"Hello muddah!

Hello faddah!
Here I am at
Camp Granada
Camp is very
entertaining
And they say we'll have some fun if it stops raining!"

You might have guessed it--or not, it's kind of outlandish-- but I have (had!) not gone camping before!!

FOR REAL!

I don't think that sleeping in a tent in our backyard when I was 6 counts... especially since we had to go inside when it started raining...

Anyway! So this summer I decided to go to a student congregation instead of a family congregation. All the people in this congregation are AM-AZ-ING! I LOVE THEM! But moving past that, we were planning a boating trip down at Lake Rathbun and I happened to mention that I had never, in all of my 21 years, gone camping. And so all plans were changed and we went down a day early so that we could go camping!! HOORAY!!!!!

We got down there just as it was getting dark, and I helped to set up my first tent. Then we had MARVELOUS food provided by Hibby (the main organizer of this fantastical event!) and Hibby's family. Then we sat around the campfire in true camping fashion and chatted until aboooouuuut... 1:30 in the morning.

Then we went to bed.

Alas, did we sleep? NO! Some raccoons were having a HAY DAY outside of the girl tent. AND THEN the wind had a COW all over the place AND WE ALMOST DIED because our tent wasn't staked down! (I didn't set that tent up!) AND THEN IT RAINED FOR THE REST OF THE NIGHT! And the little *plink plink plink* on the tin roof nearby almost DROVE ME NUTS! But no worries! We DIDN'T die. It was an AWESOME adventure.

I LOVE CAMPING!!!

Above is a picture of all of us on the trip-- seriously, one of the. funnest. weekends. of. my. life.

Well, to start off with, here is a picture of Iowa. Is it everything you thought it would be--

AND MORE?!?!?!
(Those are soybeans, by the way- not corn)

And here is a picture of me.
Dead.
In the middle of this country road.

JK! JK! This "pass off" on my list is to lay (lie?) in the middle of a country road. I know, I know, I know. Lame, right? WRONG! There is something terribly thrilling about stopping your car in the middle of the road, getting out, and laying down in the very spot that someone else (whether animal or human) could have been run over and actually DIED before! (did that make any sense?)

Or it could just be thrilling cuz you've never done it before.
OR maybe because it is the breaking of a social norm.
OR! OR! OR!

Above is the view of my on the road. And below is the view from laying down on the road.
And there is my photographer, Padder (after I got the camera from him). Doesn't he look just wonderfully contemplative?
So yeah. It was AWESOME! I recommend anyone and everyone to go and lay down in the middle of the road! (preferably when no one is coming, but hey- who am I to tell you what to do?)

(Sing the following song to the tune of the "Oscar Meyer Wiener" song)

Smarmy, smarmy, smarmy, smarmy smarmy.
I really like that word, oh, can't you see-ee-eeeee
Smarmy, smarmy, smarmy, smarmy, smarmeeeeee
Though it's not my personality.

Smarmy really has nothing to do with this post.

Moving on! Oh boy have I ever done a ton of things this summer that pass things off my list! The problem is finding the time to write down all of the experiences... So I guess that I'll write down the most recent one that I did: make a market bag!

This bag is supposed to the "green" way of doing things- you know, use your own bag at the market to save all sorts of plastic trees and things...
But I already don't use plastic bags very often cuz it's just kind of wasteful, and I generally have really big purses that I can fit things into. (makes the five finger discount veeeeeery efficient! Jk! Jk!) This bag was only supposed to have the handles, but I added a shoulder strap because I just like shoulder straps, that's why.
But see, the next problem is that this bag is made using triple crochet! And what does that mean, class? That there are gigantic holes! But what about coins and pencils and other necessary writing accessories- wouldn't they slip right through? Yes, class, you are correct. Therefore, I made a cute little pencil bag and a cute little coin purse to eliminate that problem. I thought that they turned out rather cute and little.

THE END!

Next: try sugar cane.

