use real butter

Recipe: strawberry hazelnut salad

The new lens arrived! We are getting acquainted. I think I like her. K-dawg and I took her out for a test drive yesterday morning.

i love it here, despite the winds

Kaweah exhibited the strangest behavior I’ve ever witnessed in her on the way back out from the lake. I won’t bore you with details, but after discussing with Jeremy last night on the phone, we’re pretty sure it was a mountain lion or bobcat following us for well over a mile. I never thought of Kaweah as “scrumptious” before, but I imagine she must be a tasty looking chubby little morsel for a big cat these days. When we reached the car, we encountered a much friendlier resident (actually, I’m sure if it were large and fanged and clawed like a mountain lion, we might not consider it friendlier).

cute-a-roonie

We had a good friend come up for dinner earlier this week as I needed to pick her brain for information on the Sierra Nevada. For dinner, I made that fan-friggin-tastic roasted pepper and goat cheese tart. You must make it, just do it – it’s freaking awesome and you can replace the goat cheese with feta if you like. I totally cannot shut up about it. I was also working on that strawberry chiffon buttercream cake goodness for dessert. And 30 minutes before M arrived, I remembered that I had forgotten a salad. Hands on hips, foot tapping, brain whirring. I had greens, but what else?

strawberries to the rescue

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: roasted pepper, prosciutto, and goat cheese tart

Flowers are blooming down in Boulder. That is typical for this time of year. The tulips are on grand display on Pearl Street right now. So many colors and varieties. I went back to catch some in the rain Sunday evening.

but how do they keep the deer away?

love this purple

The tulips are no surprise. I’ll tell you what was a surprise… last Tuesday, Jeremy and I took Kaweah on a walk and scoped for flowers. None. Still early. On Saturday, we did the same walk in the rain and found the first pasque flowers emerging from the pine litter. They always bloom first up here, and they are a curious flower – short, low to the ground, but the flower itself is quite large and pretty neat. Thus we begin the start of the wildflower season!

a few days old, tops

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Recipe: fried shrimp wontons

I’ve been hearing/reading about the broiler weekend everyone has been having on the East coast. Something to be said for the ridge-trough-ridge systems that march through. Our mild and sunny days in the mountains this week gave way to a thick fog this morning followed by drizzle and then… snow. I know some of you will grimace at the mention of snow as we’re almost into May, but if I didn’t like snow, I’d be (even more of) an idiot to live here, don’t you think? I like my snow and drizzle and frizzle and grauple and hail and t-storms and rain and sun. I love the weather. Makes me feel alive. Okay wait, I am not a fan of the winds here. THAT I could easily do without and since our wind season is over, it’s time to sand and oil the patio furniture again!

I must plug a new site that Chuck [of SND, of foodgawker, of many talents] has recently launched. It’s beautiful! It’s craftgawker! Go check it out – nice craft porn.

Speaking of crafts… I had a little gathering of my betties for another stitch-n-bitch, but this time only one knitter. Everyone else – well, we all worked on different projects: bee keeping, drawing, beading, and sewing. Here’s what came of my distracted efforts (there was a visiting puppy running around that needed to be played with, you know):

bright and little

handy wallet

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