Saturday, July 5, 2008

Belated: Fireworks for the 4th!

It is an age old American tradition to honor our freedom, the bbq and fireworks, on the 4th of July. Fortunately this year I had the opportunity to witness the most fireworks I have ever seen in my life. The location of our home and the perfect weather for the day afforded the brilliant scene. First, from our living room, we could see multiple shows, probably about 5 at once. Then, I stepped foot onto the deck and could see a few more. As the evening grew from dusk to night time, the Mr. and I grabbed the camera and headed to our building's roof top deck. Who would have thought that a building with 6 floors would have such a great view? The pictures that I am going to display below will not do the scene justice. We literally could see all fireworks shows to the North, West and South for what seemed like a 30 mile radius. It was amazing. Everywhere I looked on the horizon and up close in the city there were fireworks. Here are a few pictures of the sight. Again, no camera can "show" you what I got to see! Mark this fourth down in the memory book for me, as it was spectacular!



It's hard to distinguish a firework from a street lamp in this picture. However, if you look closely at the light bursts, those are all various fireworks that were going off simultaneously.

Spoils of today's farmers market!

The Mr. and I started our day off early this morning. By 10am we had been to the farmers market, had our morning coffee and retrieved any remaining groceries that we needed for the week from the store. Since I've had a bit more time on my hands lately, I've spent some of that time looking for new ideas for things to cook. So, now you will be able to see the fruits of my search! At the market this morning we picked up green beans, cucumbers, snap peas, zucchini, yellow squash, tart cherries, flat parsley, rosemary and onions. It was a very productive visit to the market. Following our visit, I dug up some of the recipes that I had recently found to cook today. First we started off with a zucchini squash pizza. We modified it slightly by adding some grilled chicken to the mix. We finished our evening dinner with tart cherry crisp. I used my Aunt S's recipe for the cherry fruit filling and the crumbly crisp topping recipe came from one of the magazines I've had the pleasure to enjoy in the past few weeks. Both recipes are keepers that we will be adding to our rotation of things to cook.

Friday, July 4, 2008

Lots of Catching Up to Do!

It's been a few weeks since I've posted...since then we've had family in town, we have our first baby tomatoes on the vine, I've been to Dallas and back, we've seen our friend Sue's new fabulous home, and it's officially SUMMERTIME!
During our family visits we have had the chance to go on an extended eating tour of Chicago. While managing to roll around town, we saw many of the more touristy attractions-the art museum, Lincoln Park Zoo and Conservatory, Millenium Park and the Bean, Wrigley Field, Navy Pier, the Buckingham Fountain, Soldier Field, Michigan Avenue and the Hancock building. While this list may seem rather long to squeeze into four days, the truth is we hit these attractions and squeezed in some shopping, caught the tail end of the Pride Parade and managed to relax at home. It was Waynie's first visit to Chi-town and we therefore had no choice but to have no restraint!
In other news, our flower and tomato and herb garden are progressing quite splendidly. As I said earlier, we have the first signs of fruit on the tomato plant and I can already taste the fresh red, ripe goodness on my tongue. Nevermind that our garden consists of one pot of basil, one mint and 2 tomato plants. But, when you live an urban lifestyle and your patios are about 30 square feet each, this is an accomplishment. I don't set the bar very high when it comes to gardening-can you tell?
That's about all that has happened at the cupcake house over the past few weeks. I'll be posting something in honor of our freedom in the near future.


This first shot might give you the wrong impression. No, we are not in the Carribean. These crystal blue waters are Lake Michigan ala the John Hancock building.



And this one is self explanatory. Home of Da' Bears!