Voluptuous Delight #1

I want to apologize in advance. I've been cooking a lot from this Sophie Dahl book because it's quite the most visually appetizing book I've read in a while and I'm so excited by everything I've made that I want to share it. Plus, maybe you, like me, are in a rut in your meal repertoire and could use a little injection of zest. If this description sounds familiar, then you are going to love this variation on your standard pancake fare. The combination of lemon zest and ricotta cheese makes these doll-size cakes airy and fluffy, and spring-like, if you know what I mean. Sophie suggests serving them with maple syrup but I layered them with honey-sweetened creme fraiche and fresh berries (the pic here shows raspberries but when Sam requested them a few days later, we used blackberries which was just as yummy). They are also made with spelt flour which is super duper healthy and easy to find at most co-ops or in the Organic/Special Foods aisle of most grocer's. The batter is rather delicate, so make chocolate coin size pancakes, otherwise they will fall apart upon flipping. Enjoy and happy Spring!

Lemon & ricotta spelt pancakes (adapted from Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights)

1 cup soft ricotta cheese

1/2 cup milk

2 large eggs, separated

1/2 cup spelt flour

1 tsp. baking powder

2 tsp. lemon zest

1 tblsp. agave or maple syrup

sunflower oil for pan

In large mixing bowl, combine the ricotta cheese, milk, and egg yolks. Stir in the flour and baking powder and mix until you have a batter.

In separate bowl (I use my pyrex measuring bowl), whisk egg whites until they are foamy and white but not stiff (you aren't making meringue) and then fold them into the batter. Add lemon zest and syrup and stir.

Heat the oil on your griddle (or fry pan) and drop in small dollops...the largest I could safely flip was the size of a child's tea party plate). Cook for about 3 minutes per side until they are a honeyed brown.

If you have creme fraiche, stir in a tablespoon of local honey until well mixed. Place pancake on plate, spread a teaspoon of creme fraiche on top, add some berries then place another pancake on top and repeat. Sprinkle with light dusting of powdered sugar if desired.

This recipe makes about 20 small pancakes, which has been enough for our family of 6 most mornings. I say "most mornings" because there was one day when I had to settle for an egg over potato latke because the boys devoured these before I got to the table! I hope you don't share the same fate.

Voluptuous Delights

I treated myself to a new cookbook from Anthropologie this week that I haven't been able to put down since purchasing. Aptly titled Miss (Sophie)Dahl's Voluptuous Delights, it reads as much like a short autobiography that is as engaging as the colorful photos that tempt one to make (and eat) every single recipe. Organized by season, as well as meal of the day, it's very easy to find a recipe to utilize the last of the swiss chard from your CSA box or a soup that will use the verdant bouquet of watercress that tempted you at the farmer's market but with no idea of how to prepare. Indeed, Sophie uses many whole ingredients that normally make me nervous. My mother, when we lived in Eugene, Oregon, went through a phase of cooking through the New York Times Natural Foods Cookbook, which on the whole is a very good cookbook, but our family likes to summarily dismiss this period as Mom's barley lentil kasha days...days where, in an effort to feed us as wholesomely as possible, we unfortunately sat down to bland, if not plain old uneatable meals that made me suspicious to this day of anything too, you know, healthy. Things like quinoa (which is not pronounced phonetically, making it even doubly suspect), spelt, buckwheat groats and tofu all make me inwardly quake and turn up my butter-loving nose, but this book has changed all that.

Sophie's recipes are healthy, balanced, mostly vegetarian and you can't help but love a girl who went through a very public weight gain and loss to come out the other side writing appreciatively about all bodies "we have to deal with what we've got, appreciate it and move swiftly on. We all spend far too much time focusing on what we don't have and undermining what we do in the process. It's a cunning little distraction from what is truly important." Lest you think she sounds a little too much like an Oprah clone, never fear. Sophie Dahl inherited her grandfather's wit and writing ability and her personal stories that are interwoven throughout this delightful little tome add rather than detract from the recipes. Having enjoyed a stint as a model working with iconic photographer's from Vogue to being black listed because of weight gain to dealing with criticism for rapid weight loss and rumors of eating disorder (which was mostly due to a major illness she had while filming in India), she has run the gamut with food and come to a place of balance in her approach to food. Clearly, for her, it is about family and friends and the joy of sharing a meal with the ones you love. She summarizes at the end "sexy is inherent in a healthy appreciation for food, in having the energy to romp with your beloved, pick up your baby, cook dinner for your friends, go for a run or simply take a gentle walk to the market. Sexy is in feeling sated, having options and feeling alive." In sharing these recipes, she's definitely given options I feel good about making for our family, in particular these pear & ginger muffins (made with spelt flour) which were devoured by five hungry boys within minutes of coming out of the oven. Loaded with healthy ingredients but never lacking in flavor, moisture, or texture, this is one of many recipes I will be reaching for again and again.

