Une semaine parfaite en Provence

Warning: It's pretty hard not to wish just a little bit that you were in the French countryside when you look at these pictures. Apart from a slight head cold and some rusty work with a stick shift, we had just about a perfect week in Provence. Jason skillfully communicated for the two of us (gracefully tolerating my made-up French, which is mostly composed of lines from Beauty and the Beast), while my job (at first) was driving (I would like to publicly thank my parents for making me learn to drive a stick in high school, my sisters for fighting with me for six years over our Honda, and my friends in England who were 20 instead of the required 21 to drive the rental cars when we traveled, thus forcing me to quickly learn the art of the round-about). We were quite a team.

Our first day we ventured out into the ancient side of France with a visit to Pont du Gard, an ancient Roman aqueduct, and the city of Nimes, which has the most well-preserved Roman arena outside of Rome. We also sat outside at a cafe with beverages reading A Year in Provence.

above Pont du Gard

In Nimes

The next day we went to the market in L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, the town nearest our cute bed and breakfast (the breakfast part of the bed and breakfast was one of my favorite parts of France--chocolate for breakfast every morning). We spent the afternoon driving the windy roads through the hills of Provence, visiting the Abbey de Senanque and the red, red town of Roussillon.

we were just weeks too early for the lavender fields around the Abbey to be blooming

a view of the town of Gordes

Jason and the ochre hills outside Roussillon (matchy, matchy)

Roussillon

We liked the little towns so much that we spent Friday doing much of the same--we spent the morning at the adorable little market in Lourmarin and ate a picnic in view of the local chateau before taking a drive through Lacoste and Bonnieux. We listened to the Amelie soundtrack while we tried to remember to shift into first gear.

eating our bounty from the market in Lourmarin


the sounds of Lourmarin market

the "breakfast" part of our great bed and breakfast

We flew in and out of Geneva, so Saturday was a four-hour drive back to Switzerland so that we could catch our flight the next morning. We took the scenic route through the Cote du Rhone wine country, with amazing patchworks of vineyards. I would love to see them in the fall! We also got a peek at the Alps on our drive before settling into Geneva for the night.

our view of the Alpine foothills from the car

We are now planning a summer of delicious Provencal food (soup au pistou! tapenade! chocolate croissants! goat cheese on everything!), still suffering from un petit peu jet lag, and finding our hands prepared to shift when we go uphill in our automatic. Love loved it.

CSA, Week Two

Seriously, I will get around to posting on our vacation (so many pictures! so much jet lag!), but we picked up our third CSA share yesterday, so I don't want to get too behind...

Romaine and leaf lettuce: Jason's lunch for two days
Chinese Cabbage: black bean tacos again (because I love them and they are easy and we didn't have any groceries when we got home); there is some left that will probably go in salads this weekend.
Siberian Kale: stir-fried with oil, then doused with lemon juice and salt. So good. Love kale.
Arugula: Ate with Chicken.
Snow Peas: New recipe for Coconut Mango Curry with Snow Peas. Tasty.
Zucchini: I was surprised by June zucchini, but Jason whipped up some amazing dish with zucchini, garlic, basil, and Parmesan cheese. I'd request it again for this week, but we'll definitely be stuffing this week's squash with goat cheese...
Basil: accompanied the zucchini
Dill: Intend to pawn off on someone, if it's still good--like we need any more dill than we already have in our garden...
Bok Choy: Also haven't used this yet and have no idea how to do so. Perhaps dinner tonight?!?

Note: We did try the bok choy for dinner, using this recipe from a woman who is part of our CSA and is blogging about it to make it easier for the rest of us (CSA support group?). No homemade gnocchi for us--we just used frozen ravioli. Surprisingly tasty.

A Note on Coming Home

There are a lot of hard things about getting home from vacation, like jet lag and going back to work. But I think the hardest thing of all is trying to convince myself that I cannot have ice cream every day.

CSA, Week One

We decided to join a CSA this summer--that's community supported agriculture, for those who don't know. Basically you pay up front to a farmer and then get a portion of everything he or she produces. I consider this Adventures in Figuring Out What's for Dinner, since we don't really know what we are going to get, week to week. To quell my fear that we wouldn't be able to eat arms full of escarole, mustard greens, and Chinese cabbage, Tilly and Brent are sharing our share this summer. We'll see how it goes.

