Prairie Home Summer

The last two summers have been full of weddings and travel -- California, Georgia, Texas, even Hawaii. All the trips made for some great vacations and reunions with friends.

But this, this is the summer of staying close to home. No far-off weddings, no big fancy vacations. Just a lot of camping, gardening and exploring the awesomeness that is summer in Minnesota. So I've declared it to be the Prairie Home Summer. Hey Garrison Keillor, if you're reading this ... thanks. I like your show a lot.

To start it off, we had an epic five-year reunion with my college graduating class at St. Olaf. The two-day extravaganza included karaoke at Froggy's, just like the old days, as well as dinner in the Caf, a reunion with my fellow a cappella group founders from Agnes, a brilliant lecture from a beloved prof, and a slideshow of embarrassing photos that someone pulled from Facebook (a reminder of exactly what we haven't taken down since we posted them 8 or 9 years ago...)

June looked like a road trip to Rice Lake, Wisconsin for a colleague's wedding, with a fun cheese shop stop on the way back ...

... another road trip to the same part of Wisconsin for a cabin weekend on Spooner Lake with college buddies ...

... and a four-day camping and canoeing expedition in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCA), one of the most remote and beautiful wilderness parks left in the country.

No biggie. Just one of the most beautiful and peaceful places in the entire world.

Up next!

1. The obvious ... as many farmers market trips and lake walks as possible.
2. At least one pizza farm visit (Stockholm or Northfield ... choices this year, yo!)
3. Canning, jamming and pie-ing from the garden.
4. A visit to the Laura Ingalls Wilder museum in Walnut Grove, MN, where you can see the place where they made their sod house on the banks of Plum Creek (ever since I read about it a few weeks ago, I've been certifiably obsessed).
5. Significant landscaping and garden improvements (underway).
6. Reading in the hammock and the rocking chair, and not just a few times. A lot.
7. My first trip to the Black Hills of South Dakota, for a friend's wedding.
8. Mini-golf at the Walker Sculpture Garden.
9. At least two golf outings and two waterskiing days.
10. Biking around the Chain of Lakes -- Harriet, Calhoun and Isles (I've only biked two at a time, not all three at once).
11. Check out a few more local Mpls breweries and new restaurants.
12. Lots and lots of DQ Blizzards (have I mentioned there's a DQ three blocks from my house?)
13. The Minnesota State Fair! There are 46 new foods this year ... yes, really.
14. Camping in Detroit Lakes, MN (for a friend's wedding ... yes, really.)
15. My first trip to the Wisconsin Dells (for another friend's birthday).
16. A family reunion out at Lake Minnetonka, including waterskiing, speedboating, dock-sitting, fishing and a dinner cruise from Al & Alma's.
17. My first-ever concert at the famed First Avenue concert club in Mpls.

My parents are coming for a nice long visit this month, so they'll be helping me check a few items off this list :) And I'm taking about half of July off from work, which will be love-ly.

What's on your summer to-do list? And who's coming to MN to help me with mine?

patio 2.0

It took a full weekend of sweaty work, but the patio has gone from this...

to this:

And soon, the grill will go too (it broke last summer).







Otherwise in the garden...

The tomatoes are doing great this year -- much better than last year, by a mile. Other things are coming along a little slower, like the basil and lemon cucumbers. I think they'll catch up now that it's averaging 80 or 90 degrees every day.

I picked up some new flowers at the farmers market this weekend -- marigolds for the side yard tomatoes, and some blue astria ("balloon flower," a perennial). The begonias are flowering like crazy and the nasturtiums I planted from seed are growing up strong ... soon to join my lunchtime salads.

furniture update: the yellow room

I know it's been a while since I've shown you room updates -- in the summer, most of my attention goes to the garden. But I have some projects in process, and one of them recently reached a milestone.

After three years of no bedside stands, then cool but not-quite-right bedside stands, in the yellow room ... we have a winner!

I found these beauties at Cost Plus World Market, which recently re-opened a store in the Twin Cities. (Conveniently, one freeway exit from my office. My wallet has not been pleased. You'll see more CPWM soon.)

The space between the bed and the wall is about 12" at the pillow level, but only about 10" down at the floor level due to the baseboard and the bed frame. So that narrowed down the choices considerably.





The black legs are perfect for this room, which is a mix of woods and black accents (rug, wall artwork, candleholders, curtain rods).



To finish off the room, I'm still looking for the perfect headboard and nightstand lamps (either tabletop or wall-mount). But, making progress!

storm damage

Words cannot really describe what my street, neighborhood, entire city look like after a devastating storm last Friday night. So here are some numbers and photos instead.

130-year-old (someone counted the rings!) Elm tree, which hit 2 cars on its way down

Just one of three trees on our block to fall all the way across the road

Three garbage bags full of food I had to throw away because the power was out from Friday night to Sunday night (and I was at a cabin in Wisconsin with friends, having a delightful time in my ignorance of what was happening back home). By the time I got back Sunday afternoon, most everything was beyond salvage.

Over 600,000 Minnesotans without power (some still don't have service back).

One major intersection between my house and the freeway still blocked by a tree and live power wire, a full five days after the storm.

