Yinz Weekend

In Pittsburgh no one is familiar with the term "y'all".  Instead they say "yinz".  A few weeks ago some of Stuart's "yinzer" friends came to Charlottesville for a visit!  We packed my apartment and a few had to stay at the Hampton Inn downtown.

We hiked Humpback Rocks with a few of the early arrivers. Unfortunately I did not take my camera as it's mostly difficult to just get up there with yourself.  But the views were amazing!  We spent the rest of the weekend doing our best to introduce these northerners to C'ville - and of course that's best done by eating fantastic food and taking in the countryside while you test a glass of Virginia's finest wines!

It was a great visit!  Here are some pictures.

Yinzer crew: Richter, Stu, Me, Ross, Amanda, Babaji, Jess, Jared

Stu teaching Babaji about Virginia's wines at Pippin Hill

What good is enjoying a nice glass if you don't know the engineering behind how it's made?!

Gadsden Vacay

Late June Stuart and I traveled home to Gadsden for the weekend.  It had been too long since I've seen my extended family, so we had a big family gathering with delicious food as per usual to celebrate.  We also went to a fancy local restaurant with mom and dad one night, and were able to see all my home church family.  It was a short weekend, but a good one.  Here are some pictures.

Meeting of the minds ... always best at a kitchen table

Aunt Charlotte's homemade banana pudding with meringue topping.  This is toward the top of my list of favorite things in the world.

The obligatory family couch photo

Mom and her sisters on the back deck

Me with Dad and Uncle Jerry.  Can you tell they're related?

A visit with family really couldn't be complete without someone shooting a gun, right?  Dad and Stu took his new toy out into the back yard to shoot a stump a few times.  I think the neighbors were a bit scared.

Welcome Summer!

I started this post a while back and then forgot to finish it.  I need to get caught up on blogs before this weekend since Stu and about 6 of his friends are coming into town.  I anticipate a lot of pictures coming!  A few weekends ago Stuart came into town.  It was around the beginning of Summer, and we rang in the season by picking blueberries and cherries at a couple of local farms.  Have I ever mentioned how much I love Charlottesville?

I had never seen a cherry tree before, and for some reason was suprised to find each tree heavy laden with fruit just seeming to drip off the branches.  We ate too many while we were picking.  Along with a few cute kids with big red stains across the fronts of their shirts.

That evening we welcomed the brand new UVA Internal Medicine interns into town at one of our chief's houses.  There was grilling, and of course, cornhole.  We made it several rounds into the tournament I'd like to add.

Saturday we went to a local Vineyard called Veritas.  They have a summertime event called Starry Nights where you bring a picnic, have some wine, and listen to music while the sun sets.  We were grossly underprepared as most folks had a set-up similar to an Ol' Miss tailgate in the Grove.  We just had ourselves - but that was enough for us!

Then Sunday (Stu went back Monday) we were finally able to watch polo at King Family Vineyards!  Last time we attempted this, Stuart had car trouble resulting in both of us being a little cranky.  It had rained the previous day and by the time we got there they cancelled the polo match due to muddy fields.  This trip was a much bigger success.  Winston joined us and was surprisingly not into the horses.  I think because it was really hot.  He mostly just wallowed in the grass and got a lot of attention from people.

At "half time" everyone gets to run out on the field and stomp the divets.  Winston just peed on them.

Garden Goodness

I’m relatively new to gardening, but I think my love for dirt and growing things started when I was a child.  You see, my dad has a big garden in our back yard.  I grew up watching and helping the process along as much as a kid can.  I rode the tractor with Dad.  There was a little button on the steering wheel he always told me was used to “mash worms”.  I pushed it a lot.  And I remember fondly the way the freshly tilled dirt smelled after a rain.  I remember how Dad would walk the garden rows checking on the plants, and how he noted the weather and anticipated how it would affect the seedlings.  At the time I was more interested in digging up worms and grabbing unusual-looking rocks for my collection.  But then, strawberries came out of the ground from mounds of pine straw, and my small hands were used for shucking corn and shelling peas.  I can distinctly remember the sound the peas made when they hit the side of the yellow Tupperware bowl I held in my lap.  The corn would be hand-creamed by Mom in that same bowl.  I remember the sweet creaminess and the smell it made.  And then payoff – dinner time.

I don’t have a patch of land yet, but this year some friends gave me some nice dirt – complete with a few patties of manure – and I loaded it into pots.  They were kind enough to give me some spare seedlings too, and I got some herbs at the farmers market.  When I planted them I got so much dirt under my fingernails that I couldn’t get it out for a few days.  I didn’t try anything from seed this year, just seedlings, but I lovingly planted them all the same.  I watered them, fertilized them when they looked sad (though it hurt my heart to do so … ahem … organic movement).  Each morning I sit out on my porch with a cup of coffee and notice the changes from day to day.  Sometimes a droopy leaf tells me more water is needed.  Sometimes stems lean into the sun, so I scoot the pot over to make it easier. 

I guess watching them everyday you don’t notice the growth as much.  And then you leave for a weekend, with much trepidation and fear that they will wither in the heat or a bird will peck them, and when you return you find … a SQUASH BLOSSOM!  And just around the corner from that … A GREEN BEAN!  Wow!  Is this what having kids is like?