Pork Butt

Here in Southern Wisconsin, there is still a blanket of snow on the ground at least a foot thick, and as much as I love winter, I'm beginning to long for warmer weather. I'm not even talking about Spring. My vitamin D deficient body has fantasies of sitting on the beach somewhere very very south of here, turning myself over like a pig on a spit and roasting in the sun until my marrow thaws out. The gist of it is this: I'm tired of constantly being cold. No matter how high the thermostat, no matter how many layers, no matter my woolly tights and my rated -23 degree Sorel boots, I'm always cold. Since I don't have the ways and means right now of hopping on a plane for Mexico, I decided we needed to bring the warmth of Mexico to our kitchen table. How serendipitous then that my friend Freya called with a recipe for Shredded-Pork Tacos. Freya has an equally lovely and amazing sister named Annie, who gave her this recipe from Martha Stewart. Freya made it, ate it, and called me raving about it and sent me the recipe quicker than you could say "chipotle!"
When I went to the grocery store with the recipe and scoured the meat dept., I saw nothing with the words Pork Shoulder stamped on it, so I braved the deli counter and asked the butcher. He gave me a disparaging look and said, "it's not called pork shoulder, it's pork butt" and handed me a 3lb. slab of meat. Ryan and I looked at each other, a bit confused. "Is it just me or is the shoulder in an entirely different section of the body than the butt?" Ryan asked and I was just as perplexed, but we crossed our fingers and bought it anyway, seeing as though there were no other likely options.
On the way home, Ryan googled it on his iPhone and sure enough the two are interchangeable. Which is just as well because it made for a lot of laughter over the dinner table. The boys thought it was hilarious because frankly, when you are 7, 5, and 3, just saying the word "butt" can send you into a paroxysm of giggles like nothing else. I suppose the dinner table isn't the proper place for such talk, but we made an exception in this case, and it got the boys to eat their dinner.

All potty talk aside, this seems like an economical meal since it yielded enough leftovers for Ryan and I to eat 3 lunches and 1 more dinner. I didn't simmer it quite as long as it called for because we were all to hungry to wait another 35 minutes but it wasn't too soupy and I wouldn't change a thing. The queso fresco is a must as well as the cilantro and the corn tortillas blackened nicely on our gas burner. So thank you Annie and thank you Freya and "Pork Butt!"

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 6 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
• 2 bay leaves
• Coarse salt and ground pepper
• 3 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1 (3-pound) boneless pork shoulder, cut in half lengthwise
• 1 can (28 ounces) whole tomatoes in juice
• 1 large chipotle chile in adobo sauce (from a small can), minced (about 4 teaspoons)
• 16 (6-inch) toasted corn tortillas
• 1 cup crumbled queso fresco, feta, or goat cheese
• 1 cup fresh cilantro leaves

Taking Tea

Those Brits were on to something when 4 o'clock tea became a nationally recognized pasttime/meal/repose back in 1840. Here in our home, we suffer from something I like to call the 3 o'clock slump, which really covers the hours between 3pm and 5:30pm, otherwise known as the witching hour, otherwise known as "partner, please come home because I'm pooped out and the kids are cranky". I suspect that Anna, the seventh duchess of Bedford, suffered a similar challenge because it was she who introduced the custom known charmingly as "afternoon tea". In her home, the evening meal was served fashionably late at eight in the evening, a scenario that must have rendered the fainting couch quite useful, until one afternoon when she requested a tray of tea, bread, butter and cake be brought up to her room (where doubtless she had locked herself in for a break from little Timmy and Bess who were whining in the nursery). Soon she began inviting her friends, and one of them, the Earl of Sandwich of course gets the credit for suggesting something more substantial than butter be placed between the layers of bread, thus creating the world's first sandwich. Pretty soon, afternoon tea became a fashionable social event where ladies and gents would meet to talk over the latest drawing room scandal while stuffing their faces.

