use real butter

Recipe: blackberry ice cream

I’m not cooking or baking as much as I’d like and that’s mostly because I’m dealing with unpleasant physical issues related to my least favorite of my chemo drugs. [I know that the last infusion was almost 6 weeks ago, but please tell that to the drugs…] I met with my oncologist this morning and he hasn’t seen it before in his many years of poisoning cancer patients. Great! I’m exceptional in every frakking way… Meanwhile, it would seem that all of my medical appointments have piled together lately such that I fell asleep on the table last night during my heart scan. Well, I’d rather sleep through Journey wailing over the speakers than listen to it while isotopes go racing through my heart.

[While waiting for my radiation appointment this afternoon, I’m killing time by blogging from a bakery in Boulder. Dude half my age just walked past and winked at me. WTF?]

Yesterday evening as Jeremy drove me to my heart scan down on the flats, I spied some mammata forming in the distance. Mammata clouds are typical precursors to tornadoes. In very simple terms, they indicate instability in the atmosphere. We see a lot of them in the summer around these parts.

mammata: look like giant grapes or… boobies

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: darling pasta

I’ve been busy this weekend with visitors. My aunt (one of my dearest friends) and her family are staying with us. They’re in the Denver area for some business and I am delighted to have our first guests in many many months. It is the first time I have seen her since my diagnosis and we had a tearful, heartfelt reunion on the sidewalk outside of Sushi Tora in Boulder. Yes, we had sushi. She is as much a sushi whore as I am (we are related, mind you).

So I wasn’t able to get online until late last night when to my delight, I learned that beloved Chuck of Sunday Nite Dinner has revved up Food Gawker, a budding replacement for Tastespotting. Good on ya, Chuck, and thank you thank you thank you for stepping up to the plate. A lesser cook could not have done this so quickly, so elegantly. You are superfly, babe.

Now, I have to be quick with this recipe because I need to make brekkie shortly and I am still managing random and annoying side effects (yes, they linger long after chemo – stupid chemo…).

I chose my partner well, this is obvious. Jeremy is never a cause for strife or stress in my life – he always makes everything better. But you can’t be guaranteed the same for your partner’s family. Luckily, my in-laws are incredibly sweet and loving people who treat me as if I were their own daughter. And they love to cook! Every time I see them, MIL and I always wind up exchanging recipes and sharing new dishes. We’ve been doing this for over 15 years and some of my favorite recipes come from the early days.

pasta, chicken, sun-dried toms, pesto, parm, roasted peppers, garlic, pine nuts

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: chocolate-dipped orange peel cookies

Cooler than most of you, anyway! We are nearly a week away from the summer solstice and it is snowing outside.

and this is why i live here

Perfect timing as I have a double batch of lentil soup simmering on the stove. All of the barbecue I’ve been making over the past few weeks has me craving non-terrestrial animal foods. I say non-terrestrial because I don’t think I could ever EVER tire of seafood, our lovely, tasty, wonderful aquatic pals… We hit another sushi bar yesterday, but I won’t post on that right now because I don’t want to freak my dear Graeme out with too much fish.

these are not fish: chopped candied orange peel

**Jump for more butter**