Missing You

I miss a lot of things about Colorado. It varies from day to day, but right now the thing I really miss about my lovely home state is all of the sun. Winter in CO may be cold, but it is still sunny. Here, not so much sun. More gray. And no snow. So basically it is a bunch of gray trees silouetted against a gray sky. Fine for a while, but then it gets to looking pretty bleak. Colin tells me it's nothing compared to the gray Boston winters, which makes me think that this is the farthest north I can probably ever live.

Last Saturday it was a Colorado day. Blue(ish) skies, sunny and chilly. It made me both happy and sad. Happy, because there was sun, and sad because I couldn't go on my favorite Colorado run or call up friends to go on a quick hike close to home. The day was spent, however, in the company of new friends, making a delicious meal.

I made a goat cheese ravioli appetizer tossed in brown butter and served over roasted red peppers. I also did an arugula salad with candied walnuts, apples and Manchego. I was quite pleased with both. The meal also consisted of roasted pork tenderloin in a wine plum sauce and popovers with a wild mushroom cream sauce spooned over the top. We finished up with a carmelized apple custard dessert served warm over a bed of sugary, crispy phyllo.

It was really fun and we are going to try and make is a monthly event. Next month it is going to be at our new place, probably around Easter, which could end up being twice the fun since we may be having Colorado visitors that weekend!

Speaking of our new place, I painted the kitchen last night. Yellow. I think I love it, but I have to see it with all of our stuff in it. It is a warm, rich, kind of egg yolky/buttery yellow. For some reason the color it reminds me of the rich flavor and smoothness of butter at room temperature, but the colors aren't even close. It's not a bright canary yellow and it definitely isn't pale yellow either. Hard to explain. I tried to take a picture of the color but the camera was dead. I love bright colors, and the kitchen gets a lot of sun, so I think it will look nice, but I just don't want it to be too much yellow. It is definitely a happy space though, which is what I am going for. It reminds me of summer and lemonade and fresh flowers.

And speaking of flowers, I got permission to plant a garden and flowers in the back yard. I love the look of wild poppies, so I think I am going to plant poppies along one of the fences. I heard that they don't grow well in the east, but I've found numerous sites where people have said that they grow them no problem. I figure I'll spend $4 on seeds and if they grow, they grow, if not, I'll try something else!