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Recipe: green goddess dressing

This was supposed to be a roundup of the places I dined at while in Virginia, but I needed to go with something simple. My body needed it, too. Heavy restaurant eating and not enough outdoor exercise make me feel blah and yuck and argg. I did finally get back to Colorado with nary a hitch if you ignore that it was 24 hours later. And while I do miss my parents, I’m also ecstatic to be back to my life of thin air, simple mountain living, Jeremy, and American West sensibilities.

enjoying tulips on pearl street in boulder while waiting for my bus back to nederland

So today you get salad, or rather, salad dressing. I always say a homemade salad dressing is ten times better than any store-bought dressing, because it’s true! And it is only slightly more work. My favorite default dressing is a squeeze of lemon juice, some good olive oil, salt, and pepper. Good stuff and super simple. Of course, we like to change things up around here with different kinds of dressings or salad ingredients (see the links below the recipe for some of my favorites). I thought it would be good to revisit an oldie, but goodie – something that graced every salad bar of my youth in the 70s and 80s – green goddess dressing.

tarragon, parsley, chives, plain greek yogurt, mayonnaise, black pepper, salt, lemon, white wine vinegar, anchovy paste

three green herbs

place the herbs and liquids in the blender

add the anchovy paste

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I was planning to have a recipe for you, but USAirways didn’t want that to happen and managed to botch every possible way for me to get home to Colorado. All I have on my laptop are a bunch of photos from my extra long weekend in Williamsburg, Virginia. Jeremy joined us for the actual weekend between meetings and talks in Charlottesville (Virginia). So enjoy the photos and I’ll talk about great places to dine around here in the next post if I ever get home!

visited with a dear childhood friend and her adorable little girl

the view from my parents’ deck

flowering dogwood (virginia state flower)

my old neighborhood is like a park (jeremy running the path)

while running, i bumped into a childhood friend who was also visiting from out of town

a little freshwater fishing with dad

showing my folks how to take a selfie without a selfie stick in colonial williamsburg

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Recipe: korean barbecue chicken wings

When I left my house early yesterday morning, the predominant color of my neighborhood was white. The snow has steadily deflated and melted, but it’s still there. Within 25 minutes, we were zipping through Boulder’s streets where trees dripped with the confetti of springtime: bright yellow greens, pinks, whites, purples. My head hurt because it was early and because I had gone to bed late. This always happens when I travel – it’s the “wrapping up of things the night before” and the “catching a flight the following morning” head hurting thing.

robin perched in the aspens from the last storm

cute dark-eyed junco on our deck

My noggin did the deep sleep bounce several times during my flight to the East Coast. It woke me with that heart-racing jolt – you know, the one that makes you instinctively touch the corners of your mouth to see if you were drooling in your sleep. Each time I peered out the window to find a sea of clouds stretched out beneath us, like a giant down comforter. I searched for signs of landforms, but the weather prevailed and so did sleep. On my connection to Virginia, our puddle jumper rose above the clouds for a mere three minutes before beginning the descent. Underneath the cloud deck, I marveled at how green the Tidewater area was. Green and flat. Flat such that the only shadows thrown in the setting sun were from the trees and not from the topography of the coastal plain. Dominated by the estuaries that branch into this green and flat land with a million brackish fingers. It’s the opposite of where I make my home. And yet, I was coming home.

mixed weather and sun over the tidewater

dogwood blooms in the backyard

It’s been some time since I have visited Virginia, but we have this short window to travel before The Summer of Puppy commences. Of course, Dad has planned nearly every minute of my stay with activities, meals, and wine. I expressed my doubts that it is humanly possible to consume ALL of the food he has in mind for a long weekend (he just asked me when we’re going to eat soft shell crab). That’s the problem with going back to a place you know – there’s never enough time (or waistband). But you should save some belly room for these Korean barbecue chicken wings I tried from Irvin’s beautiful food blog. They’re baked, which in my opinion is far easier to make and less messy to clean up than frying, and they taste fantastic.

rice vinegar, soy sauce, green onions, garlic, ginger, kiwis, sugar, red pepper flakes, sesame seeds, black pepper, chicken wings

chop and mince

ready to make the marinade

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