... in pictures

Hello friends, I hope your week is going well. I think it's time for a little photojournalism...
This is a bit late, it's from the Cooper-Young Fest. One of my favorite CY restaurants (Soul Fish) had a booth selling "Soul Fish on a Stick." It was a catfish fillet on a stick with a hush puppy on the end and then brushed (ProntoPup style) with tartar sauce. It's my favorite new food discovery!




This past Thursday OCF (and some other friends) went to the Levitt Shell for the free concert. The weather was perfect and we had so much fun. Here are all the girls with baby Zoe. (L to R Beauvais, Claire, Marjo, Zoe, and Me.)

Zoe Anne (Claire's baby left) and Lillian Elisabeth (Beauvais' baby right) are going to be best friends! Just look at how well they get along already.
The newly renovated Shell looks great. There are no more benches so it's the perfect place to spread out a blanket. John Jorgenson played and it was a great soundtrack. We also lucked out and got some free tickets to see The Glass Menagerie at Playhouse on the Square this past weekend. It was wonderful, it's playing through October, I highly recommend it!
On Sunday my good friend Maria was enrolled as a Catechumen. I don't know if I've told you what that is, but it's the period of time before Chrismation. (Chrismation is how one is received into the Orthodox Church.) The Catechumen is enrolled for aproximately a year (usually) before Chrismation. Maria (she is wearing red, I'm wearing yellow) asked me to be her sponsor, and I am very happy to oblige. I'm so excited for her!!! These pictures are from the service this Sunday. It's very short, the Priest prays a prayer for her, and her enrollment is formally announced. Fr. John pointed out on Sunday that the enrollment prayers are the same for an adult Catechumen as for a baby who is being Churched. (Churching is when the mother and child return to church for the first time after a period of 40 days.)
On to more food... I promise I think about other subjects. Here's my new Silpat in action. The only problem? Our baking sheets are too small for the Silpat. Now I need to buy new baking sheets. For now I realized that turning the pan over works pretty well so that I don't have to scrunch up the Silpat. The cookies baked so evenly and didn't even dare to stick.
Here are the finished beauties. I used the old standby Toll House cookie recipe. But this time I replaced all the white flour with whole wheat. Yes I said ALL, I know most people recommend replacing only half but I think they tasted just fine! I mean, have a look... do you think you could resist? Also, I read an article in the NY Times about the perfect chocolate chip cookie and they suggested sprinkling finely ground sea salt on the cookies when they come out of the oven. It was a wonderful suggestion, it really brings out the flavors. Have I shown you my bowl? It's a vintage batter bowl. I found it at Bojo's on Summer. I'm very proud of it.

Here's the French Yogurt Cake I mentioned a few posts ago from the Orangette blog. I made a Nutella sauce by thinning Nutella with a bit of warm milk and melted butter and drizzled it over the cake. It was very good. (Oh by the way if you look at the recipe she uses lemon, I made it a vanilla cake instead.)
On Saturday I made homemade pasta for the first time. It was pretty good. Well Brandon said it was good. I wasn't blown away by it. I'm a very critical cook (critical of myself that is, I always like other people's food!) It's time consuming, but worth it.

Also I made Monkey Bread with my little sister tonight. We made the cheater version, with cut up canned biscuits rolled in cinnamon sugar and butter. I had a craving for it today. While we waited for the bread to bake we played chess. It was a very nice rainy evening.