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Recipe: pan-seared black cod with summer vegetables

[I completely forgot about this interview with Friday magazine earlier this month! Click on over if you’re bored and haven’t heard enough of my yammering. It features some other food bloggers you might recognize too.]

It was hot this weekend! This is what they call Indian summer, right? Summer is pretty brief where we live, so we welcome it with open arms in the mountains. It’s glorious. As summer winds down, Jeremy and I are both pretty happy to move into autumn – which arrives right on schedule around these parts. Taking advantage of these last hot and sunny days, we distributed the compost in our yard to make room in the compost bin, cleaned out the basement, did heaps of recycling, and replaced our hot water heater. Okay, the hot water heater sort of demanded replacement when it died and flooded the basement, but I’m glad we took care of it in summer rather than winter.

and kaweah got a much needed bath

Our fall colors are arriving in full force to the south. I’m looking forward to a cool down because when I see yellow aspens, I want to be wearing fleece – not sweating my brains out in a short-sleeve t-shirt getting sunburned, which is exactly what happened on Sunday’s shoot. But have a gander at what we found. [See the full set on the photo blog.]

colorado gold on deep blue skies

healthy pines and golden aspens

a lovely mix of colors

brilliant

aglow in early afternoon light

When I was in Seattle, my friend Caroline had complained that they didn’t get a real summer and that she wasn’t ready to let it go just yet. One evening we went to the grocery store to pick up ingredients for dinner. Hmmmm, what to make for dinner? Caroline went to grab some black cod to bake and Erin asked me to come up with a vegetable. I remembered Caroline’s comment about summer and picked up some summery vegetables for a simple sauté to go with the fish.

corn on the cob

slicing the kernels off

At home, I wanted to try the same vegetables with pan-seared black cod. I too didn’t want to let summer go just yet. There will be time for pumpkins, apples, pomegranates, and butternut squash. Our corn is still sweet. The zucchini are still plentiful. And tomatoes… I am a sucker for the sweet sweet lovin’ of summer tomatoes.

dicing zucchini

cherry tomatoes in the last light of summer

diced into jewels

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: mexican wedding cookies

Yeah, I’ll pick u up! 1:15?

I looked at the text message on my iphone and then put it away. If Beth says 1:15, then she’ll more likely arrive around 1:30. That’s fine. We’d have plenty of time to get to the wedding. Plus it would be good to see Beth. I joked on Facebook that I was flying out to Seattle to see Beth, who lives 30 minutes away from me in Boulder. I hardly saw her all summer – we’ve both been so busy – but now she was going to be my date to the wedding since both of our fellas couldn’t make the trip.

By 1:45 I was starting to worry, but there she appeared and we hopped into the car!

“So do you know where the wedding is?” Beth asked as she began to drive in a general northwest direction. I navigated from my phone map and we were doing fine until the draw bridge began to… draw… up.

“Was 2:00 when we were supposed to get there or when the ceremony starts?” I asked. Eventually the boat passed under the bridge. Eventually we began moving again. When we made it to the park, Beth changed into her dress while I blocked the view between passersby and the driver’s seat. Just as she changed her shoes, I noticed a stream of people file out of the bathhouse toward the beach.

“Beth! Let’s go!!”

We hustled after the line and stood among familiar smiling faces. I dropped my pack in the sand and loaded my cameras, grateful for the moment that I wasn’t the hired photographer for this wedding. My dear friends, Andrew and Nicole, entered the grove of trees.

loved ones look on

listening to the welcome

exchanging vows

sealing the deal

As most of my friends know, I am not a fan of weddings. Perhaps I’m mellowing with age (doubtful) or maybe it’s because the people I’m closest to seem to throw the weddings that are the least offensive to my sensibilities – but it was a beautiful ceremony and I found myself suddenly overcome with happiness for my friends. I learned something that day. I can’t manual focus to save my life when my vision is blurred by tears.

amazing pizzas

andrea is diggin’ the ice cream

the bride gets her dessert

Back in the bathhouse, there were appetizers, wine, and beer. Andrew and Nicole are quite the beer aficionados. Instead of champagne flutes, they had crystal beer flutes. Dinner was catered by some terrific portable wood-fired oven pizza folks Veraci Pizza (thanks for the link, Nicole!) and the Molly Moon ice cream truck (same dude who served us at IFBC 2010!). Honestly, some of the better food I’ve enjoyed at a wedding. I ate five pieces of pizza… hey, they were super thin crust!

the bride is allowed some help while slack-lining

beth partakes in throwing disc

cute little baby gets in on the beach fun too

After slurping down their ice creams (in my case: watermelon sorbet), people wandered over to the slack line, grabbed frisbees from the box, took out the bocce ball set (a game you can play with a beer in your hand), and generally expanded out onto the beach. The National Weather Service said it would rain and then Sunday morning “PSYCHE!” – they changed the forecast to partly cloudy with a little glowing sun peeking through the clouds as their icon.

dahlias as the sun dropped toward the ocean

congratulations, you two! xo

So when I made these cookies last week, I had not made the connection between the name Mexican wedding cookies and the fact that I was about to attend a wedding. It’s curious because I don’t make cookies all that much any more and because I generally don’t attend weddings unless I’m shooting them. Actually, these are also known as Russian tea cakes or pecan sandies rolled in powdered sugar. I informed Nicole and several others that this would be the next recipe on the blog and everyone sort of moaned “I love those cookies!”

the nut: pecans

buttah, flour, powdered sugar

I always think that I don’t love these cookies because they are shortbready which makes me think “dry”. But then I make a batch and eat one for quality control and I’m surprised at how good they are. Well, it is probably in my best interest that I keep thinking they aren’t a lovely little morsel to pop in your mouth. However, I implore you to make these if you haven’t tried them yet. They’re super easy to make too.

some homemade vanilla

the chopped pecans

**Jump for more butter**

I always start out with the best of intentions – to post when I’m away. Yet, I find that I have so many durned photos that I’m dozing off before I even get through the first twenty. Consider it your break from my incessant yammering. But here now. I have photos to share and not a lot of inclination to hang out on the blog tonight. It’s Jeremy’s birthday today and he’s recovering from an outpatient procedure so I think he deserves some pampering, don’t you?

Right! So I started my trip to Seattle last week by seating my bum on the south side of the plane because I like looking at landforms of the western US and because I love volcanoes.

hello mount adams, you are so lovely

My dear friends took me to the Queen Anne Farmer’s Market to grab a bite and peruse the produce stalls. It was there that I found shishito peppers AND padróns in a box side by side. Now I can tell you that shishito peppers and padróns are not the same (I was mistaken in my last post). Padróns are a tad larger in size and darker green in color. So there you have it. Oddly enough, I ran into a whole slew of Seattle bloggers at the market: Becky, Lorna, Jenifer, Julie, and Scott, who was giving a cooking demo.

colorful flower bouquets

i saw a cute bernese mountain dog puppy

crates full of peppers

seattle food geek workin’ the shallots

We started the next morning with a visit to Macrina bakery before my hosts left for work. I hadn’t planned on visiting with food bloggers on this trip, but the schedules panned out and I got to enjoy lunch and a walk along the neighborhood of houseboats with my sweet pal, Tea. She then handed me off to Shauna, Danny, and Lu who took me to go visit with Matt, Danika, and Drake and Lara! I think I’m in love with Seattle folk. Nicest. People. Ever.

choosing breakfast at macrina bakery

my noodle bowl lunch at nettletown

matt

lara

little lu

drake being coy

danny and lu

**Jump for more butter**