Bounty!

Summer is my favorite time of year for eating! I love the fresh berries (blueberries and blackberries for lunch this week, yum!). Tomatoes, peaches, corn, fresh herbs, what could be better? When I was down in Delaware a few weeks ago, I got to share some bounty with my dear friend. We invented our dinner that evening. After having happy hour complete with delicious cheese and crackers Yea for mango and ginger stilton! (This cheese has been know to bring to people with completely different tastes in cheese to agreement!) We wanted something a little less grand than the original plan. So, we made an amazing salad.
What a lovely place setting, too. The salad you see consists of:
kernels from two ears of corn
1 chopped organic tomato
1 chopped peach
a small bunch of chopped basil
(I'd recommend adding rosemary or mint, but I was too lazy to continue chopping)
lemon juice
olive oil
pan cooked scallops in lemon and lime juice (I don't think they were added yet when the photo was taken.)
and a touch of salt and pepper all served on a bed of greens
I wouldn't have guessed the corn didn't need to be cooked, but since it was such fresh bounty, it was fine.
Delicious!

Lavender

It's been a rough few weeks. In short, I haven't been home for a single weekend in July and there was a good bit of work for each trip. And sometimes I didn't do my research and we ended up driving around the Adirondacks until 1:15 am and not getting back to the inn until 2:30 am. I can't remember the last time I was up that late. Did you know it's really hard to get across Lake Champlain in the middle of the night? This has made me somewhat unsettled. I have a weekend day at home tomorrow and I'm going to savor it... how, you ask, well, I'll go to Pilates and then the Farmers Market. A few other errands and just some time at home.

The other problem is related to work. A number of things have conspired against me this summer and I haven't come even close to meeting my goals. I had to pick up and move my lab, office, teaching lab and various other things I'm supposed to oversee. And all of this into space that wasn't really ready for us and is compressed (meaning less space). Then, I've had a visiting student in my group this summer who has not turned out as expected.

But with all of this, there have been some good highlights.
1)
These arrived at my office on Wednesday! Lovely! And they smell divine! Thanks D!
2) We had an incredible dinner out last Saturday. I got all dressed up - something I haven't done in a while. Have you ever seen me wear makeup? And the bonus was we could walk to the restaurant. We shared a bottle of Lange Pino Gris. And enjoyed a cheese plate to start. The chevre was drizzled with lavender honey. Amazing. I have to try this at home. Funny thing is that I just bought some organic dried lavender on a trip to Delaware/Pennsylvania to visit a college friend a few weekends ago. Now I really have to try it. And D's main dish was lavender encrusted tuna. Amazing.
3) I have new music. The New Pornographers are incredible. Thanks to another friend from college for the recommendation.
4) I'm moving up in the world and I have 2 followers. Sorry to disappoint you all with my lack of posts recently.

Short AT Hike

Okay, okay, I have not been blogging much. Life has been busy. D and I went to a wedding celebration last weekend. It was a ton of fun. Great to see friends I haven't seen in a while and some three legged racing funniness. In conjunction with this trip , we got the chance to hike a short bit of the AT. (Note: I have always thought it would be fun to hike the AT, especially after reading A Walk In the Woods, but really, I won't ever do it.) Here are a few photos of our adventure. Part of the fun is that we got to see a really cool waterfall...
What do you see in the stream?
I think he thought we couldn't see him. His camouflage is pretty good, huh?