Early estimates say that we lost more trees in Minneapolis during this storm than we did when the tornado hit the city in 2011. 

Luckily, I also had:

0 ounces of water in the basement

0 trees on top of the house

0 instances of external damage whatsoever

We're especially lucky that dad had borrowed the car for the weekend to drive to Wisconsin, because normally I park it right where that tree fell...

Continue your prayers for Mpls please! If that's your thing. Warm fuzzy thoughts welcome too.

xoxo

coniglietti

Story of a Thursday evening:

1. I bought a new lawnmower (!) and tonight while I was mowing the backyard, I found this: http://instagram.com/p/azZ_eMSjrv/

If you're too lazy to click on the link (even though it's worth it...), I'll tell you: a den of baby rabbits, in the middle of the lawn. And yes I mowed right over the spot just moments earlier.

They're adorable. Don't even have their eyes open yet. I probably ensured their demise by getting my human smell all over the rabbit fur that was covering them up. We shall see. I don't love having rabbits in my garden, but I do have a serious soft spot for rabbits (ask my mom what happened to the rabbit I had as a kid, and ask BFF Alissa why she calls me "little rabbit.") So for now this is fun, but it could turn traumatic soon.

Oh, and here are the older siblings of these little guys, spotted a few weeks back:

2. Watching the Spurs-Miami game -- Go Spurs Go! -- on my TV. But not in the basement. Upstairs! Never got around to blogging about this change because it wasn't really intentional. I just brought the TV up to the living room back in January so that me and some girlfriends could watch Downton Abbey on Sunday nights, and I never took it back down. I kind of like having it in the corner of the living room, at least for now. I might do something different with it down the road, like hanging it on the wall or putting in a different entertainment center. And I don't have cable, so it's not like I use it very often (I still watch 95% of my shows on my iPad or Mac via Hulu, Netflix of Xfinity Player).

3. And then, I got this awesome picture from fellow-blogger-BFF Kelli and her new bird, Tiko:

And it made me happy to trade stories about bunnies and birds and watch the Spurs game "together" via text message (we grew up in San Antonio together).

4. I have new next-door neighbors, and we totally do the whole "yelling thru screen windows" thing, so I made a racket about the baby rabbits and they came over to take a peek. Gotta love fun neighbors.

And at the end of a really hard day and a really long week, I'm feeling less far away from loved ones. Thank you bunnies & lawnmowers & instagram & iPhones. 

*bonus life points if you know what coniglietti means and your name is not Alissa or Bethany.

a recipe for a cherry moment

"Cherries don't have a season, they have a moment." 

- someone (I dunno, Google isn't helping?)

I heard it somewhere, probably The Splendid Table. And it reminded me that I've had this Cherry Clafouti recipe stashed in my binders for years, untried. Well I've tried cherry clafouti ... it's one of my all-time favorites. Just not this recipe.

Friends, it did not disappoint. Run to the store and buy the last bag of perfect cherries, and don't go to a lame grocery store because you need creme fraiche. Then come home and make this and tap your feet while you wait impatiently for it to cool, and scarf down half the pan as soon as you can eat it without scalding your tongue.

That is my advice to you. Listen to me and not your personal trainer.

Oh, and hi dad! Happy father's day (again). I know how much you love cherries ... I promise to make you one sometime, you'll love it.

xo

Cherry Clafouti

adapted from Martha Stewart Living magazine

Prep time: 15 min

Total time: 45 min.

Serves 4-6

Clafouti is best served warm, so bake it just before you serve dinner. Scoop it into bowls topped with a spoonful of creme fraiche.

Unsalted butter, for dish

2 large eggs

1 large egg yolk

1/3 c. all-purpose flour

3/4 c. creme fraiche, plus more for serving

3/4 c. whole milk

1/2 c. granulated sugar, plus more for dish

2 tsp. pure vanilla extract

1/2 tsp. salt

12 ounces cherries, halved and pitted (if you don't have a scale: enough to fill the bottom of the baking dish)

1. Preheat oven to 375. Butter a 9-inch diameter 1 1/4 inch deep baking dish. Coat with sugar; tap out excess. 

2. Whisk eggs, yolk and flour in a medium bowl (hand whisk is fine -- don't need eggbeaters). Next whisk in creme fraiche, milk, sugar, vanilla and salt.

3. Arrange cherries in prepared baking dish. Pour batter over cherries -- they will rise to the top, this is ok. Bake until browned around edges and set in the center, 30-35 min. Let cool slightly. If desired, dust with powdered sugar. Regardless, serve warm with creme fraiche. Is also delicious cold, perhaps for breakfast the next morning...

Homeowner adventures: alarm edition

Your alarm system won't stop making an annoying beeping sound. It's not actually the alarm -- more like a warning tone, like when your smoke detector battery dies (except, continuous beeping). And it has something to do with a cell tower/radio transmitter, according to the error code.

You:

A) Call the alarm company multiple times and try all the crazy codes and tests they give you

B) Turn the entire system off, leaving you and the house unprotected

C) Stuff a sweatshirt over the system box and barricade yourself in the farthest bedroom, in hopes of getting some sleep before the alarm company arrives in A WEEK. 

Definitely C.