angel food: a success

with pick-your-own season in full swing here, it has been berries, berries, berries for weeks! we have frozen strawberries, made strawberry jam and had plenty of strawberry shortcake. and now we are at the tail end of strawberries with blueberries, raspberries and cherries all available too. what a great time to eat around here!

last weekend, with what will probably be the last flat of strawberries on the counter, i made my first angel food cake. this was something that i had been dreaming of for months. my dream started to become a reality when i found an angel food pan at a tag sale for $1 a month ago. 

as i was researching recipes i was a little worried about the fact that all the recipes called for "very fine" sugar and cake flour. i don't like to buy highly processed sugar and i wasn't sure that our natural sugar would be fine enough. one quick email to fabulously accessible celebrity alexis stewart, who assured me that whole foods sugar would be fine, and i was off.

the next minor stumbling block was the cake flour. i found that they don't sell it at whole foods. i was told that is probably because it is processed with some kind of chemical. the woman at the bakery told me that all-purpose would be fine. 

making the cake was like a cool science experiment and ended up being so delicious. and now that we are getting egg delivery and always seem to have eggs to spare, this cake should be making a reappearance soon.

and now, what to do with the 6.5 lbs. of cherries that we picked yesterday??!

...... and the livin's easy.....

oh, do i have a blog? am i supposed to be preserving my family's history here? oops....

life is just rolling by these days. there is so much good going on. my life feels so very full. we are starting to adjust to our new summer schedule. it's a switch to have to do so much of the planning and creating to make our days special. but it's going pretty well and getting more comfortable every day.

bee wrapped up her school year last week. her school had a lovely awards ceremony for the graduates and the kids who will return for another year (like bee). bee has been feeling emotional about school ending and especially the fact that some of her friends will be moving on. it's been a bit of work to sort out these feelings and to try to help make it feel a little better.

i took this picture of bee on the morning of the last day of school:

and coincadentally, bee wore the same exact outfit to school as she did on the first day of the year. so here, just for comparison, is bee on the first day of school, last fall:

the dress sure got a lot shorter! bee wore shorts under it last week, a little too much booty peeking!

as the summer has been blossoming before our eyes, bee's drawing skills have also bloomed. 

annie, daddy warbucks, sandy and grace:

almost overnight she just draws and draws and draws. she has always leaned more toward the arts and crafts, but lately she is almost obsessive about drawing. morning, noon and into the night (well after we tuck her in tuck her in and kiss her good night), she draws. i gave her a set of these ed emberley drawing books that i had as a kid. she is off and running with them, following every step. she also seems to be just teaching herself along the way.

annie, daddy warbucks and grace again:

i even found a drawing laying around here showing bee's other latest skill:

this past weekend bee tried out riding her bike with no training wheels. she is doing wonderfully. she still needs some more practice, but she is doing it! she is only up to short bursts, with us (usually D) trailing right behind. but, soon enough, she will be off!

also exciting........our garden, the farm and our fertile valley in general, have all been so lush with produce. much more of my time has been spent cooking, preparing, canning, freezing and tending our food. it is such a good feeling.

it's dinners like this that make me love summer:
dinner for one: fresh (all local!) salsa & lettuce mix with strawberries, goat cheese and balsamic (all local too!). 

all this and i didn't even mention homemade yogurt, our upcoming island getaway (with the obama's!), fresh pickles, our construction project (!!), bee's new art table and strawberry jam!

and although this post doesn't reflect it, henny has been flourishing just as much as bee lately. he is a wild yet tender, full-sentence speaking little boy who seems to be in love with life (on his terms!). 

more to come.....