Nowadays, afternoon tea is still served in venerable hotels such as Claridges, the Ritz, Savoy and Fortnum & Mason department store in London and is likely to include what we Baughns consider sheer necessity when it comes to the art of taking tea: Devonshire Clotted Cream. If it sounds like a blocked artery that's because eating too much of it will probably result in the former, but nothing says teatime like scones fresh from the oven smothered with clotted cream and fresh jam.
Half the fun of taking tea is the ritual. I rinse the teapot with hot water while the boys get out all the china from the cabinet. Some of it is chipped or handle-less and there are a few less service pieces than we had last year, but nothing gives me more pleasure than watching the boys drink from the same tea cups my great-grandmother used.
The boys delight in the antique monogrammed demi-tasse spoon with the large scrolled "B" as much as I do, so much so that they can't stop dipping them in the sugar bowl. The latter was given to me one Christmas when I was still a girl by my mother. It has lost a handle but it's a survivor and sometimes we use the matching cream pitcher when we can find it.
On this particular day, this was just the pause we all needed, to settle down and be a little quieter. The use of the china requires care and the boys slow down enough to respect their cups and saucers and we find ourselves discussing the merits of the day. Ryan pulled in the driveway just as the scones were coming out of the oven; supposedly he had left a part at home but I suspect he needed the break as much as we did!

Challah If You Like French Toast

I'll admit I wasn't always a fan of french toast. Good beefy bread was hard to come by in the rural area that I grew up, on a back road in "east" Virginia, as my husband mockingly refers to it. I don't think we ever had anything other than crappy white bread the local grocery, Winn-Dixie (yes, that's really the name. I know because it was my first official employer) tried to pass off as Italian bread, or maybe they labelled it French bread but it doesn't really matter because the only thing it was fit for was the birds. This is a long-winded and roundabout way of saying the french toast I grew up with was something you suffered through, taking long draughts of milk to help the pieces go down.

So bad was that first impression, french toast was not in our family's food vernacular until I came across a recipe in the Barefoot Contessa's Family Style cookbook that recommended the use of Challah bread as the perfect loaf for the job, one that could hold up to a 5 minute soak in a lovely custard of egg and cream without falling apart. I found Challah at Whole Foods, either with raisins or without, but at $4.99/loaf it's kind of an investment. However, unlike your stocks and your 401k, which can be kind of iffy these days, this is an investment that is guaranteed to pay off in the currency known as happy family.
Let your loaf stale in the bag a day or two, or if you are impatient, leave it out overnight. Use a sharp bread knife to serrate it into 3/4" slices. If properly stale, each slice acts as a sponge that soaks up the custard, which when cooked over medium-low heat, yields a perfectly firm yet moist piece of the most irresistible french toast ever. Sometimes we make a homemade syrup of honey, butter and cinnamon but when we have it, our favorite topper is good ol' Wisconsin maple syrup. When we're out of both, we've topped with a light dusting of confectioner's sugar that makes it look quite festive. However you chose to top it, this is a breakfast (or dinner) that never fails to please.

Challah French Toast adapted from Barefoot Contessa Family Style

1 loaf challah bread, stale

6 eggs

1 1/2 cups half-n-half or milk

1 tblsp. honey

grated zest of an orange

1/2 tsp. coarse salt

I put all the ingredients, except the bread, into my blender to get it properly aerated but you can just whisk them all together as well. Cut bread into 3/4" slices and place face down in 13x9 pan. Pour custard over slices and let soak for 5 minutes, turning once.

Heat a tablespoon of butter and tablespoon of oil on a griddle over medium-low heat. Add the soaked bread and cook for 4-5 minutes on each side. I prefer this longer cooking over lower heat because I like the custard to be more firm and less, well, custardy. But if you prefer, you can cook it 2-3 minutes per side on medium heat.

