A few weeks ago, on a glorious half-day Friday, we went fruit picking at
Weaver’s Orchard Farm. It was beyond perfect – it was the end of strawberry season, right in the middle of raspberry/cherry season, and the first day of blueberry season! So, needless to say, we picked all of them. And gorged ourselves along the way. It was just so relaxing to be out in Middle-of-Nowhere, PA (that could easily be a real name in Lancaster, cousin to Intercourse and Bird-in-Hand) picking and eating fruit. Plus, they had an adorable little market at which we bought other yummy things like raw honey and homemade fudge and herb plants.
Anyway, $40 worth of fruit later, including almost 5 pounds of blueberries, we decided to not purchase their pies and make one of our own! So last week, after being tempted to make many other desserts in the Williams-Sonoma Bride & Groom Cookbook (namely, the Blueberry Fool), I ventured into my first fruit pie-making experience. It was delicious! Warm and crumbly and oh-so-blueberry-ish. Mmm.
We’ve been pretty into cooking lately; in the last week, we’ve made that, yummy orange and dried cherry scones, a delicious
balsamic & basil bruschetta, a wonderful sweet & spicy vegetable meal over brown rice, and mascarpone-stuffed figs. Cooking together slash for two people is way better than for one.
Speaking of cooking, we had our housewarming party this past Saturday! It was so fun and we had lots of people come by. It was great to just relax with many friends, and it was SO fun to have my parents come up. Mutual love between them and our friends ensued. Many thanks to them for helping us finish things up at the last minute. Menu items included several tarts (chocolate, lime, fruit), cheesecake, fondue, fruit (some of which was arranged quite spectacularly, if I do say so myself, thanks to inspiration from our cruise J), spinach artichoke dip, apple/blue cheese/walnut stuffed mushrooms, deviled eggs, homemade pizza bites…and, a clear winner of the evening, chocolate balls.
Long story short, I was making the tarte au chocolat and was ever-so-slightly cocky about it because it was so easy the last time I made it and turned out unbelievably. So I’m waiting for it to bake and it just ISN’T. So I finally decide to take it out after it had been in 20 minutes longer than it was supposed to be. As I pulled it out, though, it completely collapsed in on itself. It was a disaster. And I almost cried. Except Dan was super sweet to me. Anyway, it just sat there looking all forlorn and destroyed for several hours (with Dan all the while telling me he would eat it) when it finally occurs to me that we should just make little balls out of it to dip in the fondue. Not even kidding, that’s the only thing on which I got complimented all night. If only they knew.
PS - Answer: They're both blue, except for the elephant.
PPS - I didn't come up with it.
PPPS - Though I may or may not have giggled out loud at it. In my cube.
We also saw a calf. I wanted to bring it home with us. Dan thought it would prefer being with its mama-cow.
