Vanuatu - one photo

Melanie is in Vanuatu. She sadly has not managed to find much time between flitting between meetings, talking endlessly about strategy and working in her hotel room to even go to the market or dip her toes in the bay. She has a few hours if she wakes up very early on Saturday before she flies out to do some of those things, but until then, here is the view from her hotel room, which is pretty much all she's managed to see so far.

Things we did this summer

Grew tomatoes. BEFORE:


AFTER:

Went for picnics in the park

Learned to play the guitar

Went to Canada

Made cheese

Big sausage for Leong

Because Leong complained there was no picture of the whole sausage. Regret it now??

That is our LARGEST POT. It was a very big sausage.

Passata, pasta, pesto, pastiera

This weekend we made sauce.










And inspired by dinner at Rinaldo's in the King Valley, we made pasta with pesto and cotechino sausage.



And finally Jason got his pastiera, almost like matante Cecine's, but not quite.

O Canada?

Hey Canadians!  Why have this:

When you could have this!

Actually, I could go for some -30 right now.  43 sort of sucks.  I meant to take the screenshot on Monday when there were FIVE DAYS of 40-plus days ahead of us, but we're halfway through now.  Still beats the slush.  Plus my elbows see fresh air.

Chinese New Year photos for Francesca

Voila Francesca - les photos!  Il y avait beaucoup de bouffe.  Beaucooooup!

Mon pere vient d'une famille de bouchiers.  Il a les abilites!

C'est important a manger le 'fatt choi' - un legume comme les cheveux.  C'est pour devenir riche.

C'est important a manger les dumplings aussi!  Moi et Jason, nous avons les fait.  Jay est tres bon a faire les dumplings (mais, cette dumpling est la mienne...)

Jayjay a fait un bon gateau aussi!  Miam!

Random January photos

Jason made fish for dinner and wants me to post it here so you can see.  This was the entree - smoked salmon, eggplant caviar and... something.  I don't remember.  It was tasty!

This is the fish.  We had it with a nice glass of Pizzini pinot grigio.

Our 'little' home tomato plant has decided that it wants to be more than just a tub tomato, it wants to be a tree!

And a productive one.

Finally, here is Bendy.