Summer Fun List

Say what you will about pool boys, they all have one thing in common: they sure are cute!

We have FINALLY gotten a nice stretch of summer weather in New England, just as we begin the countdown to fall and the real world, if we can refer to kindergarden and nursery school as the real world. But we have one more year of civility, i.e. starting school after Labor Day and not a minute before, so we plan to spend the remaining hours of official summer doing things on our Summer Fun List.

Even though we’ve done most of the things on the list already, you can never have too much of the following:

1. in-season fruit picking. We’re on to nectarines, peaches, blueberries (of course), and a slightly peculiar variety of raspberry that doesn’t seem to know it is neither July nor September. Pears and apples are nearly ready, but NOT YET, I say. Then, pie and crisp. Or crispy, as we call it around here.

2. beach and all its assorted activities, including cocktails for grownups (check), searching for sea glass (check), finding the elusive blue piece (just this weekend! and I wasn’t even there!), crabbing (check) and generally getting wet, finding treasures and getting sandy (check, check, check)

3. the carousel

4. the lake (though really–why is it amber?)

5. ice cream. there hasn’t been nearly enough this year.

6. more farm stands and less A & P.

7. more stomp rockets and sprinklers

8. more bike riding and scootering

9. more summer reading (we just finished The Long Winter from the Little House series, and it was delicious reading about freezing cold while fanning ourselves.)

10. more cupcakes. always more cupcakes.

11. birthdays. we love summer birthdays around here.

12. more time at our favorite haunts, like making toy boats and climbing on wooden tugboats

13. more pool time. always.

14. more Maine! Checking that off the list next week

15. more cape cod and friends we miss

16. gazpacho

17. tomato soup

18. BLTs with homemade bread

19. pesto

20. did I say tomato?

21. more baby twin cousins! (Pictures soon, mama!)

Clearly, we can’t get this all done by Labor Day. September, you have some things on your list.

What’s on yours? We can always stand to add a few things to ours!

Blueberry Monday (World’s Best Blueberry Muffins)

So, I actually didn’t disappear into a vat of blueberries, I just got a little busy last week. But it is still blueberry season here, and so I hope to make it up to you today with this preview of the blueberry goodness I have yet in store for you.

These blueberry muffins, a gift to the world from my college roommate’s mom (Thank you, Vic!), are foolproof and perfect. I have tried probably 75 or more muffin recipes in my baking career, and these are at the top of the list.

If I can find a photo of mine, I’ll post it later, but I’m not even going to post a representative picture, because just looked in Google images under PERFECT BLUEBERRY MUFFIN, and EVERY MUFFIN I SAW was not as gorgeous as these muffins. Tall, well-built, perfectly peaked, golden colored and studded with blueberries. If you want super low-fat, whole grain and low sugar, move along, but these are bakery perfection in appearance without the fatty heavy yucky cakey bakery muffin taste.

Without further ado, start baking. (Of course, you can use other kinds of fruit, too. I like to mix blueberries and peaches this time of year.)

Perfect Blueberry Muffins
2 cups flour (I sometimes replace up to a 1/2 cup of white flour with King Arthur’s White Wheat)

2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 cup milk

1 tsp. vanilla

1 and 1/4 cups sugar ( I use a little more than 3/4 cup without noticing much difference)

1 stick butter (1/2 cup)

2 eggs
1 pint floured blueberries, fresh or frozen (2 cups)

(I’m generous with the berries, usually a little more than 2 cups)

Preheat oven to 400.
Cream butter and sugar. Add vanilla and eggs. Add flour, cinnamon and baking powder, stir gently.

Add floured blueberries and mix until sticky, adding milk slowly to keep batter sticky.

Fill tins until heaping (this is important for tall, lovely muffins), sprinkle with sugar*. Bake 20-25 minutes.

*I use coarse white decorating sugar from King Arthur’s, makes a pretty crust on top!

Three words you don’t hear together every day: sea creature gummies

I think the only thing better than gummy sea creatures in Will’s opinion is gummy sea creatures on a stick. This spectacular confection came from his Auntie Melissa along with his birthday present, isn’t it something?

He was very good about eating just one piece a day and about sharing it with his brother, though no freakin’ way was he going to share the shark with Henry. He did give Henry the giant blue eel/ray thing at the top, though. I think he is hoping if he is very, very good he’ll get another one someday.

Thank you, Melissa!

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Just about to email two blueberry recipes to the reader who has been disappointed daily since last Friday. I’ll do a blueberry post tomorrow here, SERIOUSLY, so if you posted some blueberry recipes, put them in the comments tomorrow so we can come see your recipes, too!

Did someone say blueberries?

I swear I heard someone around here promising a blueberry post.

Not what you had in mind, maybe, but here you go.

More soon. Hard to pick them, cook them AND post about them, as it turns out.

For more Best Shot Monday, you know where to go!

In lieu of Food Friday: Harp Seal Release

I’m out of town for the day, and if I was a super techno-blogger I would research and write and post from my phone but….I am not. So Food Friday: Blueberries will appear tomorrow. If you’ve got something you’re sharing on your site today, please leave it in the comments tomorrow!

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Will and Henry’s aunt volunteers with our local aquarium’s seal rescue program, and invited us to this recent release of a rehabbed harp seal that had stranded on the shores of New England with a belly full of rocks. The aquarium team worked with our hospital’s GI group (endoscopies aren’t just for people anymore) to treat this terribly sick animal, and at the release, they held up a large jar full of rocks that had been removed from his belly.

Ouch! Though, this guy is about Henry’s age, and I have caught Henry with a rock in his mouth before, so I guess I understand.

That’s a satellite tracker on his back, which will come off at his next molt in winter, or sooner. From the looks of the path on his tracking chart, it looks like sooner might have been yesterday, sadly.

It was amazing and wonderful and quite emotional to see this wild animal get a sniff of home, and then go headlong into the water where he belonged, after months of being around humans. He’ll now head to the far northern reaches of the Arctic, thousands of miles from where he stranded last April.

Safe travels, #39392! Or as we like to call him at our house, Rocky!