this is chicago and winter fast approaches. well, who am i kidding. it never actually warmed up this year. but fall saturdays are recipes in themselves for some really yummy comfort food.
elaine has been holding on to my aunt michelle's butternut squash & apple soup recipe since spring, saving it for a perfect cold saturday that was today. she improvised with the ingredients attempting to make it a little less fattening (isn't that the purpose though? to fatten up for winter to SURVIVE?)
;)
she accompanied the soup with a delicious warm pilaf made of quinoa, mushrooms, and carrots. she just couldn't serve it in a bowl though; she had to throw a bit of snazzz in.
and then we'd both been craving something sweet, so i whipped up a batch of outrageous oatmeal cookies. outrageous = purple & golden raisins, cranberries, and semi-sweet chocolate chips. yummy!
today i had the pleasure of photographing a couple's engagement pictures at the breathtaking garfield park conservatory. elaine assisted me for the shoot and even got in some photography herself!
i just got home from atlanta where i couldn't stop kissing my adorable niece, gabrielle. this has come to bite me in the rear as she was sick and now i am sick.
left work early on friday, had a dinner of 4 cups of hot cocoa (ran out of tea), stayed up til 4am watching on demand since sudafed has a way of keeping one wide awake.
so here i am, saturday. didn't feel like t.v. didn't feel like reading or going outside. so i collected a bunch of random stuff and held a photo shoot.
regular ole wine glasses
flowers & jewels
lovely jewels
my grandma's vase and some flowers my friend erin gave me years ago and i can't seem to let them go!
check it out! i've entered contest put on by cbs2chicago for photographers to put their favorite, most representative, chicago photos up for a vote. the winners will be included in a coffee table book for sale.
voting ends october 17, 2009 and you can vote for my photos HERE!
i'll update this post if any of my photos are selected.
elaine is a fan of the series true blood. she usually watches it after the sunday night ritual while i edit food photos. when asked why i don't watch the show, i say it is because i can't stand there terrible southern accents!
well, season 2 just ended, and elaine commemorated the finale by making some southern food at last: chicken fried steak & gravy, collard greens, and cast-iron-skillet cornbread. this week, i also contributed with a red, white & green salad.
i've been friends with aimee for a few years now. we met through buckhead church in a community group. the first time i met her, she told her story of how she ended up in atlanta and actually cried a little bit. i thought 'whoa, what? why is she crying? she's very in touch with her emotions (and i'm not)... i wonder if we'll be friends outside of this group...'
fast forward, aimee and i have hung out at la fonda on many occassion, ventured around atlanta, gone down to blue angels weekend in pensacola, attended church, prayed together. i'd say we're friends!
we she met scott at the labor day retreat last year, i figured he was special from the first time i heard her talk about him. aimee's never been one for commitment, so when she told me she wanted to marry him, i was honestly shocked. but pleasantly so. aimee is wonderful and deserves someone who complements.
after they met, i started getting into photography and asked casually when they came to visit me in chicago over 4th of july if they would mind posing for some fake engagement photos for my portfolio. they agreed; but we were so busy that weekend, we never got around to it.
on the side, i told scott if he ever wanted to capture his proposal, we could set it up as a fake shoot and he could really propose.
i guess he kept that in mind. he found out i would be at the beach over labor day weekend the same time he & aimee were going (exactly 1 year after they met). we schemed for a few weeks via email and i got aimee to agree to pose and drag scott along (so she thought).
there were so many times i was sure she was onto us! like how i asked her to drive over an hour to this beach closer to me. i was sure she would be annoyed. but she wasn't; a good friend she is! i told her she could use a picture for a christmas card and she said she wanted to use them for engagement photos (i said, 'do you know something i don't know?'). or how i posed them so her eyes were closed, scott looked at me, and i gave him a big thumbs up just as she was opening her eyes.
after all that, she didn't suspect. and after scott got his courage, i stepped back and let him go with it. i'm not sure what he said, but her reaction says it all.
let's start from the beginning. my sisters and i have been planning the beach trip since april this year. we looked at many houses and our budget and finally secured one in may. then we planned how we would all get down to atlanta and then pile in the van to the florida panhandle. we planned games, food, sunscreen, new bathing suits. i had a flight from chicago. all this planning, and i actually forgot to tell my boss i was going.
so i show up at work on wednesday with my suitcase and told the people on my project i was going to take-off for the airport around 3:30pm. they were cool with it, so i just told my boss for good measure. then she came over to my desk and asked "are you going to be working from home the next few days?" and i say, "why, no, i'm headed to the beach! the trip i've been talking about for months?"
yeah, i flat out forgot to tell her. so i say "well i have my ticket and a beach house for the next 5 days, do you mind if i go?" luckily, all was well.
since i'm more of a story-with-pictures type of person, i'll recap the trip a-like-so.
this week, elaine over at the-lovehandle.com decided to use a variety of asian influences for the sunday night ritual.
we started with a grocery store trip up to argyle street, which is informally known as the vietnamese neighborhood. luckily, elaine knew what she was looking for because i might have been somewhat lost. there were a lot of fresh whole fish, fruits, vegetables, and even live crabs. i just documented the journey and let elaine pick everything out.
here are some of the finished products from sunday night. head on over to her blog for a write-up on the menu.
to the first time my 3 sisters and i will be in the same city all together in almost 2 years.
oh how much has changed since then; it was my nephew's 3rd birthday party in atlanta. now he is 4 and there is a new kid in the family. lea lives in brooklyn, meme is a junior in college, and i'm in chicago.
we all thought it would be a grand idea to recreate our summer vacations to the beach when our parents and a bunch of adults would rent a big house and bring all the kids and food and UNO, except this time we are the adults. a beach trip wouldn't be right if it wasn't on the white sand beaches of the panhandle of florida; our location of choice is the grayton beach area.
see! wouldn't you want to vacation here?
we plan to cook-out, build sandcastles, make margaritas, and of course take lots of pictures!
i woke up around 8am and decided to go for a run before it got hot. i didn't actually have to get up that early because it didn't even get to 70 degrees today! this city cannot make up it's mind.
after a run, eat, shower, i relax for a little nap and see it is sunny outside. i debated for about an hour, eyes opening and closing, and decided i better take advantage of the light. get ready (jeans, sweater, socks & shoes.. yuck) and made it outsides juuust in time for the clouds to fill the sky.
elaine has done it again: sunday night ritual of food, wine, and blogging. tonight was sushi and it was good. i'm not a chef or a cook or really even an assembler of food, but head on over to her blog to check it out. since i'm her official blogtographer, here's something to wet your appetite.
i see i'm in a collage mode. don't know what's come over me.
i went out this weekend to get some photos for a colleague and of the chicago air & water show.
first the colleague; his last name is gerber and he named his son max. there is an old building off the california stop of the blue line with a sign that says "max gerber". the guy thought it would be cool to have a picture of the sign for his son's room. what do you think?
i also snuck (is that a word? sneaked?) up on the roof of my building to get some pictures of the air and water show. i also planned to go down to the beach but it looked so crowded and hot, i just didn't want to get into it. my roof is kinda scary; there are no railings (cause people aren't supposed to be up there!) and i was 28 stories up. unfortunately i wasn't very close to the action and this is the only group of pictures i could get.
