting tickets."  What a deal!  Tom and I split 25 tasting tickets -- and I don't think I could have eaten another bite.

 There was just about every kind of chocolate represented.  These were Pomegranate Raspberry Rose chocolates, which were gorgeous.  (I tasted the lavender from these folks, which was quite intense.)

It is obvious that the crazes of chocolate + salt and chocolate + chili are completely mainstream at this point; lots of vendors had variations on these themes.

first foray into cooking bivalves

 In the last few years, I've become a huge fan of seafood.  Not just fish -- but clams, mussels, squid -- you name it.  One of my all time favorite meals, as you can imagine, is cioppino.  But I digress.

Yesterday, we were at Costco.  We don't buy a lot of food there, but I'm always curious -- so I like to wander the isles.  Yesterday, I saw these 5# bags of Washington farm-raised clams, so I decided we should give them a try.
We came home, and I quickly realized that clams alone weren't sufficient to make cioppino, so I went to our books.  Sherry & Mike gave us this fantastic book last year called "Flying Pans" where I found this recipe: Phuket style clam hot pot (it's Thai).
After polishing off two gigantic bowls of the stuff, we brought the rest to our neighbors (we kind of have an unspoken agreement than since leftover seafood is gross, we share any/all leftover seafood on the spot).  I'll definitely be making this again!

Our ship has come in!

Although we love our house, had we been involved in the design, there are certainly things we would have done differently.  One of the biggest things on that list, for me anyways, is the master bathroom.
Our master bathroom has a big jet-tub.  Our friend Henry once told us that, according to contractors' literature, the average person uses their jet-tub only 12 times during the life of the tub.  I completely believe this.  It uses so much water that our hot water heater doesn't even have the capacity to fill it!  This means that the few times we've used the tub, we've had to augment the hot water supply by boiling water on our stove and dumping it into the tub.  No kidding.  You can see why we haven't used it in at least 2 years, and I doubt we ever will again....
However, we're not about to spend $20k redoing a bathroom that is essentially brand new.  So our tub sits as a very large, expensive dust collector.
Recently, we decided to turn our tub into something of an indoor garden.  There's ready drainage for watering, and plenty of light.
With this in mind, we were at Home Depot yesterday -- and Tom suggested looking for a new plant for our bathroom.  What did I find?  This is called a "Money Tree."  I'm not kidding!
When I woke up this morning, I looked for small bills, loose change.... anything!  Nothing yet.  But I'll keep looking.

Mexican flavored Journal Club

 We had another successful journal club this week.  Of course, the success of our meeting was largely due to Tom & Carolyn's efforts.  We cannot give enough thanks to Carolyn, who comes each and every journal club to help prep, cook, & serve.  Not to mention clean up!
I was responsible for the appetizers.  Since Tom had chosen a Mexican theme, I picked a recipe from my newly acquired "Savoring Mexico" cookbook.  These were spears of jicama, pineapple, and cucumber which had been soaked in lime for about 15 min, and the bottom halves of the spears were coated in a roasted peanut & chile mixture.  The best part: I got to use all kinds of fancy glassware to serve these little treats!

 Tom made up the first course: a mango, red onion, cilantro & pear salad.  I think a few people licked their bowls...

 The next course was a "deconstructed" chili relleno.  The filling also came from "Savoring Mexico:" spinach, pine nuts, cotija cheese, and raisins.  We will definitely serve this one again.

 The main course was chicken enchiladas.  I was at first surprised that Tom served everyone two enchiladas -- I was thinking perhaps this would be too much food.  But at the end of the course, every single plate was clean...

 Tom made up the dessert, too.  It was sliced oranges, topped with some chocolate-chili sauce (adapted from my mother's "Heart Attack in a Jar" recipe), and topped with whipped cream.  What a nice way to end the meal!