Looooove the Black

Ok so my mom just totally rocks!! So she calls me two days before my birthday and says "what do you want for your birthday". I said, really, you don't have to get me anything. She said well, there's this chocolate place.... Um Hello Well Yeahhhh!

I got the chocolates in the mail today and OMG!! Norman Love Confections Black line (take a look). The box was sleek and gorgeous and inside, 15 perfect, beautiful chocolates. There are five kinds, gorgeous in shiny colors, each color representing a different chocolate from a different country with different types of cocoa. Just gorgeous.

Thanks Mom!!!

Pining for Provence

I haven't been to France in (wait, counting on my fingers) Oh my god, 5 years and am missing it. So when I read the article on dining in Provence with Picasso in the New York Times this morning, I totally missed it. The article is a joy and reads like a summer picnic. While the tablecloths in Sanary-sur-Mer, where I spent my days in Provence were green and peach, they still had the paper cloth on the top and you could still look out over the Med., smelling the briny depths as I tasted them in my moules marinières and brandade. Oh yum. Time to pull out my Elizabeth David Cookbook again.

Camel's Hump

A few photos from the walk up Camel's Hump. We got a sub from the new deli in Moscow and took the BIG BAG of potato chips. Boy were we lucky we did. 'Twas cold up there. As you can see, the walk was through the stream.














The views were
spectacular from the top

Vermont Weekend

We had 5 lovely days on our annual pilgrimage to Vermont. Understand that Vermont for me means cooking and eating and leaf and tourist peeping. Attached are a few photos taken by Tam that express some of the delightful experiences I had in VT.

Sheep Being Shipped for Slaughter

Yes we had lamb on Saturday night for dinner.... mmmm tasty. Tam grows her own potatoes and they seem to have an addiction to my feta mashed potatoes, so good with lamb!!! Pair that with the growler of Brewer's Art Resurrection that we hauled up there from Baltimore and we were in 7th heaven.

The water buffalo from whence came the caprese salad (lunch today)

After stopping to get the buffalo mozzarella and stocking up on small batch maple syrup we headed to Singleton's store for the best bacon in the world. Cob smoked bacon, 25 lbs from the surly Vermonters that work there. Yes Josh, you'll get your share next weekend.

Plymouth Cheese (nasty nasty stuff)

Next time we're sticking to the Cabot and Lazy Lady cheese while in VT, but this cheese maker (Frog City Cheese) was located on the Calvin Coolidge homestead so we tried it. They are purported to be using one of the oldest cheese recipes in the country. The landscape was gorgeous gorgeous, the cheese, nicht ser gut! We tried to find 3 other cheese places, but nothing is very well marked in Vermont. Yes we did have to haul our butts up Camel's Hump to work off some of that food. Oof!

More fall foliage photos: