Fine and Full - What's up with Jay and Anastasia

We’ve had such a beautiful fall so far. This is a photo I took last weekend on the ferry over to Bainbridge. Jay and I went over there for the day to enjoy the summer-like weather on the beach.

Uncle Wilfred's Tomato Harvest 2011

Not sure how that lemon got in there.

Our view in Tuscany

We’re home now and I finally have enough brain power (post jet-lag) to upload some more photos. So I just posted a bunch more photos over here (on Flickr) of the final day we spent in Lake Como, and the 10 nights we spent in Tuscany. We stayed at Jay’s dad’s first cousin’s place in the hills of Massarosa. They’ve lived there for 15 years and have a beautiful b&b, with the gorgeous view you see in the photo above. We did day trips from there—to Lucca (ancient walled city), to the beaches of Viareggio; to Florence, to the hill towns north of Lucca, to a local winery, and to Vinci (birthplace of Leonardo).

Enjoy the photos!

Lake Como View

Since I last posted, we’ve traveled from Amsterdam to Italy. We met up with Jay’s parents in Milan, and yesterday we drove up to Lake Como. I actually did the driving! It wasn’t bad—Jay’s a great navigator, and we only kinda got lost once and almost went to Switzerland!

We’re spending three nights here before we head down to Tuscany. We’re staying in the little town of Tremezzo, which is on the west side of the lake. When Jay and I visited here in 2000, we stayed in Varenna, which is on the east side. There are some lovely little towns here on the west, but unfortunately the main road running up along the lake on this side runs right through the towns, so there is a constant din of traffic. We’re going to head to Bellagio and/or Varenna tomorrow on one of the boats, so it will be interesting to see if they’re still as quiet and peaceful as Jay and I remember from our last visit.

So I’ve posted some photos from the last day or so you can check out (see photo set on Flickr). They mostly include some views of the lake, and our visit to the Villa Carlotta botanical gardens, which are right down the road from where we’re staying:

Villa Carlotta is the most famous public villa of Lake Como, in particular for its centuries-old 70,000sqm botanical gardens. . . . It was built, as a summer home, by Marquis Giorgio Clerici, an important gentleman from the Spanish and Austrian Milan.

The gardens are very beautiful and varied–including bamboo, pines, azealas, citrus fruits, hidden pathways, arbors, etc.

View from our room, Blue Lagoon Clinic Hotel

As I mentioned in the previous past, we stopped over in Iceland last week for one day/night on our way to Amsterdam. We had a very relaxing stay at the Blue Lagoon Clinic Hotel which included use of their private pools, and day passes to the Blue Lagoon which was just a short walk away.

I have to say, it’s a perfect way to unwind after a 7-hour plane flight. Jay and I agreed that we’d do two nights next time!

You can see some more photos here (on Flickr). I didn’t take my camera to the Blue Lagoon, but it’s more fun watching the live feed from their webcam anyway! (Although you might catch it after hours, with less people depending on what time you look at it…)

We’re settling in to our trip—getting over the jet lag. We had an awesome day/night in Iceland on our way here (a few photos from that day coming soon). For now, enjoy the view from our little apartment here! (This photo was taken from the window of our place.)

Next week is Nikita’s 14th birthday! Although we come up with new nicknames for her every few days–and so there have been thousands of names, we rarely write them down and often forget them as ever new names take the stage.

For this birthday, I thought I’d write down the new name I spontaneously called her tonight: Hungry Monkognonis.

I think that one is going to stick!

One container contains La Ratte, described as: “French potato, the culinary superstar of European haute cuisine. Mildly nutty, reminiscent of chestnuts, hazelnuts and almonds with a subtle sweetness.” And the other is Red Thumb: “This fingerling is somewhat new and rather rare. It has brilliant-red skin and reddish-pink flesh. Medium to long tubers have very shallow eyes and come out of the ground clean as a whistle.”

The potato starts are from Irish Eyes Garden Seeds via our local gardening store City People’s (very dangerous place as it’s only two blocks from our house, and so so easy to go crazy w/ plants, seeds, etc. there)!

They’re planted in smart pots, which I’ve never used before, but are supposed to work great for potatoes. It’s a soft-walled pot that’s supposed to aerate and “air prune” your plants. We’ll see how it goes.

For those who’ve never grown potatoes, the reason the dirt is so low now is that you wait for the sprouts from the starts then add more dirt as they grow. Each start is supposed to give you 10-20 potatoes and I planted about 10 in each pot, so if all goes well, we should have an abundance.

As we’re getting more into cooking and preparing foods, we’ve just started a page of What’s for Dinner? notes to ourselves. Basically the plan is to just list recopies and techniques we learn that we want to remember and use more often.

Just a first entry for tonight. Expect more, especially as we get into Spring and Summer and have fresh vegetables and fruits from our garden. Please feel free to make suggestions here or there.

The place to go when it’s cold, dark, and rainy here in Seattle. We had a great vacation – stayed in a house in Sayulita, Mexico (just north of Puerto Vallarta).

You can see more photos over here.

Jay’s uncle Steve just sent a bunch of old family photos that he took and scanned. There are some amazing photos of Jay’s family on vacation in Palm Springs in 1968. Here’s one of my favorites:

Thanks uncle Steve!

We’re part-way through a celebration today for Jay’s birthday. Here’s our day (in photos) so far:

On the elusive 11 (our car was in the shop) on the way to the Seattle Art Museum to see the Picasso exhibit:

Drinking a cappuccino at Stella’s:

Outside SAM after the exhibit (it was awesome):

Enjoying the view over Puget Sound:

A walk through the Market (Pike Place Pigs):

A fine dinner to come later (after a nap!).

Much love to you Jay! You are the best.

Especially for nephew Ian and niece Mia, who have never been in a snow storm (or at least don’t remember it). Note: they live in LA.

It was quite cold today (mid-20s) so even though it was sunny, the snow stuck around.

Looks like a nice seat:

Watch out:

What’s left on the table (even after a bit melted):

A’s snowman:

J’s snowman:

Icicles:

For Halloween this year, we carved pumpkins with our friends Lee and Sachi. Here are some photos, for your enjoyment!

My pumpkin, post carving (photo taken by Lee):

Jay’s pumpkin, lit up (it was actually quite scary, and funny too!):

My pumpkin, lit up:

All of our pumpkins, lit up:

Inspired by David’s photo of yesterday, and the bountiful harvest of today, the title of this photo is appropriately, “today’s harvest”. Now, this doesn’t mean we’ll have the same tomorrow, but wow!

It wasn’t a good year, weather-wise, here in the NW for tomatoes, but we planted “Uncle Wilfred’s” tomatoes in the our p-patch plot. Here’s the story of the tomatoes, from his niece who sells starts in the spring:

My Uncle Wilfred lived and gardened in England for over 80 years. He had the most incredible green thumb I have ever seen. Most notably THE BEST HEIRLOOM TOMATOES EVER!. They thrive in our Northwest climate, so similar to his. It took him over 50 years to perfect them, and I was thrilled when he passed them on to me.

I have to attest, that plant was very prolific! Even without too much sun, most of the fruit in the photo (not including the cherry tomatoes and a few of the ones in the back) are from this one plant! You can see it, pre-harvest here:

Now, our canning class is going to come in handy. (Oh, and Jay counted — there’s over 100 of them….)