September weekend

Jack following in Daddy's footsteps, making charcuterie boards to sell at my preserves party.


Making Concord grape jam with grapes from our friends' vines. That smell! Heady, foxy, tangy delight.

Soccer game! Jack is on the same team again this fall, the Wasps/Red Devils. We love his coach Dawit and he's having so much fun and learning a lot.


I caught them listening to an audio book just like this. I love how they love each other.

Succulent Wreath

Practicing for my upcoming Succulent Wreath Mini-Retreat at the Botanic Gardens.

Peach jam

Daniel's Birthday Weekend

This year, we surprised Daniel with a weekend at a cabin on Lake Granby, just outside Rocky Mountain National Park. The first night we saw the Supermoon blood moon. It looked HUGE!

The second night I woke up in the middle of the night and went outside to see a partial eclipse. Crazy.

Everyone got to do some of their favorite things. Fishing was high on the boys' list. Check out the huge fish Jack caught the first day--right off the dock in a net! It must have been beginner's luck because the boys didn't catch anything else the rest of the weekend.

We paddled, read, and relaxed in the hot tub.

A cute boy decided to brave the icy water.

For his birthday cake, Daniel asked for eclairs. I had to get all fancy and make a croquembouche--which is basically a pyramid tower of cream puffs glued together with caramel and wound with decorative spun sugar. It is traditionally served at French weddings.

Here's a very unflattering picture of me sweating bullets. I made the cream puffs, pastry cream, and a chocolate ganache dipping sauce at home, and I piped them at the cabin. The caramel should have taken 15 minutes to make. An hour later, it was still crystallizing every five minutes. You can see the thick layer of crystallization in the pot in this photo. I forgot that I always have problems making caramel in Denver (at 5,000 feet). The cabin sits at 8,000 feet. Daniel broke the rule book and kept adding water which seemed to stop the crystallization but it took over an hour to make. I was pretty worked up but Owen, my loyal sous chef, stayed by my side, and Daniel had to help assemble his own birthday cake.

It was delicious but the caramel was so hard it kept getting stuck in our teeth. We were laughing hysterically. This video gives a sense of the party ambiance. My apologies for the operatic attempts.

It's rare to get to canoe on a lake in Colorado. Our morning canoe ride was such a treat. It doesn't hurt that Lake Granby backs up onto Rocky Mountain National Park so most of the shoreline is national forest.

We paddled across the lake to a small island.

My dudes. I love them desperately.

Birthday breakfast for the (very loved) birthday boy. We adore you, Daniel!

Puttin' Up Preserves

Summer hasn't given up the ghost. Not in Colorado, anyway. The nights are cool and fresh but by four o'clock the mercury is pushing the high nineties. Before autumn rolls in for real, I invited some friends for my 5th annual preserves party. It is always so much fun to cook for people I love, reconnect after hectic summers, and share what we preserved.

I cooked all day and here's what I came up with: white peach and plum prosecco sangria, beet chickpea cakes with tzatziki, cherry tomato crostini with ricotta and basil, triple cream Brie and aged Gouda with plum cardamon conserve and peach jam, Moroccan spiced olives, and blackberry tartlets with vanilla mascarpone cream. My friends brought a bunch of other dishes and we ate like queens.

Look at all this summer bounty! Homegrown lemon squashes, jam from Kathy's jam company Modern Gingham, roasted coffee from Hannah's coffeeshop Copper Door Coffee Roasters, espresso dark chocolate toffee, Thai-spiced pickled carrots, peach-red pepper relish, and my peach marmalade and plum jam. It is so fun to gather up the loot at the end of the night.

I just adore party leftovers--especially this party!

Easter eggs

You can't have Easter without some egg decorating!

Hmmm. Will these rubber bands work?

A little washi tape.

Daddy taught us how to blow out the insides of an egg. I had never seen that done in person before, but he says his family used to do it every year.

Uh-oh, that yolk is stubborn!

So fun!

A worker

When Jack was in preschool, his teacher asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. Jack's response?

A worker.

Last weekend, he headed off to the garage to make something. It turned out to be a sweet little fence, which he propped up with stones to protect my helleborus from the chickens' manic scratching.

We're so proud of our little worker.

tulip wreath tutorial

Maybe it's because I'm a March baby and my mom, famous for her creative names, still calls me "Spring Flower." (A couple of crocuses popped through the snow the morning of my birth.) Maybe it's because every spring, those stubborn bulbs magically peek their green heads out of what looks to be dead earth, exploding like a rainbow surprise that's waited all winter just for you. Whatever the reason, I adore tulips. And daffodils, and hyacinth, and muscari. And snowdrops and crocuses, too. You get the idea. I love spring.  

green juice

Nothing like a shot of green juice to keep the germs at bay. Go here for the recipe. I added a couple of apples to make it sweeter for my boys.

And, I just have to say it, I'm proud of this picture. Daniel is the better photographer between us, but this one is all me. It was fun setting up the scene and taking about 30 shots just to get this one. The only editing I did was to crop it a little. I'm sure it could use some work, but it's fun to take the camera off "auto" and take a few minutes to play.

croissants

What to do on a bitter-cold weekend with no plans on the docket? Make croissants, of course! I've always wanted to try my hand at croissants, but what with the 24-hour time commitment, the poolishes and levains and laminating and turning, I've always been too scared. But all my recent breadmaking means I have sourdough starter ready to go in the fridge. It was time to brave up.

"Fools rush in where angels fear to tread," intoned Alexander Pope. Perhaps, but if we weren't fools, would we ever brave anything hard?

Since the dough is the same for both, we made pains au chocolat as well (the rolled squares).

Sweet success!