A few years ago, a friend once remarked that you could be a parent the last week of school or you could work, but you could not be a working parent that week. The number of activities that seem to require your presence do not leave much time to do anything but be a parent. Here, we had: Continue reading
Category: cville
It seemed like a simple plan.
With Pat gone for a few days to a conference, I thought I’d take advantage of the beautiful weekend weather and mow the yard. It had been a bit since it had been mowed – between the weather and our schedule, mowing was a task that just seemed to fall through the cracks. With the weather being sunny and dry on Saturday, I thought I’d mow the lawn, then move onto canning all the cherries I’d picked from our tree this week. Also on the docket was a little bit of house cleaning. Continue reading
This week’s go-to potluck item.
We spent Memorial Day weekend mostly around the homestead in a blur of outdoor band concerts, impromptu potluck dinners with neighbors and a float down the river. There was an attempt to make home made ice cream that failed spectacularly when I realized way too far into the process that our ice cream maker was no longer of this world. I tried googling how to make ice cream without a maker but I didn’t realize until a few hours later it was probably too far along to really salvage. We now have a big plastic tub of frozen creamy strawberry mix in the freezer that is quite lovely with warmed pound cake or lemon cake fresh out of the oven at a potluck.
Well hello there!
It’s been a while, hasn’t it? True to form, May has kicked my ass on every level imaginable once again this year. How is it Memorial Day weekend already? I’m still not done getting the gardens in, the only batch of strawberry jam I made was at last night’s Happy Cook class and when people ask what our summer plans are, I have no answer. None. Continue reading
Springing.
Spring, with all its glorious blooms and colors is still a marvel after last winter. The blooming pink dogwood has transitioned to green leaves, with the breeze sending petals to the ground in spring’s version of snowfall. Continue reading
Announcing….
Food in Charlottesville Jars.
If you’ve ever taken any of my canning classes, talked to me for more than say, two minutes about canning or read anything I’ve written in the past few years about canning, then you might have picked up that I’m a bit of a fan of Food in Jars. I completely and totally credit the end of my years long struggle of making a decent batch of jam to Marisa McClellan, the woman behind both the blog and the cookbook. She introduced me to the concept of small batches – which also happens to be the subject of her latest cookbook, “Preserving by the Pint:Quick Seasonal Canning for Small Spaces“. She was here in Charlottesville last night at The Happy Cook, where she demoed Honey-Sweetened Strawberry Jam, on the first stop of her southern book tour promoting her new cookbook.
Fun.
The knowledge of making.
There has been a much welcomed return of making around here this week as well as some previously scheduled knowledge sharing* which always ends up inspiring more making, a very good thing. Continue reading
Fun Friday Links.
- My friend Jenny shares her recipe for Classic Chicken Dumpling Soup.
- Megan has a beautiful & tasty new endeavor you need to check out, Mundane Morsel.
- Our fascinating neighbor Charles has a fun post up over on the blog of the Albert & Shirley Small Collections Library on the “shop man” of the UVa Physics Department.
- Cville Swaps is partnering with The Charlottesville Cooking School for a cookbook swap, next Saturday, January 18 at 10 am. Details here.
Happy Weekend Everyone.
Chicken Wire & Paper Flowers 