Canoeing around the Arboretum

Today my friends Sabina and Maya and I rented a canoe from the UW Aquatics Center, and we canoed around the Arboretum. It was a beautiful day. I keep thinking this is the last one of summer, and we keep having these days! Thank the gods for friends who like to get outside. We saw ducks and geese and turtles and a Great Blue heron.

I took some footage of the heron stalking. I had my second-string camera with me (in case I dropped it in the water), so it's not so clear.

Laurie and Steve

Last Saturday my dear friend Laurie married Steve. Congratulations! It was a fun wedding with a beautiful bride, a teary groom, and a packed hall of friends. May your married life be as wonderful as this day was!

Holiday Dinner

I gave my 3rd annual Former Femmes and Friends holiday dinner on Sunday. I always forget about pictures in my cleaning, cooking, and serving frenzy, but I managed one postprandial picture:
I made all the dishes from The Philosopher's Kitchen: Recipes from Ancient Greece and Rome for the Modern Cook. We had figs soaked in wine with nuts and honey, chickpea bread, acorn squash slathered in sherry and honey and nuts, leek and celery and lemon soup, chicken stuffed with couscous and grapes and slathered with nuts and wine, and hazelnut custards slathered in Amaretto. Those ancients really knew how to get their nuts and alcohol!

Thanks for coming over you guys, I had a great time!