Cheaters Sometimes Win

You know the saying "cheaters never win?" I've been known to use it on occasion, usually chanting it in a whiny voice to an older sibling, someone I felt had bested me at, say, Monopoly (not that I'm naming names. James.) and probably done in an attempt to assuage my crestfallen ego when losing. I overheard one of the boys shouting that same mantra to Sam the other day and laughed a little to myself because let's face it, sometimes cheaters do win. For example, Ryan and I embarked on a detox diet approximately 2 weeks ago, cutting out dairy, gluten, sugar and caffeine in an effort to give our bowels a break. The fast from caffeine lasted approximately 29 hours, after which I shamefacedly made myself chicory coffee that a friend brought from Cafe Dumond in New Orleans...what can I say? Jasper was up multiple times from teething and my addiction to coffee is stronger than I wanted to admit. But we stuck to our guns on everything else, which is quite a feat for me given my passion for all things bread and butter related. As Ryan noted, the local grocery store probably wondered where the surplus of butter came from. Despite my typical gratuitous dairy intake it really wasn't that hard to stick to the plan. A typical dinner was baked sweet potato, mashed with ground pepper, steamed kale with lemon and pepper, and baked salmon with the same. Lunch would consist of a delicate soup of pureed steamed broccoli and fresh arugula, a simple warm meal that highlighted each vegetable and was a beautiful flecked green. We were feeling quite good about ourselves until we hit a little snafu. A certain time of the month crept up on me and suddenly I longed for pizza like nobody's business. The chewy crust! The salty cheese! There really wasn't even much of a fight before we both capitulated. Sure it was cheating, but who was going to tell? I remembered Karina posting about a pizza of caramelized shallots and chevre that had me salivating at the thought, and I sacrificed detoxing and health at the alter of goat cheese without a second thought and very little compunction. Our dear friends Josh & Jill came over for an impromptu meal together, which was brilliant, both for the company but also for Josh's input in the pizza combination. They had just returned from Mexico and brought a wonderful bottle of Mezcal to share, so while red onions were being caramelized and sausage was cooking, we got to hear all about their trip while sipping some spirits. Josh threw a handful of fresh arugula on the pizza right when it came out and 20 seconds later and I was shoveling in the best pizza I've had in a long time. Ryan and I recreated it a few days later and let Sam and Felix make their own. And despite the distended feeling I had later (what did I expect after eating half a pizza?) in my mid-section, I had the satisfied gloating feeling that only a cheat would understand.

Back to School

School is in full swing and although I was terrified I couldn't be organized enough to pull it off this year, implementing some discipline for myself has made it possible to do a full schedule with Sam and Oliver, as well as some pre-school with Felix. Ryan helped in a big way by setting our reading room to rights. I found two more vintage desks at Savers for $7.99. We are using a smorgasbord of Classics-based curriculum, plus making up our own for things like art history, music, and the kitchen.
My latest issue of Gourmet paid homage to all the back-to-schoolers by doing a clever alphabet of foods and menu ideas. The boys learned to make a spicy barbecue sauce for our Chipotle Chicken, crumbled queso fresco for the Creamed Corn with Cilantro, and toasted cumin seeds for Cumin Vinaigrette Cole Slaw. That's a lot of C's. I was starting to get bored so we went to B for dessert. Bingo. Buttermilk Pudding with fresh fruit. A few of the key ingredients were missing from my shelves so I ended up using lavender in place of the bay leaf and orange zest. I have to say, I might never go back. It was total luck but the lavender was the perfect accompaniment to the strawberries and wine in the puree, balancing out the sweetness of the former and subtly enhancing the latter. It was the perfect dessert to come home to from our after dinner walk. I was pretty excited because it felt like a risk at the time and I wasn't sure it would pay off. My Mom is a wonderful cook, my brother and Dad are amazing make-it-up-as-you-go home chefs and since I've never been as good at tweaking recipes or making things up as I go along, I've always lived in the shadow of their creativity in the kitchen. For my own growth as a cook this felt like a milestone in my culinary adventures.
Buttermilk Pudding w/Sauce & Fresh Fruit
For the Pudding:
1 tsp. unflavored gelatin
1 cup whole milk, divided
6 tblsp. sugar
1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise
1 cup buttermilk

Sprinkle gelatin over 1/4 cup of milk and let soften 1 minute. Scrape seeds from vanilla pod into small heavy saucepan, add remaining 3/4 cup milk and sugar and bring just to a boil over medium heat until sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat and add gelatin mixture. Stir until well dissolved. Add buttermilk and then cool in an ice bath for approx. 5 minutes. Strain through fine mess sieve into large glass measuring bowl. Pour into waiting cups, cover and refrigerate for 6-8 hours.

Strawberry Sauce:
1/4 cup dry red wine (I used Malbec from Argentina)
1/4 cup water
3 tblsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. dry lavender buds
2 3" strips of lemon peel
about 6 strawberries hulled and cut in half

Place all ingredients except the strawberries in small heavy saucepan and bring to a boil. Stir until sugar is dissolved. Continue to simmer for about 10 minutes until liquid is reduced to 1/3 cup. Add strawberries and simmer for another 5 minutes. Carefully puree in a blender. Strain through fine mesh sieve into a bowl and chill for one hour.

