Birthday!

It was Brad's birthday on Thursday. He had to work all day which was a bummer but when he got home the three of us had a little celebration with cake and gifts. The little cake - devil's food cake with vanilla buttercream and hazelnut toffee was from Bakery Bar, the same place that did our wedding cupcakes.

Cannon Beach

Calvin had his first trip to the ocean last week. We stayed overnight at Cannon Beach on the Oregon coast. Calvin seemed to like the sea air and kept sticking his tongue out to taste it. We walked along the beach while the sun was out, but Calvin got too cold in the wind. My dad took the picture of the three of us on the bench at sunset. There were a lot of families on the beach with campfires going. Maybe next year we'll try roasting marshmallows on the beach when Calvin is a bit older. Also, for anyone frustrated by my lack of memory in the previous post, Melanie remembered that the lettuce we liked so much was called Brunia.

Final Fava Beans of the Season

We're a bit behind with this post...this is the meal from our Saturday Farmer's Market trip a couple of weeks ago. Our favorite farm stand at the market belongs to Square Peg Farm, and they had their final crop of fava beans for the year. They also have had this amazing lettuce the past few weeks that I can't remember the name of...that's not very helpful, but you can see it below. We have been inundated with requests for some recipes with the posts (well, two requests so far) so a rough recipe for the fava bean puree we made is included at the end. We don't get to cook dinner together as much anymore now that I am working evenings, so we tend to make ourselves a bit of a feast on at least one of my days off. This week it included the fava bean puree with raw vegetables and toasty bread for dipping, as well as a crab salad with lime, cilantro and creme fraiche alongside some cucumber, avocado and green salad.

Fava Bean Puree

3 or so pounds of fava beans (yielding around 2-3 cups when removed from their pods)
zest of 1 lemon
1/2-3/4 cup of olive oil
2 cloves of garlic (roughly chopped)
salt to taste

First step , remove the beans from their pods (I'm not sure why I enjoy this process so much...shelling peas, and cleaning squid are 2 other potentially tedious kitchen tasks that I find pleasing). Get a large pot of salted water boiling, and prepare a bowl of ice water. Drop the beans in the boiling water for 20-30 seconds, then scoop them out and plunge them into the ice water. After the fava beans are thouroughly chilled, drain them and use your fingers to remove the pale green outer skin so that you are left with the beautiful dark green inner part of the beans. Cook the beans, garlic, and lemon zest in about a 1/2 cup of olive oil over medium or medium low heat. The goal is to slowly stew the beans for a few minutes until they are cooked through, you don't want the heat to be so high that you are frying and browning the beans. Let the mixture cool for a couple of minutes and then transfer to a blender. Carefully blend the mixture (remember the oil may still be hot), you will probably need to add an extra 1/4 to 1/2 cup of oil to achieve the right consistency. Add salt to taste and enjoy.

Ariel took this one...

...of Calvin sleeping at the market when she and Ted were here. It was so good to see them and for Mr. Baby to get to spend time with them. He seemed to really enjoy it - some nights I felt like he didn't want to go to bed for fear of missing out on any fun.

What we did in the heat yesterday...

Napped in our one air conditioned room. Spent a lot of time in just a diaper and had many "wipe downs" with a cool cloth. In the early evening we walked to the neighborhood farmer's market and got a half flat of berries! As many raspberries and blueberries as my heart desires - that's one of my favorite things about Oregon and this time of year. I've been eating them by the bowl full! It's not just that they're bountiful. It's that they're bountiful and delicious and perfect. It goes a ways towards making up for the heat - which, ever since our first summer here, I've found more uncomfortable and oppressive than anywhere else I've lived (including Florida and Los Angeles). And now I have a baby who seems so sensitive to the heat. It doesn't take much for him to get very overheated and sweaty! What is it about here?? Maybe that it gets hotter as the day wears on rather than cooler? Maybe I'm still not used to living someplace where it's not an easy option to just head to the beach? My thoughts frequently turn to wishing we could head up to Orcas Island this summer... be on the water and outside most of the day.

P.S. Today is Calvin's 5 month birthday! I cleared all of the now-too-small things out of his dresser to make room for new things (and so that we could stop having to fish through the piles each time he needed a new outfit asking ourselves, does this still fit??). It's amazing all that he's grown out of already. It felt a little hard and emotional to put away some of the tiny first things that kept his little body warm but I feel so proud at how thriving and full of life he is! I still have a feeling of disbelief that we have a 5 month old baby - 5 months already!! How can that be?! There can be entire lifetimes in 5 months! All the growth and and presence that's happened... It's interesting balanced with that lovely magic feeling that says he's always been here, that I can't remember what my days were possibly full of before him... Here are the piles of outgrown items waiting to be put away until future use:

Chicken Soup

Melanie was sick a couple of weekends ago, and stuck at home alone with 4 month old Calvin to boot. We shared a rotisserie chicken when I got home from work. The next morning I headed out to the local produce market and loaded up. I made a lemon-ginger chicken soup with the veggies and left over chicken. It was a bit of an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink affair including: chicken, lemons, lemongrass, ginger, carrots, celery, onions, potatoes, kale, napa cabbage, scallions, cilantro, chilies, and probably something else I can't remember at the moment. It lasted for three meals, including a welcome dinner for our friends who had just arrived from Los Angeles.