Chile pickles, spice art, and family visits

At the North Carolina Botanical Garden earlier this month.
Lena sporting some fancy threads she put together.
Treat.
Making cinnamon rolls over Thanksgiving.
Checking out the carnivorous plants at the NC Botanical Garden.
Spice art hanging in our backyard.
A playdo papa courtesy of Lena & Morgan.
Making chile pickles - 1 lb chiles, 1/4 cup garlic, 1/4 cup ginger and some spices! Very zingo.

Thanksgiving cinnamon rolls.
Lena with some eggs from our friends' chickens that we took care of over thanksgiving.
treat, riley, and the space in between.
Another baking project with Lena's art gallery in the background.
This past weekend we had a wonderful visit from Paul's grandmother Isabelle, Aunt Lois, and dad. Here Lena reads a book with her great grandmother.
Chile pickle!
Hazel, Lena and Isabelle.
Lois and Alan.
Lois and Lena reading in our living room.
Roughhousing before bedtime.






Reading together.

thanksgiving

Cinnamon rolls rising, fiddling, playing chase, long after we should all be in bed... a wonderful start last night to the holiday together.

pies glorious pies

A week ago we had folks over for pie and coffee which was a delicious excuse to make a variety of pies and spend the afternoon chatting with friends. Here are a few photos of what we made starting with cooking down the muscadines (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscadine), a grape native to the southeastern U.S.
Muscadine hulls. They can be pretty tough and a little bitter when eaten straight but are amazing when baked in a pie!
Bean pie made with navy beans. Our cookbook, Southern Pies (http://www.amazon.com/Southern-Pies-Gracious-Recipes-Chocolate/dp/081186992X), says that bean pie was "developed in the 1930s as part of the nutritional teachings of the Nation of Islam...became standard items at black Muslim bakeries in urban communities from Chicago and Oakland, California, to Detroit and Washington, D.C." The only time we've ever had a bean pie before was at the farmer's market at Garfield Conservatory on Chicago's west side.
Fred Thompson's German Chocolate Pie.
The groaning board, starting with bean pie in the lower left and then going clockwise to German Chocolate Pie, than Muscadine Hull Pie, and finally Dr. George Washington Carver's sliced sweet potato pie.
Post-pie fest.
Muscadine hull pie.

B.W. Kitten

We write with sad news that the kitten we rescued a couple weeks ago had to be put to sleep today after a trip to the emergency vet revealed that he was very sick. We are glad we had a chance to care for B.W. (vet shorthand for 'black and white' kitten) and appreciate that one of the impacts he had on our family was to remind us to not take for granted our cats, Treat and Riley. We'll miss him.

Of Kittens, Bluebirds, and Sugar Days

A few recent photos starting with Morgan doing a great job impersonating a crazy cat lady.
Shitake mushrooms growing on a log that Leon got for us at the farmer's market!
Ships that pass in the night.
"Get me out of here!!!"
Preparing for Halloween.
Bigger mushrooms.
Despite the rains last night, we were not to be deterred from trick-or-treat-ing.
Our little bluebird.
And the bluebird's end of the night bounty.
Bad sign when it's after 9pm and you're explaining what a milk dud is.
The start of the Halloween evening with the bluebird and jackrabbit ready to take to the streets.

Cousins and Kitten

Vanessa, Leon, Izze came to visit this past weekend. We had a great time. Here are a few photos of our adventures.








Our other big news of this past week is that while driving Lena to preschool on Thursday Morgan found this kitten in the middle of the road. It hadn't been hit but but was scared, tiny, and hungry. Now he is in our kitchen being fostered for a bit and doing great. So far our cats seem moderately skeptical, or at least aloof.