Food, food, and more food

We had the busiest of social calendars today. You'd think we would learn to space these things out but we haven't, which is why we spent the majority of today in the kitchen and the rest of the time eating and chatting with friends. Our day began when friends Petar and Svetla, from over at The Princess Bloggeries, stopped by for breakfast around 9am. We tried a new zucchini and tomato frittata recipe and an old favorite, Belgian waffles. Of course breakfast wouldn't be complete without mimosas. Petar and Svetla arrived with some gorgeous sunflowers (yea flowers!), olive bread, and Havarti with dill. Yum! They also brought a Milan travel guide book - I've really got to sit down and figure out the rest of our trip. It's a mere 37 days away.

Immediately after they left, we were in the kitchen prepping the meal to take to Sara and Josh's place. It was Darr's turn to meet the Noodle (a.k.a. Alexandra) of Noodle's Adventures. We made pesto (click here for the recipe) and shopska salad (cucumbers, tomatoes, feta, olive oil, salt, pepper) and arrived in time to catch the Noodle sleeping in her mom's sling. Damn if I didn't forget the camera though so I have no pics to share. I got to hold the baby. Darr got to hold the baby. And then the baby was carefully deposited into her swing so we could eat. I love talking movies with Josh because he has a vast repository of movie clips at his disposal and most of them Darr and I can identify. Most. Oh, I was right, Ally Sheedy played Matthew Broderick's love interest in War Games. Damn I'm good. We left their place when baby Noodle decided she wasn't tired anymore but hungry, hitting the Wilsonville Costco before trying the new route home. Thanks for the tip, Bickels. It is much faster on Stafford Road.

It was back to the kitchen when we returned to the condo. Darr started the process of making granitas, the tastiest of all frozen lemon treats, and I started working on my blueberry buckle. Darr's best friend's parents, Sandy and Dick, were expected for dinner, along with my former coworker and friend Emily. Darr left at some point to take Beauty the wonder dog for a walk but came back shortly after his departure to get a bowl and ask me for assistance in a berry picking scheme. The path that runs in front of the Riverpark townhomes are loaded with blackberry bushes and as a result they are also loaded with blackberries, some of which are ripe for the picking. The catch is that the bushes hang out over a cliff and we had no way to grasp the vines to bring them closer to get the berries. Thank God my husband is brainy as he fashioned a vine-retriever tool from a hanger and we had a bowl full of tasty, ripe blackberries in no time.

Our dinner was less inspired than it might have been had we not already spent so much time in the kitchen but everything turned out tasty - grilled steak and asparagus with fried potatoes. Sandy enjoyed her granitas with a little vodka, which we would recommend but be sure to add the vodka only after you've frozen the dessert or it won't work. Since the weather is still pretty hot and it will likely be hot for another month, I'll try to get that granitas recipe up on the web.