Summer winding down

The last few days of Summer are still ahead of us, but with the semester (and teaching duties and looming research) starting next week, I find myself prematurely nostalgic. It seems like just minutes ago that it got warm and only a couple of weeks ago that I finished grading and put away my teaching persona for the year. But today I went and excavated my desk in preparation for another Fall and I can feel the last few minutes of freedom slipping away.

Unfortunately, the copious free time I granted myself this Summer is slipping away with the last few weeks of warm weather. And with that free time goes the time I've spent cooking and baking and developing film and scanning negatives and writing these blog posts. Doesn't mean I'm not coming back, though. It just means that the recipes will be more carefully chosen and the photos worth a few more than 1,000 words on average (hopefully).

This past weekend was the last big hurrah of the Summer, featuring my best friend's wedding to a lovely guy. I was busy doing bridesmaid duty, so I've no recipes to share. However, I appointed myself the unofficial photographer of the three days' events and took a few hundred photos. Here's a selection of the best ones. Hopefully a few more posts and recipes before work descends and it's all to-do lists and moaning about the waning afternoon light. Don't give up on me!

For the bride

It's not every day a girl's best friend gets married. That is an occasion that simply must be marked. Yesterday I and the other women in my dear K's life converged on Rhode Island for a shower to celebrate the bride's impending happy occasion. I volunteered to do a little baking and took with me (on the train) some cupcakes with ever-so-melty frosting (do NOT try to make cream cheese frosting in August if you don't have air conditioning) and the olive oil cookies I've been raving about for weeks now. Last time I just quoted cookbook's tweeted recipe, but this time I did some tweaking and will give you a full blow by blow.

Olive Oil Cookies
Ingredients

• 1 egg
• 7 T olive oil
• 5 T wine (this time I used amaretto)
• 1 c flour
• 6 T sugar
• 1/2 t minced fresh rosemary (I used more than that.)
• 1/4 t baking powder
• salt & pepper

1. With a mixer on medium speed, beat the egg, oil, and wine together.
2. In a separate bowl, combine the dry ingredients.
3. Add the dry to the wet and mix until smooth and doughy. Full disclosure: last time I complained about the dough being too wet, so this time I probably used more like 1 1/2 c.
4. Pinch off and form about 20 cookies. I made them quite small this time and it turned out to be 34. As to the question of "forming" the cookies, I rolled the dough into balls thinking they would spread more or less evenly in the oven. They didn't really spread and, instead, came out as delicious little golden nuggets.
5. Bake for 12-15 minutes at 375° or until golden brown. Be sure not to burn the bottoms.

**Note: the original red wine in the recipe does give the cookies a slightly more complex flavor, but the amaretto makes them more decisively sweet. Consider your preferences and venue and just go with your gut.

Highlights from today's archiving

Figure One. Hamburg Rathaus by night. Expect many many more photos like this here.
Figure Two. Blurry Christine having cocktails.
Figure Three. Silly (but cool) jumping Dan.

My beautiful friends!