I don't want to bore you with the mundane details of our CSA, but we did decide we want some sort of records about how we use up the veggies to determine whether or not it's worth doing it again next year. Assuming we only have to buy minimal produce between now and October (between the CSA and the garden, I'm hoping that's realistic), we should come in at or even below our regular grocery budget.

So. Week one. We got:

• Mustard Greens (Jason made a tasty stir-fry stir-fry, but turns out I'm not much for mustard greens
• Chinese Cabbage (black bean tacos, yum)
• Radishes (also with the tacos)
  
• Arugula (pasta with tomatoes, scallions, arugula and goat cheese)
• Romaine (salad)
• Red leaf lettuce (salad)
• Scallions (anything we could think to put them in. Love scallions.)

So far, so good. I'm just glad we didn't get spinach, since I harvested two bagfuls and had to pawn them off on friends yesterday before we leave for our trip. At first Jason thought maybe the spinach would last until we get home, but this morning I showed him how much it has already grown since I cut it on Saturday. Yikes!

Farmers Marketing

My one goal for this summer has been to ride our bikes to the farmers market in Falls Church. And by this summer, I mean sometime in May or October, since no one in their right minds is going to ride their bikes anywhere once real summer hits. So that's what we did on Saturday--hauled out my bike (Jason biked to work all week), got lost a little on the way, and eventually made it to the really great farmers' market that's close to the church.

I just like walking around the farmers' market, even though we don't usually come home with loads of groceries. Tilly and I have talked about trying out lots of markets in the area, but right now I'm really partial to this one, with the stand where they sell homemade bread and the one with all the pots of flowers and the one where they make crepes. Mmm, crepes. This week the only thing we bought was English peas, which we took home on a much more direct route than we came.
Peas turned into this delicious, springy-flavored lemony tortellini soup for lunch. Yum!

Turns out it was just the right weekend to take this bike ride--today it is hot and humid and very much like the middle of summer. I know, because I tried to go running at about 10:00 a.m. Huge mistake. Too hot for anything but sitting on the deck, drinking ice water. Or sleeping.

How Does Our Garden Grow?

Very nicely, actually. Am v. happy with the way I planted the rows this year and my decision to actually follow the plant spacing instructions on the seed packets. Turns out the people who wrote those things know a thing or two.The weather has been perfect for garden growing--ridiculously hot days (90s, anyone? Ew, and humid, ick.) and nights of torrential rains. Every day I go out to see the garden and things appear to have doubled in size. There are already about four baby tomatoes growing, and we've had our first official harvest: spinach and strawberries. Add poppy seed dressing and glazed walnuts, and we've got the makings of a spectacular salad.

(Oh, and remember how I was worried about the green beans? Now I'm only worried that they will take the garden over...)

Visitors!

My mom and Uncle Jim spent the week with us, which, as usual, was great fun. There are so many nice things about moms, like how they hem your pants for you (Jason asked if I was running a sweat shop) and tell you that you look pretty in the dress you want to buy and let you crawl into bed with them to watch a movie and take you to lunch at Chili's where you always share chocolate molten cake. I think Jason gets neglected when my mom is here because I feel the need to squeeze every last drop out of our time together. (It turns out he doesn't really mind a little time to himself.)

One of the highlights of the trip was going to see "Little Shop of Horrors" at Ford's Theatre. If you know my mom, you can imagine how she reacted when she heard the name of the play, but she'd been wanting to see a show at Ford's Theatre for years, so she let it slide! Fun, fun.

On Monday night, we got to go watch Jason play hockey at the really reasonable hour of 7:30 (instead of the usual 11:30 pm). It's fun to see how much better he and his team have gotten since they started playing together!



Mom and Uncle Jim spent their days on the Hill, meeting with Members of Congress to try and garner support for the work that Expansion International is doing with internally displaced people in Kenya (remember these folks whom we met while we were there last summer?). It was really exciting to see how God really did go before them and prepared the hearts of the right people--they were wildly successful, so good to watch!

Such a fun trip and what a good time we had together!

May

There is really no excuse for the fact that we've haven't blogged for, what, nearly three weeks? Sort of embarrassing. Work has taken a decidedly welcome turn into pleasant slowness--I left work Friday AT FOUR with my inbox cleaned out, no constituent mail to write, and 29 emails in my inbox. Let me say that again, 29 emails (not the 435 with which I started the day). Unheard of. It's possible that in some far-flung realm of the imagination, I could get bored if this kept up. Bring it on.

