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Three Fabulous Summer Cocktails
I love summer, I love the laziness, the long days, reading books, napping, eating lots of popsicles and grilled bread, and cold salads. I love the water and the lingering scent of coconut sunscreen that takes me back to childhood days spent at the pool, soaking up the warmth. I love, love, love the sun. But despite my talents at being lazy, with two kids and a fun, new city & state to explore, we’ve managed to stay busy. Trips to the stream, trips to Canada, playing in tide pools, summer concerts, fire pits near the river with good friends, swim lessons, summer camps, dentist appointments, parties and holy cow! It’s…
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The Best Spicy Grilled Chicken
I realize we celebrated an important holiday this past weekend, that amazing thing called Independence Day, but if you live in the Pacific Northwest, second maybe to Independence Day, is summer, our summer, which we joke doesn’t begin until after July 5th. So many, many years it’s no joke. Cold, rainy springs bleed into cloudy, rainy June-uary; both feel neverending. And that’s often after an entire winter of ceaseless rain. Even today as I write this, it’s 60 degrees and raining outside. When July arrives, it’s like we can breathe. We grab onto summer and wring every single drop out of it as it stretches before us, warm and dry…
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Peach Cobbler
Peaches seem to surprise me every year. I never crave a peach. Maybe because I’m much more of a savory gal than a sweet tooth. I always, always look forward to tomatoes and onions and squash blossoms from the garden, dreaming up all the savory recipes I can make. When the season is over I miss them, especially summer fresh tomatoes. But I never crave a peach. Somehow, though, when late summer brings those juicy sweet, a tiny bit tart peaches to the market I am in love. Maybe it’s because they truly are amazing in their season; you can smell them before you even see them. And maybe it’s…
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Strawberry Lemonade Popsicles
Yay! The school year is over. Finally!!! It was a rough one for us and right now I’m just glad summer vacation is here. And it’s hot here, people, am I right? Not blisteringly hot, not sweltering Midwest hot and sticky, just hot enough that the grass around us is starting to dry out and lose it’s emerald green quality for the summer, hot enough that when Jasper sprays me with his squirt gun it feels great, perfectly hot enough for popsicles!! We have had so many strawberries this year, like bowls full every morning for weeks. I almost can’t keep up, it’s almost too many! It seems absolutely crazy…
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Summer Evening Light
Can we talk about the summer evening sky? June in the Pacific Northwest is so brilliantly beautiful, especially when it actually acts like summer and we get to see the sunshine, feel the warmth, smell the drying grass and geraniums, the roses and jasmine, and where we live, the salty sea air. And perhaps my favorite thing about living here in the summers, especially as June takes flight, is the evening sky. It’s breathtaking in so many ways, the pinks and lavenders stretching out across the sky as the sun’s rays make their long, arc across the horizon, making our days stretch out into forever. And the way that…
