Pea Salad

It is Monday morning after a long 4th of July weekend and I feel as though I have been months away from writing complete sentences. Spent the whole weekend chasing after kids and dogs and cleaning up poop. I'm sure someday I will look back at this time wistfully, with nostalgia, but right now it's a bit overwhelming.

Right now I'm sitting at my kitchen table. It's strewn with coffee cups and half-eaten bowls of yogurt which the kids have abandoned in favor of badgering Natasha, who's gathering her things to go home after staying Saturday and Sunday nights.

The weather on the 4th was so wonderfully hot and yummy, I could hardly believe it. April and Katie Wright came out in the early afternoon, and then Lee & Kelley joined us later, as well as a couple we don't know well, Jenise & Michael--Jenise had been a Student Assistant many times at CC classes.

I made a pea salad to go with the bbq (Gabe brought homemade brats and bacon burgers home for the occasion). I like making deep Americana dishes when Natasha's here, because it's way out of her realm of experience and I always love to surprise her with how good it can be. I bought a huge bag of English peas at the farmer's market--actually, we traded sausages and bacon for them!--and Saturday afternoon Natasha, Katie, and I sat in lawn chairs shelling peas while April played in the wading pool with the kids. It was domestic enough to make most people sick, but I loved it. Dogs underfoot, French music coming out the front door, and the vacation-nostalgia-inducing coconut smell of Katie's SPF-4 "sunscreen" (yes they still make it in oil form!).

We blanched the peas in boiling water until they just floated, then rinsed in cold water. I cut some sharp Tillamook cheddar into small cubes, and Natasha sliced radishes and chopped a shitload of dill. Instead of mayo I used just enough sour cream to coat everything very lightly, added some salt and pepper, and that was it. Yum.

Yesterday morning Gabe made red flannel hash with local beets, and poached fresh eggs to go on top. (Don't get me started about the golram chickens yet, I am not happy with their production.) It was much cooler and a bit cloudy yesterday, leading into today's weather, more cool and more cloudy. Feels like any other year's pre-July-4 weather. Mother Nature is all shook up, for sure.

Today I hope to catch up on laundry and housekeeping, and hopefully pick raspberries and make a pie with the blueberries I have from Costco--I was hungry when I was there, so we're a bit overstocked. Noelani's coming back from her dad's later today. I miss her!