While things have been slowing to a happy pace for me, they've sped up for Jason, who has had a really busy week or two. I think he was really looking forward to a weekend, and that is probably why he is still asleep while I sit here, way too early on a Sunday morning, drinking my Lady Grey and kind of hoping it rains today so that I can get some work on my thesis done. (If the sun is shining, chalk this up as another day of sunny distracted lack of progress.)

I am sitting here trying to think of what we've been up to that has kept us from blogging, and nothing comes to mind. We did have an awesome Sunday school retreat a couple weekends ago, but that is for another blog (when, hopefully, I have at least one picture to share). I do, however, have pictures from Cal and Clark's first birthday bash. Cute.

Last weekend Tilly and I hit the farmer's market in Falls Church for the first time this year, where we bought tasty asparagus and amazing peonies, before heading off to book club, where we ate crepes with Nutella and didn't talk about the book at all.

Yesterday we had delicious blueberry muffins for breakfast on the deck (still slightly chilly outside, but worth chattering through breakfast). And our garden is now planted and beautiful--I'm always such a good gardener in the spring, until July comes and my carefully-tended plants start inexplicably wilting away.

Friday my office got a behind-the-scenes tour of the National Zoo, which was pretty sweet. My favorite parts were the adorable baby gorilla and the frogs with poisonous skin. I was really hankering for a nephew to share the experience with.
And finally, we have spent our nights all week planning our upcoming trip to France, where we plan to bike through lavender fields, picnic, and eat chocolate croissants and goat cheese until we are ill. The Provence vacation inspired not only the French breakfast from last post, but also my favorite summer soupe au pistou--my goal this summer is to make the soup at least once with only produce grown in my garden (minus potatoes, which I didn't get around to planting). Since it's a primarily veggie soup--beans, leeks, carrots, zucchini, basil, etc.--I consider this a pretty decent feat...and the whole reason I planted carrots this year!

French Breakfast

I have been a wee bit obsessed with things French lately, like the sole meuniere I insisted on making Sunday night (even though Jason doesn't like fish) and planting lavender in my new herb garden. On Saturday, we started a most perfect weekend by sleeping in (!) until I was driven out of bed by the thought of eating freshly baked chocolate croissants (Trader Joe's, I love you). I had imagined having tea and croissants in the sun on the deck, but let's be honest, I didn't mind too much that it was grey and rainy and we ate in the living room wrapped in blankets.

We had a really nice weekend, during which we planted tomatoes and spruced up the deck and played guitar and went out to dinner here (I've been scouring the web for almond cake recipes, mmm) and started hockey again and watched the best episode of Glee so far and did not crack open a page of my thesis. In spite of predictions of constant rain, we got two days of mostly dry weather, and we are only a few flower pots short of having all the spring gardening work done. And to that I say, yay.

What else have we been doing since the last post?
* Jason is home from Nigeria, despite a brief delay due to volcanic ash. So weird, seriously. But so glad to have him home.

* I spent most of my bachelorettehood eating seafood and spending time torturing my trouble zones with Jillian. Jen gave me two of her DVDs for my birthday. Seriously good stuff.

* I know that over the past couple of years we've given you play by play by play of the garden. I'm trying to refrain (to a point), but I did want to inform you that now our garden is fully planted. And everything (even the carrots!) is coming up but the green beans. (Nervous, as green beans and tomatoes are my reason for gardening this year.) We are growing (or trying to grow): asparagus (it all came up in frilly feathers! yay!), cucumbers, onions, green onions, carrots, green beans (including purple pole beans), sweet peas, tomatoes, yellow peppers, strawberries, and leeks that survived many, many feet of snow over the winter.

Oh, and zucchini. Jason is ready to ditch the zucchini, but I think the third time will be the charm (that, and if it doesn't work this year we are never growing it again!). My trick this year is to plant zinnias next to them to lure some pollinators. Here's to hoping.

We're off this weekend to enjoy the 85 degree weather (!!!) with our friends at a church retreat--wrapping up the spiritual disciplines study we've been working on since October. Good stuff!

Happy Birthday, Jen!

A shout-out to Jenny on her 28th birthday (wow are we getting old). No old-school picture tonight--I ran across this adorable pic of Hot Dog Troy while I was "flipping" through the photo file tonight and couldn't resist. Aren't they both adorable? Jenny is such a good mom, and it was fun to watch her love on her two sweet boys while I was home last week. Love you, J-Train!

