Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Let 'er Buck!

I still love our annual tradition of the Pendleton Round Up.  It's just so...wholesome?  No, there's lots of drinking and carousing and beef involved, so wholesome is not the right word.  Down home perhaps, but in the best sense.  This year, we had some wonderful friends come with us, so we had quite the good looking crew.  Here we are watching the rodeo during the day:
And catching some entertainment at night:
(I know all of those people on that bench.  So fun.)  Speaking of fun, if you're my parents, the street entertainment always provides lots of opportunities for dancing.
 Aren't they cute?  Such a sassy coral dress on Mamacita!  As for us, lets not lie, the evenings usually contain a fair amount of adult beverages. 
But hey, we had clearly imbibed WAY less than this guy:
The back of his fairly dirty shirt reads "If Found, Send to the Hut".  The Hut is a dive bar on the outskirts of town, and not a bad place to have your unconscious body sent back to.  In chatting with him, it became evident that he had no idea that the back of his shirt read something so useful.  He told us he was from Kansas and that was about all we could understand over the slurring.  Good times!

There's a wonderful non-motorized parade on Friday morning.  ALL horseback all the time.
I love a whole town on horseback!
Beautiful.  

So that's Round-Up for another year.  As they say in Pendleton, Let 'er Buck!

Friday, October 12, 2012

Hipster Foodtacular

I made jam AND kale chips last week.  I think I must be turning into a hipster behind my own back!

I just got done telling my friend Gina that I wasn't sure if making jam was worth it.  For a boring flavor like peach, it's a lot of sticky hot time in the kitchen to just net seven jars of jam.  BUT, I might take it back.  See, the husband got me a canning label kit for my birthday, and damn if that thing did not make me feel pleased as punch about my jam.  (Thanks husband!)
Bam!  Oh the cuteness!
Cath Kidson, you complete me.  Or at least make me feel better about seven jars of jam.  I'm not going to publish the recipe here because just remembering how much sugar it takes to make seven jars of jam is a little scary, but I use the Ball Blue Book and I recommend it.

Kale chips however, I'm going to tell you exactly how I make those.  Because holy cats, it is SO easy and I know I can't be the only person on the planet who A.) can never figure out what to do with the kale from the CSA bin and B.) doesn't actually like the taste of kale unless it is disguised as something else.  In this case, kale will star in the role of salty, salty deliciousness.

First, get your kale, peel the light green stalk off and chop it into rough bite-size morsels.
Arrange the kale in a (more or less) single layer on the cookie sheet.  Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with sea salt and toss with two forks to coat. 
Roast in a 350 degree oven for ten minutes, tossing with the forks halfway through to ensure evenness.  Cook until the morsels are looking brown around the edges and a sample piece sort of crunches and dissolves on your tongue without having to chew.  If it still tastes like kale, you're not done yet.  If it tastes like salty amazingness, pull it!

Key point: do NOT keep these in a Tupperware!  Keep them in an open bowl or they will lose crispness.  Not even fruit flies will eat kale, so nothing to lose by keeping them on the counter. 

Thanks for listening through Hipster Food 101.  Next up, how to make kombucha from sweaty socks!  Just kidding!!  Kale was adventurous enough, I'm staying away from fermentation.

Monday, October 8, 2012

An Ode to American Summer

Fall is here!  But I still have to wrap up blogging about summer.  So I have a couple of vacationy posts and a couple of other summer posts and then I swear I will move into an appropriate season.

August Vacation Recap!  Every summer, my husband's family gathers at a family house in Massachusetts.  It's one of my favorite places on earth.  The house has a million tiny bedrooms which inevitably fill up with hilarious cousins, relatives and friends.  
The fleet of rusty bicycles on the front porch means that the beach is a five minute ride away. 
 
Whole days go by where the most activity you'll see in a day consists of a swim followed by a whole lot of this:
Dinner sometimes looks like this: 
And ice cream must happen at least once a day.
The beach is lovely and the water is warm.
There's a lot of family history at the house.  Which means that views like this:
Can be found in photos like this:

Of course the East Coast is always a great excuse to break out preppy finery:
Oh hey, Lilly.  (Also, bright yellow Saltwater sandals DO come in adult sizes.  Hecks yes.)

So much beauty. 
Thanks East Coast, we'll see you next year.