it's time.

we've got to save the dinner party.

bless her heart.

the pup has been sick. like, REALLY sick. i did manage to eat a few meals and make A LOT of beans on the stove, given that i was home (or in the vet hospital) for what seemed like a million days straight. poor girl.

she is on the mend. back to being the pup she was before her spleen infection. (and yes, a spleen is the organ that is supposed to fight infection. good job, spleen.)

back to, back to.

headed back to DC. with chloe. i bet she'd love a sheep in a window.

conversely.

while not food-related, y'all should know that i adopted a dog. her name is chloe. yes.

oh, the fair. the fair.

are you ready for this? alex and i judged everything in this photograph plus two more rounds for the food preservation section at the north carolina state fair.

it was incredible; we tasted jams, preserves, juices, jellies, and pickles. you only judge strawberry jam against strawberry jam, for example, and each category's size depends on its number of entrants. the bread and butter pickle category had 20-25 jars. it was insane.

but, more importantly, we also were able to nominate mind-blowing items for "best of show." we were quite choosey about this process; we didn't want to send just anything. in the end, we nominated a pineapple jelly (i know. it doesn't sound amazeballs, but it is.) and raspberry-jalapeno preserves, both of which won. yes. we are so influential. 

also, it's decorative gourd season, motherfuckers. (no, it never gets old.)

biscuits for the pups.

tina sent me a link for dog biscuits some time ago and finally i baked them. truthfully, humans can eat them as well, but i think they are probably pretty bland. however, the recipe is super easy.

not surprisingly, it's from ina garten. i made them smaller (with a flower-shaped cookie cutter) and so there were WAY more than she stated. and, i only made a half recipe! (they are fresh, so i worried they would spoil or mold or just not keep as long as the packaged kind.)

they were a hit with the bee.

washington, dc

washington, DC is slowly becoming my second home. i don't know my way around, but there's a bike i can ride, coffee around the corner from casey's place, and lots of beer in cans.

it's really flat and even the hills aren't so hard. and we are finding the delicious things to eat: fancy coffees, earl grey tea and cherry scones, huevos rancheros, cauliflower gratin, veggie bbq, i don't remember anymore. but DC is growing on me, even though it seems as no one is over age 27.