Spring Travel, Part One: Idaho

Jason and I have been together for seven years now, and not once have we managed to plan work travel at the same time. Case in point: this week. I just arrived home to a quiet house after ten days in Idaho, and Jason will be in Nigeria all week. Sigh.

We're surviving just fine, of course--well, apart from the fact that it's 11:14 p.m. and I am blogging instead of sleeping. Clearly Jason brings the "going to bed" (and "getting up in the morning") discipline to the relationship. My trip home was really fun--even the long days of traveling for work. I went to parts of Idaho I had never visited, including Craters of the Moon and Teton Valley and this sweet place on the California Trail where pioneers signed their names in axle grease on the rocks. It's a rough job, traveling to some of the coolest places in the state.

(And by cool, I mean a foot of snow...)


The big highlight of the trip, of course, was meeting Baby Cooper. He is so sweet and cuddly...and much quieter than his all-boy brother and cousins! We pulled out Jenny's baby book to confirm that he looks just like his mama--complete with so much hair it sticks up a couple of inches!


Troy has decided that his brother isn't the worst thing that ever happened to him after all, and it was so much fun to listen to him string words together! He loves to go outside with his Papa--we had a tea party for Jenny, and he spent the entire time outside with Dad. Cole and Mason are great fun, too. Mason wants to be just like his big brother--he's at the age where he's not so sure about his Aunt Missy, so the best way to get him to hug me was to give Cole a big squeeze, and he was next in line. I wish you could hear him laugh.



I also wish you could just sit down and have a conversation with Cole. He makes a friend every time he meets someone. We all went shopping on Friday, and Cole (whose Granny spoiled him with cookies and chocolate milk) wanted me to come out and drink my coffee on a bench while he ate cookies. It is impossible to tell him no, no matter how much I wanted to shop!




It was a nice long trip, so I also got to see some friends, which was nice. And it's always wonderful to spend Easter with my family (even though we missed Jason, sad!). I just really love being with them--is there anything better than sisters and brothers and mom and dad and nephews?

Blossoms

Just kidding about what I said back here about fall being better than spring. Spring is amazing. And it just smells so nice!

Actually, if spring and fall were going to have a battle of wits, spring has two strikes against it: appropriations season and tourists. The city is absolutely crawling with tourists right now, which would be all nice and dandy if I didn't have to keep living here in the midst of them. The roads are infested with tour buses (don't get me started on tour buses), and it took me literally 40 minutes yesterday to get from my office to Jason's. That's two miles away, people. Unbelievable.

This is what they all came to see:

The Sap is Rising

Don't be fooled by this lovely picture of spring flowers--it is freezing outside. And I mean almost literally freezing. When we got up, the temp was 35, and we were both really relieved that we have (so far) restrained from planting anything in our garden except the asparagus. What with the days in the 70's the past week, it was pretty tempting to get out there and start putting stuff in the ground! Perhaps we are becoming wise gardeners...

Apart from the frigid temperature, things are just dandy around here. Now that the miserable stretch between President's Day and Easter recesses is over, and my thesis draft is finally in my adviser's hands, I am loving life. Did you know that there are books out there that you can read? And really great shows that you can watch? And, I know, get this--sometimes you can just sit down for no reason and not feel the least bit guilty.

To celebrate, some of my book club girls (whom Jason refers to as my "little friends") are coming over for a Pride and Prejudice marathon. We will be having scones. It will be lovely.

Other things that make us happy:
* This news is simply awesome. We've been praying for Adam's job situation for a while, and it is amazing to see God work everything out to the detail.

* The first spear of asparagus has peeked up its head!

* Baby Hudson, Steven and Amy's new son, made his appearance earlier this week. He is the fifth of five new babies born to couples in our Sunday school class within six months! I think this is what they call "growing a church the old fashioned way."

* Yesterday I got to go to Target and stock up on things like cleaning supplies and make-up. It was a big load, which shouldn't have surprised me--I literally have not had time to run errands for five weeks. It turns out there is a strange sense of freedom in errand-running!

* This soup recipe, which feels a bit like spring while still being warm and cozy. Nice.

It's a pretty nice weekend, all in all. And even if it's cold, the sun is shining brightly and I am finding that I can enjoy the hyacinths and tulips without feeling the urge to go a-digging yet...which makes the weekend even better. Ahhh...

