changing seasons

Wow, it has been a while since I last blogged... so long that I'm totally out of rhythm with the whole thing. I missed all of August and September, mostly because we had people visiting, we were out of town, or we were just too busy enjoying our fleeting days of perfect summer weather. Lots of great food during that span... just no real time to hit the blog.

Now all of a sudden, fall has definitely arrived... the sun sets WAY earlier and temperatures have dropped a good 30 degrees... so I'm back to blogging. And there have been some other "changes of the season"... like the arrival of J and N's new superstar (who looks like a wise philosopher):

We had a chance to have a simple dinner with J and N about a week before the big day, and J made us some of his amazing pizzas. He started by superheating an iron skillet on the stove on high while waiting for the broiler to heat up.

Once smoking, the skillet is inverted and the homemade pizza dough was placed, with toppings, onto the skillet and set under the broiler for 2-3 minutes... the resulting pizzas were blistered, lightly crisp, slightly chewy, and utterly fantastic.

So then we gave J & N a little break after they had their baby boy... but less than two weeks later, we got to share a dinner together. The menu was set up specifically for N (she deserved it after all that work)... meaning no tomatoes, mushrooms or cucumbers. Instead, we went with a roasted beet salad with goat cheese and kabocha squash risotto with bacon and sauteed dandelion greens. But truth be told, I think N was more into the little appetizer of hand cut fries (a modified method I'm testing) and the slice of Lav's pear-almond tart (with an accompanying glass of tawny port for J).

I gotta say, I'm impressed that these two had the energy to get together for dinner so soon after their son's birth... and it's a real blessing to share these moments with them.

N, any time you want fries, just give a holler.