To assemble, spoon some of the strawberry puree over each pudding and top with mixture of fresh berries.

I love how some of the best meals are the simplest. A few nights ago Sam, Felix, Jasper and I were keeping the home fires burning while Ryan and Oliver were out fixing an espresso machine together late. By the time dinner time rolled around I needed a second wind and some inspiration. I found the latter in the beautiful tomatoes sitting on the counter, freshly picked the night before from our garden. Luckily, I had some local Crave Brothers fresh mozzarella in the fridge. Sam rode his bike to the co-op by himself (kind of a big deal)to purchase a baguette and some local ham. When he got home, we set to work putting together ingredients. Sam sliced the tomatoes and baguette while I picked basil and found the last of the 2 yr. white cheddar. We assembled ham and cheese on buttered baguette, which reminded me so much of being in Paris, and of course the insalata, the ubiquitous first course at any restaurant in Italy. Eating leisurely outside, talking and watching the sunset - after 45 minutes of this, I realized we had gorged ourselves on two of the above salads. The tomatoes were amazing- I know they are literally a fruit, but I don't think I've ever tasted anything so sweet and flavorful in my life. I can't wait to get to work canning these - it'll be like preserving Summer for the rest of the year. When it's January and -17 degrees out, I'll pop open a jar of these glorious beauties and remember basking in the evening sun with my boys.

Mom's Potatoes

My Mom flew in from Virginia to spend a week with us and to meet baby Jasper. I tried to convince her to pack everything in a carry on to avoid extra charges from the airline, but she declined, saying she had too much stuff to bring. Upon arriving at our home, it turned out that the reason for the checked bag was a considerable stash of vegetables from her garden. I love that the night before she flew out, part of her packing ritual included running out to one of her beautiful raised beds and digging up about 10 lbs. of her gorgeous potatoes and picking close to 2 lbs. of yellow and green waxy beans. Talk about a bountiful harvest!

I felt honored to be charged with cooking such lovely vegetables (although Sam was quick to remind me that potatoes are actually tubers. Sorry for the lapse.) and a little anxious to do them justice. I wanted to do something that would bring out the flavor of both and not hide the amazing flavor of such freshness. Fortunately for the potatoes, Bryan Kennedy came to mind. Bryan is a friend of ours from Seattle and he and his wife Freya enjoy good food as much as we do. Freya and I, when not talking about God and family, have been known to have long phone conversations detailing out meals that we have had or plan to make, as well as generous swapping of recipes. I remembered her telling me about Bryan's invention of Roasted Potatoes with Bacon, Cherry Tomatoes & Gruyere and started salivating just thinking about it. The day before, I prepped 2 lbs. of chicken legs by rubbing them with a mix of salt, cracked pepper and cayenne, refrigerating them for a few hours before dumping in a gallon of buttermilk for them to swim in overnight. The menu was beginning to take shape in my mind's eye:
A little more sophisticated approach to a Southern staple of fried chicken, green beans, potatoes and lemonade. What could be more appropriate, especially for two women with enough Southern blood to insure membership in The Daughters of the Confederacy if we so chose (God Bless the Fain Family and General Lee and May the South Rise Again). I called Freya and traded her my sweet tart with honey sweetened creme fraiche & fresh raspberries for Bryan's potatoes, got to work breading the chicken and got the boys snapping the beans and juicing lemons for lemonade. It all came together like a finely trained orchestra, if I do say so myself (oh dear, I sound like Mrs. Elton from Emma...)
When the potatoes were reaching the end of their tenure in the oven, I blanched the green beans, sauteed a few cloves of garlic in olive oil, added the green beans for a few minutes to heat them through and added a handful of good feta.

The result was a delectable, finger-licking, good-to-the-last-bite meal that was as fun to eat as it was to prepare.



We stuffed ourselves silly and had to go for a walk before diving into the Lilikoi cheesecake Sam & I made using passion fruit butter my mom had brought us from her place in Hawaii.

Could someone please explain why it's taking me so long to lose the extra baby weight?


