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Monatsarchive: September 2013

Red Wine Cherries With Ice Cream Or Goat Cheese & Mascarpone Mousse

Rainier Cherries

We are currently at the part of the year I love the most. When Fall is just tiptoeing at the front door and Summer decided to linger on. Cooler mornings, crisp evening and yet bright sunshine and balmy temperatures during the day. The market displays the de rigueur squash and pumpkin while the last of the tomatoes, peaches and cherries are still going strong. I am afraid I am on the last batch of cherries I had pitted and frozen this summer, devising one last treat before apples, pears and pomegranate come around full force.

Red Wine Cherries & Ice Cream

I cooked the first braised dish of the season tonight and really it was because Bill was pushing me a tad. He is less and less traveling back and forth to Charleston and we are well adjusting to being a unit again. Next week will mark one year I have moved to Birmingham. Seems like it was yesterday. Seems like I have been here longer too. Seems like I was in Charleston just days ago. Seems like it was an eternity ago. I am here and there.

Red Wine Cherries & Goat Cheese Mousse


Everyday I learn more about myself and people. About what it means to photograph for a huge publishing house, with great talents and great projects. With big dreams too.
There are issues, there is a little drama here and there but overall there is this intense desire to create beautiful imagery. At the end of a really hard day, I still wake the next morning and say "Man! I love my job". I am looking forward to what the next year will bring at work. And home now that Bill will be here more often.

Red Wine Cherries & Goat Cheese Mousse 2

Adjusting to each other is the easy part for us. We really dig each other…that helps! We have our quiet times. Our about town times. All punctuated by little indulgences here and there. Like Wine Soaked Cherries With Vanilla Ice Cream or Goat Cheese & Mascarpone Mousse. The cherries are divine on their own but flatter the most simple vanilla ice cream with gusto. They play a quieter part with soft and unctuous goat cheese and mascarpone mousse.

Red Wine Cherries & Goat Cheese Mousse 3

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Squid Ink Pasta With Stilton Blue & Fresh Figs

Pasta Plated _ plate

Feels like forever since I last posted here. Wait, it’s been forever!What can I say..There was work, lots of it and at a fast pace, summer hang outs with friends and weekend discoveries around town. A trip to France that pumped all my energy and emotions and getting back in the groove of things which has been easier than anticipated.

Mise Pasta Figs

I am spending the weekend in a cabin in the northern Georgia with my bestie Tami from Running With Tweezers and I can tell Fall is right around the bend. I am a bridesmaid at her wedding and we decided to do a bachelorette weekend all together in a serene and peaceful house. The Appalachian mountains are quite lovely and tranquil during Fall.

Figs

We are just spending a couple of quiet days catching up, genuinely talking about our hopes, fears, giving each others support and words of wisdom. Cooking, snacking, drinking wine and relaxing on the back porch doing nothing of extreme importance. A couple of days to read, relax and enjoy the sound of the river below. I needed it.

Adjusting our internal clocks.

Adjusting my own after three weeks spent in France surrounded by family, great meals, long dinners under the sun and shaded homestead was easier than I thought. I went back into the kitchen right away and cooked comforting meals every night. The husband is still back and forth between here and Charleston so it’s been me and old pup Tippy (will be 17 this coming year!), a good book in the evening and catching up on y’alls blogs and instagrams…

Pasta Plated _ Table

On the weekend, easy peasy meals have been most welcome. The weather has been hot and humid, typically Southern and there has not been much time spent baking, roasting, braising, etc… I am looking forward to those days when Sundays turn into lamb roasts, onion soup and braised chicken. Until then, it’s a loaded heirloom tomato salad, a minty quinoa and cucumber salad or better yet, a quick pasta dish with nothing else than a couple of add ons and a drizzle of olive oil.

When in France, I picked up the coolest black and white spaghetti at a gourmet store. Striped squid in gluten free spaghetti. I feel like playing Mikado with my brothers again everytime I boil a handful. My to-go lunch one hot Saturday was a simple quick toss of said pasta with Stilton blue and fresh cut figs. A little olive oil and I was in business. Simple method, simple flavors. Cooking like we do in my family.

A preview of Fall in a plate.

Figs

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