Important interruption

You should really go make this pea pesto immediately. Reason one: it is awesome. Reason two: It is super easy and takes very little effort. This is cuisine for the lazy, you barely turn on the stove. Trust me, my other accomplishments this weekend include an accidental six hour nap (i think I'm getting sick? or depressed? i don't know! I don't feel sick or depressed but six hour naps were the earliest signs of both mono and crushing barely treatable depression! Maybe it's a summer cold), dozing off during church (but I went to church!), and reading a 460 page book in one (long) sitting.

So, we have now established that this should be made immediately. Well, first you should go to the farmer's market and get freshfreshfresh peas. Do not mess around with frozen, or heaven forbid, canned peas, as they are both nast-o and should be banned from the planet. Is there any food that is as ruined by processing as beautiful sweet peas?

Now, as usual, I modified the recipe. Making anything from Smitten Kitchen puts me into this intense conflict between my belief that Deb (aka the Smitten Kitchen lady) can do no wrong and my complete and total inability to follow directions without tweaking them. So, for this recipe, the biggest change was adding mint-roughly half the amount of fresh mint leaves as peas, I guess? I think this really enhanced the flavor of the pesto-mint and peas are perfect together! Other little changes you can take or leave: I doubled the garlic because I don't plan on kissing anyone tonight, cut down on the cheese because I like pestos with less cheese so I can sprinkle more on top (also becacuse I was using my good expensive parmigianno reggiano and a little goes a long way). I swapped in some almonds for the pine nuts because I could!

This is the most amazing thing I've eaten today. And that includes an Egg Mcmuffin and chocolate-peccan banana bread.

Team Coco

Conan O'Brien's commencement speech at Dartmouth. All of it funny, but the last ten or so minutes are particularly good.

lovely weekend

This weekend was extra amazing, because my dear Edie came to visit me! We had lots of fun eating, drinking wine, exploring Rhode Island, and drinking more wine.
Saturday started with pancakes and bacon for breakfast!

Followed by coffee and shopping on Thayer, where we bought these spectacular, genuine diamond friendship rings for five whole dollars. Guess who broke hers within three hours?

We went to Federal Hill for delicious Italian food and wine, including a baked goat cheese and san marzano tomato appetizer that was among the best things I have ever eaten. This is a crappy picture, but Federal Hill is super pretty

Post-wine portrait

On Sunday, we went down to the Bay, stopping off at Greenvale Vineyards.

What a hideous place to spend an afternoon.

Next onto Newport, where we walked along the cliffs, and then sadly I dropped Edie off at her conference.

It was such a fun weekend-I loved having a visitor to explore my new home with! I'm a little sad to go back to normal life again. Luckily, Edie and I may have time to rendezvous for lunch on friday before she heads back to alabama, so there may be more adventures to come!

Things!

a) I bought a TV and a cherry pitter this weekend. So far the cherry pitter has seen more action

b) As I have two (2) friends in providence, I do pretty much whatever they are interested in. One friend is canadian and way into hockey! So I've been watching the Stanley cup finals at bars. I have been to the bar 3 times in the last week. I've been out past midnight 3 times in the past week. Needless to say, this does not normally happen, no matter how many friends I have. It has generally been a blast, and I've met lots of people and expanded my social circle and will maybe someday have more than two friends.

c) We have undergrads in the lab! They are three girls, aged 19. That's nine years younger than me. Which means that when I was in college they were in middle school. When I was learning to drive, they were in first grade. I feel old.

d) It is going to be 98 and humid here on thursday. That's Alabama weather, and I do not approve