gettin' domesticated

i'm going to try to keep the irony and sarcasm to a minimum here, because this weekend really was fabulous. place bets now on how long i can last...

saturday began with a jaunt to a strawberry farm. nick has never experienced a pick-your-own, and he was mildly ecstatic about how AWESOME fresh strawberries taste. luckily, he takes pictures of me only when i'm at my most attractive. props to the guy to the left of me, though. he was seriously into his picking. and look how precious this boy is! we overpicked--the endorphins released at each pluck were way too addicting.

the impetus for the spontaneous picking was an amazing recipe i found for no-knead bread. it seriously takes two minutes to prepare... plus 12-18 hours rising time... but as long as you just plan ahead, i've never seen an easier bread. and it was SOOOO good--crunchy, crackly crust, uber-chewy inside! so because i knew we were going to be eating this glorious bread, i knew we needed to go all-out, meaning we had to make strawberry jam to go with it. the result:


and if that doesn't look like some kind of heaven to you, then you are an alien.

add that to fresh gazpacho with basil, and i think i get some sort of prize or something: yes, fools, this sassy woman CAN wear an apron! anyway, just one of the many boons of my unemployed status...

we capped the day with a date--cuz we've decided we're going to start doing that stuff now that we're married--to the american city diner, this fabulous, greasy little semi-outdoor joint downtown that plays old films every night--FOR FREE! a black bean burger + dr. strangelove meant we were in for a good time. we were both a little dazed and confused at the movie's end (does anyone get the hitler joke?), but our waiter was a trip, we finally figured out the primary inspiration for nick's old roommate's humor, and there's something wondrous about free community fun and weirdness that's impossible not to love. ignore the parallelism issues above, please.

i was going to write about our sunday adventure here, but i think it needs to be its own post. so stay tuned. but just for kicks, here's one reason i love nick today: the giant cave cricket he smashed on the floor last night as we were getting in bed and were both way too tired to clean up was *mostly* gone when i woke up this morning. what a sweetheart! ; )

[author's edit] sadly, i must retract the above love. i just found the cricket under my shoe. it was bigger than i remembered.

also, if anybody's wondering why all our pictures are tiny and cruddy, it's because i'm too impatient to wait for normal pics to upload, so we shrink them. sorry you can't see our beautiful faces more hugely.

lovelovelove!