Mmm, Food

We had an excellent dinner and dessert tonight comprised of one new recipe (Curried Pear Chicken) and one tried and true (a pumpkin roll). The chicken dish came from our Eating Well cookbook and involved a sauce of shallots, white wine, chicken broth, cilantro, mint and coconut milk along with a sliced Bartlett pear. The fruity sweetness combined with the cilantro is an incredible taste reminiscent of the Chicken Tagine that we love. (That recipe uses prunes and cilantro). The sauce was so delicious I might double the sauce ingredients next time. It would be nice to have had more to mix with the brown rice that we served with it. The pumpkin roll is a neat looking dessert that is easier to make than it seems, and the taste is thoroughly fall-ish. I wonder if what we think of as "pumpkin" flavor actually comes from the pumpkin itself, or just from all the delicious spices we add, like cloves and cinnamon. In any case, it tastes delicious!

Hacklebarney

Well we did indeed embark upon an adventure to Hacklebarney Orchard today. It was so much fun! Chester is a beautiful wooded area and it was a charming cider mill with shady spots to sit, a little store, and lots of cute dogs running around. We watched a couple guys pressing the apples and got to see the various stages of how the cider is made. The mushy ground apples that go into the press look rather icky, but the end result is delicious! It was interesting to see the apple pulp that gets leftover at the end. It looks like apple cardboard. :) We had a fantastic lunch under the trees of cider hot dogs with sauerkraut cooked with apples on top and cider baked beans. We of COURSE had to go into the store and get cider donuts as well! We also bought some of their homemade cider and fig jam and apples from their orchard. Cider is the quintessential taste of fall for me. I forgot how delicious it is. We enjoyed petting the doggies and then journeyed a half mile further down the road to check out Hacklebarney State Park. It was a nice area with walking trails, small waterfalls and picnic/grilling areas by the creek. We decided it would be great to go back sometime and have lunch or dinner there. Just to walk through the woods and smell that amazing forest smell reminded me so much of home and felt very therapeutic. A wonderful Labor Day weekend day trip!

What Summer Feels Like

A Vacation to Remember

For our first anniversary, Warren and I decided to plan a trip instead of exchanging gifts. We thought it would be cooler to experience something we would remember forever than just to buy material things. We chose Chatham, Cape Cod as a destination, and WOW, it turned out to be incredible! We found our inn in the Select Registry that we got on our honeymoon and it did not disappoint. It was beautiful, peaceful and had every amenity we could want. They had some of the gorgeous blue hydrangeas that grow so abundantly all over the Cape and I couldn't help taking a million pictures of them. Our room was beautiful and we enjoyed resting there at night watching a DVD from the inn's library. It was a great way to get back our energy after all our day's activities. They had a lovely pool where we sat and read our books, and a huge lawn where we sat to drink our evening tea. Chatham is a lovely and quiet town...I'll have to thank Lloyd for recommending it.

Two of our most momentous experiences included a 4 hour guided kayak tour and a whale watch. The kayak tour was led by an awesome guy by the name of Dick Hilmer, who we regarded as a sort of Indiana Jones of the ocean. :) He was incredibly knowledgeable about the sandbars and the wildlife, not to mention his considerable kayaking skills. He's an ecologist and in addition to his kayaking he teaches 7th grade Earth Science and works with local watermen to help them to be environmentally responsible. He knew the location and time of day/tide to find some seals, and we were thrilled by repeated sightings of them popping their whiskery faces up to look at us. At one point we watched a group of around 10 adults gamboling in the water. I would have been happy at that, but then to top it off, a baby broke away from the group and followed us determinedly for 10-20 minutes, coming right up to us and even trying to climb up onto one of the kayaks, allowing us to get a fantastic look at him! It was a priceless experience. We stopped a few times throughout the journey to explore islands or go swimming or just take a rest. It was a major workout but a glorious way to exercise and get to know the beautiful nature of the area.

The whale watch left out of Provincetown, so we drove up that morning and walked around the town a bit first. It took us about 45 minutes to get out to a part of the ocean where we first spotted some humpback whales, and it was incredible to see their flippers and tails and glimpses of their colossal backs. But then we got REALLY lucky and found about 6-8 whales feeding. They were diving down, blowing their bubble nets and coming up in groups to take huge mouthfuls of water filled with krill. It was easy to spot where they would surface because the bubbles were a lighter color than the rest of the water, and HUGE crowds of birds would zoom over to the spot in hopes of catching some fish for themselves. They even tried to grab them out of the whales' mouths. We got such a thrilling, close view of the whales' heads and looked right into their mouths. To come so close to these incredible wild animals is a life-changing experience that you never forget. I have possibly never felt so in awe of this Earth as I was for those hours. It was just amazing.

Here are just a couple of the many photos we took on the trip. More can be found on our Flickr page, as well as some whale videos.

An Update

A blissful month of summer vacation has passed. I am trying to savor every minute of it! Today was my last day of teaching at summer band. Tim, the teacher who conducts the bands, was feeling ill today so I stayed after my lessons to direct the 4 bands so that he could go home. It was quite hot on stage and with the effort of conducting about 10 scores with zero preparation, I was working up a sweat! It went well, though, and I enjoyed hearing the full instrumentation since I usually work just with the clarinets. I kind of enjoy the spontaneity of teaching, when situations come up like they did today and you have to run with them. I am always such a planner, and sometimes it's very refreshing to wing it and be able to feel confident about what I'm doing. The jazz band rehearsal was particularly fun and they did a great job. As usual I feel a little sad to say goodbye. I guess I'll get used to it over many years of children coming and going, but I hope I always retain the sense of joy and pride and curiosity that I feel for them now.

I had a fun day last weekend with Heidi. We made mimosas and had brunch in her little garden and spent the day at Island Beach State Park and Seaside.

Warren and I are getting ready to take off to the Cape for a few days as soon as his program is over on Sunday. Hooray! I hope it will be a relaxing and adventurous time.

Another Trip to the Bronx Zoo

Yeah, I know, I never stop talking about this place, but Jess and Pete had never been so I took them there yesterday. It was a beautiful day and more crowded than usual..I actually prefer going on a more overcast day when there are barely any people. But it was very fun, and I got a free ticket due to some Bank of America promotional thing. Nice! Here are a couple of the cooler pictures:

Gorgeous Day

Yesterday was fantastic weather, high 70s, warm and a bit breezy, and we decided we wanted to do something in Bucks County where we could really enjoy being outdoors. We looked at a couple wineries and places to kayak online and ended up closer to Princeton where we went kayaking along the canal. It was SO beautiful. We had a picnic in a little meadow and then kayaked for a couple of hours, enjoying the fantastic water, shady trees and nice scenery. We saw a Great Blue heron flying overhead, a bunch of turtles, and one gigantic spider on the riverbank. It was so relaxing and a good workout at the same time. When we have a house where we have room to store them, we've decided we want to get a couple kayaks. We really enjoyed using them on our honeymoon as well. Afterwards we had a bit of wine while we strolled along the canal road and stopped by a farm market on the way home. It was the best way to spend such a beautiful day. We hope to go back again sometime this summer.