Not from my garden, but still awesome

Check out that little bean!!!

I’ll let you know what they taste like soon.  And while I’m at it, how about a nice spring-changing-to-summer recipe?

Stuffed Zucchini

3 zucchini, split and seeded

salt, pepper and EVOO

1/2 cup wild rice

1/4 an onion

1 bunch chard, stems removed and sliced into ribbons

Parmesan cheese

Cook the rice on the stove.  I added my onion just straight into the boiling stock for the rice.  Meanwhile, drizzle a little EVOO over the zucchini halves and sprinkle with salt/pepper.  Bake in a 350 oven for about 15 minutes, or until fork-tender.

Once the rice is done, mix it with the chard.  The heat from the rice should wilt the chard a bit.  Then scoop it into the little zucchini boats.

Turn the oven to broil.  Sprinkle some Parmesean over the top and broil for a few minutes.  Simple.  Delicious.  Enjoy!

The "Perfect" Saturday

Stuart came in town this weekend and, as always, I had the weekend planned down to the second.  Granted, we generally do variations on the same theme when he’s here in Charlottesville: Farmers Market, followed by vineyard or hike, followed by dinner with friends or a date.

From the moment we woke up Saturday I knew it would be the perfect day.  Granted, Stuart may have thought differently given I made him get up at 7 to hit the farmers’ market.  Everyone knows that’s when you have the smallest crowds and the best produce, duh!  That morning the sun was shining without a cloud in the sky, but it wasn’t hot or humid.  We found a park downtown and made our traditional pass by every stall, taking mental notes of who had the cheapest English peas, or which bunch of asparagus looked the most fresh.  At least those were my notes.  Stuart’s job was to decide what we would eat for breakfast.  On the second pass I picked up cabbage, peas, beets, asparagus, baby carrots, strawberries, cherries and rhubarb.  Stuart decided he wanted an omelet for breakfast, so we visited Chef Tony and had honestly the best omelet of my life… of course with a cup of Shenandoah Joe on the side.  We had planned a hike after the market, so also decided to purchase a picnic lunch which consisted of spinach whole wheat bread and a nice peppercorn sheep’s milk cheese.

What else could make this morning more perfect you ask?  How about driving to our hike just in time to hear “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me” on NPR!  We laughed the whole way to Skyline Drive before we lost service.  But by then we wanted the radio off and the windows down, and of course Winston was excited about that so he could hang his head out the window.  I had researched this hike called “White Oak Canyon”, and though it looked a bit complicated I found a loop that would take us through about 8 miles.  We had done a similar distance with Winston a few months ago so figured it would be okay.  The hike was moderate to strenuous per the map, with a steep descent the first half and a pretty good ascent the second half.  However, the views made up for the quivering quadriceps.  We basically followed a stream the entire hike, and as our steps descended the stream made several waterfalls.  These were pretty impressive falls by Virginia standards, and Winston benefited by being able to lap up a drink in the pools.

Alas, the hike was marked by twists and turns, and after we found our connector loop we realized we may have been getting a bit off track.  We started passing folks we had already passed earlier in the hike (which I’m still not really sure how that happened), and everyone kept telling us we still had a long way to go.  With tiring legs and blisters starting to pop up under my hiking boots, I said a silent prayer of thanks as we spotted the parking lot!  … Wait … that’s not the parking lot.  We had somehow hiked to a parking lot several miles down the road!  We figured we could walk back on the road to our other lot, but with Winston in tow that seemed a bit dangerous.  Instead we found another trail, which lead to another trail, which lead to another trail, which crossed a swift moving stream, which lead to another trail, which lead to our original parking lot.  Had my spirits not been briefly revived by walking up on a deer literally 20 feet from me, I might have collapsed from exhaustion and likely rhabdomyolysis (look it up).  By the time we got to the car I had low back pain and left hip pain (how old am I?!?), and it took both of us several minutes to be able to reflect back on the day and joke.

After we missed Supper Club due to being lost in the woods, and were sitting at an Indian restaurant loading up on calories and trying to not move our extremities too much, Stuart asked if I still thought it was the “perfect” day.  I decided it was – because there’s really no one else I’d rather get lost in the woods with!

Deceptively easy part of the hike

Thirsty boy!

Turns out if you prop your camera on a rock, that's almost as good as a tripod!

Nice Viewpoint

Winston blazing a trail across the water

Rock-Tripod

Needless to say we both took several hundred milligrams of Ibuprofen, and even today I still could barely walk.  I decided to try a run today which was painful – but sore muscles are a good kind of painful I guess!

And just so you know, the cabbage wound up going along-side some beer-poached and seared bratwurst which was frozen from last month’s pork share. The peas got shelled and complemented a nice faro risotto (turns out you can make risotto with things more healthy than rice), and I de-pitted the cherries and tried my hand at home made cherry hand-pies!  Next weekend I’ll get more market goodies, and probably do much less walking.

Here's my most adventurous pictures from the last stream crossing.  Poor Winston!