If you've got a stash of potatoes that need to be eaten up, I highly recommend the following scrumptious method of consuming them:

Bryan Kennedy's Roasted Potatoes:
5 lbs. of Yukon Gold potatoes washed and cut into bite size pieces
5 oz. bacon
Pint of cherry tomatoes
1/2 cup grated gruyere

On a rimmed baking sheet, pour a few glugs of olive oil on pan. Throw on potato pieces and stir; salt and grind pepper generously. Place in preheated 425 degree oven and set timer for 10 minutes. Chop up about 5 oz. good bacon (I used a local pepper thick sliced bacon that was delish) and sprinkle over potatoes when timer goes off. Set timer for another 10 minutes. Wash and dry a pint of cherry tomatoes. Throw them in, give the whole thing a good stir and set timer for another 10 minutes. Grate about 1/2 cup of gruyere and sprinkle over the mixture and bake until melted and starting to bubble. By this time, many of the tomatoes will have popped, oozing their juices over the bacon and potatoes. If not, bake for another 10 minutes or so.

The Family That Eats Together

I don't go out very often these days. For one thing, going out with four boys is more than just a little bit of work, timing everything around naps and meals. For another thing, since the proliferation of legos in our house, there doesn't seem to be the need or desire to do anything but play legos. However, I had the opportunity to hit up a huge sale at bop in Madison and Mom was willing to watch the kids. It turned out to be a total waste of time, not that I didn't find some incredible deals, but after asking myself if I really needed any of said finds and realizing I didn't, I left (after waiting in line for 2 hours) and ended up with nothing but a parking ticket. This, of course, was very upsetting. Maybe I'm exaggerating, but we have paid the city of Madison at least $1,000 in parking tickets since we moved here 4 1/2 years ago. I think they recognize my car, think to themselves, "suckah" and hang around waiting for my meter to expire, knowing I won't make it out in time. Unnecessary expenses like parking tickets really upset me so suffice it to say I was in a bit of a foul mood the rest of the day, that is until dinner. The day before mom arrived, our chef friend Joel and his wife and kids came over for dinner, bringing some incredible local highland beef for sliders. Mom made the leftover meat from Fountain Prairie Farms into burgers, we had local feta and 2 year white cheddar from Hook's Cheese with all the usual condiments.
Ryan made hand cut homemade french fries with sea salt from mom's potatoes as well as a pound of fried cheese curds.

The grill was still hot after dinner so I cut peaches in half, sprinkled them with sugar and melted butter and grilled them for about 5 minutes, cut side down. We filled the middle with fresh whipped cream for a perfect dessert after such a heavy dinner.
At dinner, Ryan added up the cost of a meal like that eating out and it was well over the $20 parking ticket, so I suddenly felt much better about that. But more than the money was the pleasure of us all working together to make dinner- Mom putting together the condiment plate while Ryan fried the potatoes and curds. I prepped the peaches while the boys set the table. Talking and laughing all the while and then sitting down to enjoy the fruits of our collaborative effort. I hope that when the boys are grown up, making and eating food together is one of their strongest memories.

Last Weekend in Redux

(Warning: Ridiculous amount of family photos to follow.)

We had a very full and lovely weekend last week:
Saturday found Jasper and I at the Maple Bluff Neighborhood Garage Sales, and despite (or maybe because of) the soft drizzle coming down, we had a great time together.
(happy even though I woke him up early)

Maple Bluff is the richie rich neighborhood that sits on the north side of Lake Mendota and houses the Governor's Mansion, so everyone comes out in droves hoping to land the deal of the century. My anthro buddy found practically new Frye boots for $15 (which she promptly resold on ebay for a killing) and a Marc Jacobs coat for next to nothing at last year's sales, so my expectations were high. Whether it was the rain or miserliness, no one can say, but I didn't find any designer deals. I did, however, score a pair of Saucony's for Sam (nice alliteration, right?) for $1:
a great set of vintage enamelware, all with lids, for about $20,


a new compost bucket (the compost was free),
and a gorgeous vintage LBD for $5! The woman I purchased it from used to work on Broadway and said she wore it frequently to events in NYC back in the day. Just lovely!
When Jasper and I arrived home, we found that a sandbox had been built by Ryan:

(which in all honesty, I'm secretly regretting. the sand. gets. everywhere. but the kids LOVE it.)

Some soccer was played





as was some freeze tag:

followed by some dreaming under the trees and clear blue sky.
(photo by Sam)

A good ol' Wisconsin meal of brats and dogs and homemade sparkling lemonade was eaten,
followed by raspberry creme fraiche tart,
finished off with a long draught of baby gazing:

Life is immeasurably full for us right now. My cup, indeed, runneth over.