The Scents of the City

Since Missy is at the moment (hopefully) putting the final touches on her thesis draft, the task of blogging our weekend jaunt to New York City falls to me. With the fond memory of our Fall trip to the Big Apple still lingering, and since the clock is rapidly winding down on Andrea and Telfer's time as our East Coast neighbors, we decided to hop on Amtrak and head to NYC. (We have really come to enjoy train travel. Comfortable seats, power plug-ins, smooth rides, and no airport security! In fact, I found myself browsing Amtrak's longer track lines and looking up Canada's VIA transcontinental excursions just for fun).

Weather-wise, we couldn't have picked a better weekend. In contrast to the cold, dampness that characterized our last visit, mother nature granted us bright sun and a balmy temperature for this trip. And we packed it in. We started out the morning with fresh bagels from the city-famous bagel shop across from the Griffiths' place. Then headed to the Union Square farmer's market for brunch, characterized by an unusual but amazingly delicious Brazilian pork and bean dish special.

We headed to Broadway in the afternoon to catch the hit musical In the Heights. We were remiss that we didn't make more of an effort to see a show on our last trip, and with Missy's birthday only two days removed, we decided to splurge. Afterward, we took a slow walk through a sunny (and very crowded) Central park, bought ice cream cones from a softee truck, and then linked up with Telfer and Andrea for a late evening dinner at their favorite restaurant, Fatty Crab. We quickly discovered why it rates on the top of many foodie lists. Billed as neo-Malaysian, the dishes, from duck, to pork sliders, to my favorite -- pork bellies on watermelon, were flavorful, spicy, and very filling. This is a must return locale for a future visit.

One of the things I noticed distinctly, especially as we walked around the Griffiths' Upper West Side neighborhood, were the fragrances of the restaurants and cafes as we ambled past. Despite strangely categorized places, such as a Spanish-Chinese cafe, or perhaps because of them, each locale was brimming with the seductive cooking scents you find throughout the world, all within a few steps. It certainly is possible to travel the world -- at least for a food aficionado -- block by block.

Fatigued by such pleasant smells and dining experiences, we were not surprised that we slept well that night (also, thanks to the Griffiths' gracious hosting). To round out our weekend, we decided to walk all the way to the Metropolitan Museum to see the Egypt and painting galleries, hit the downtown subway to pick-up some glassware Missy wanted, and then connect with Andrea for an evening church service.

We both remarked how much we both needed a weekend away, especially for Missy. And now, since Missy just came in and told me she finished her first draft, I will sign off.

March Rocks!

Cooper Milan McAfee was a little slow in deciding to make his grand appearance, having been expected on Wednesday, but today (with a little help from Dr. Auntie Fay) he decided to show up! He knows that March birthdays rock and just wasn't quite ready to be birthday buddies with Uncle Casey. I heart camera phones at times like this, since it always takes a good day for someone to send pictures via email (update: hooray for pictures from Shaanti!). He's pretty sweet, huh? Maybe I'll just have to go see him in person in a few weeks...

Brother.

Happy birthday, Brother! Casey reminded me when I called that his birthday means that mine is only five days away (as if I could forget...). Casey was my big 5th birthday gift--one of my earliest distinct memories was when Mom and Dad told us that something special was going to happen around the time of my birthday (I thought maybe a playhouse).

One of my favorite things about close birthdays is talking to Casey twice in one week (which is sad and should definitely be remedied). It is a long tradition for the two of us to think that March is the best birthday month...and now we have Kim and are expecting a Cooper to join in on the fun!

Busy

Grand Thesis Central

I am tired. We are three weeks into our worst five-week stretch of the year, and here's to hoping we've hit bottom and are about to work our way back uphill. Between spending 10-12 hours at work a day and then pouring over my thesis on the weekends, I need a vacation! And a very long night's sleep. I've been getting by with the help of yoga, the fabulous four-week meal plan, the first season of "Glee," and the best husband in the world. Oh, and an alarming amount of tea.

In other news, it appears to be spring. On February 28 it seemed like winter would never end. Then suddenly, March arrived much more like a songbird than a lion. For the past few days it has been balmy and in the 50s--the 50s! This weekend it is rainy (but not snowy. so thankful), and I've decided to let that thesis rest for a while so that I can finish Emma by an early-spring fire. Last weekend it was gorgeous, so we planted asparagus and took our first walking tour of all the spring bulbs that we've planted to see what has started to peak its head up. Crocus, hyacinths, and tulips, oh, my! And daffodils. Don't daffodils make you think of the cartoon version of Alice in Wonderland?

planting asparagus

First Signs of Spring...