You'd think that it would be good right? Sugary? Caney? Delicious..errr...y?

It wasn't.
It tasted like water chestnut.
Gross.

Xie Xie!

I made this quilt for my brother Shadow's graduation present. The design is "Chinese Coin Quilt" cuz I guess the pieces look like a stack of Chinese coins.... I dunno...

Anyway- this quilt passes off TWO things on my to do list! MULTI-TASKING! The first was actually making a quilt with the Chinese Coin quilt design. And that was on the list just cuz its a pretty cool design.

The second part was to make a quilt with a gradation of color. We didn't have a pattern for this quilt, but we just kind of figured it out from pictures, and that left the color scheme up to me! So I sorted out the colors maroon, gold, green, teal, blue, and purple according to their hues then skip counted up and back down so as to not repeat the different fabric pieces up and down the scale. I LOVED the result and might just make one exactly like it for me!

Mamma Mia! One of the things on my "To Do" list is to learn how to make good Italian food. It is going to take a little bit of practice, but what I've learned so far is that, in order to make good Italian food, you're gonna need to prepare yourself for a lot of butter usage. And by a lot of butter usage, I mean be prepared to not eat all day prior to the meal, and then go running for 1/2 hour to work off all of the calories! But boy howdy, it is sooooooo good!
This is an asparagus pesto phyllo dough roll up. We call them asparagus taquitos-- I think that's maybe a little sacrilegious in the Italian cooking world, but hey, I'M the chef here, and that's what they are like. Next think you know, we'll be making a lasagna taco!

I, Beautiful Lady, hereby solemnly swear, NEVER to make a lasagna taco.

These are the regional equivalent to a spinach gnocci (pronounced knee-oh-key). We have a FABULOUS Italian cookbook called the Italian Farmer's Table that is an absolute must have. This gnocci is served with a butter sage sauce. After making them, we decided that these would be better with a thicker, heartier sauce-- like an alfredo, but they were still so, so, sooooooooo good!

Lastly, these pictures are of our Leek and Pancetta tarts. These were the highlight of our meal. I cannot describe the bliss that you will encounter when you try these tarts. They come from the same cookbook as the previous recipe, and all I can say is- try it! Please try it!
Spaghetti-Os? Never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever (I will never have enough "evers") EVER again.

You'd think with being home in Iowa that I'd have more time to post things on here- what is there to do here anyway but watch the corn grow? Alas, that seems to not be the case. But no worries! I have been still passing things off!

And another thing, I recently watched the movie Julie and Julia, and feel a little worried about this whole blogging thing now. She got so obsessive about it! Gah! What if that happens to me?!

*deep breath*
I'm thinkin' that it won't-- seein' as how the average update period is about a month...

So that's that! Side note over-- off to the meat of the post!

My mom and I are taking a few cooking classes this summer, and the first one was a Dutch Letters class. For all of those out there that don't know what Dutch Letters are, imagine a cloud pillow of buttery flakeness engulfing a sweet, dense almond dream filling that practically (and literally) melts in your mouth. That, my friend, is a Dutch Letter. Ew. Did you just drool?

Well, we learned how to make them at this class! Now remember, what are the three secrets to French cooking? 1. Butter! 2. Butter! and 3. Butter! And that's pretty much what we did here to make that pillow of buttery flakeness. So good. So good.

That is our cooking preparation area. Note the variety of different rolling pins. It is very important (apparently) to find the rolling pin that works just right for you. And every good chef has at least 2 rolling pins that serve different purposes. Apparently I'm not a good chef, cuz I only have one and I got it from Ikea...

Those are our final product! Typically Dutch Letters are just an "S" shape, but seeing as how I am the chef here, I decided to switch things up a little bit. A word of explanation for the seemingly unsensical and cryptic message (is it pronounced "klahs" or "close"? "Lives" or "Lives"? Who knows!) My roommate KTLN received some Valentine themed window stickies as a party favor. We, being the single and oh, so eligible, attractive, wonderful, and humble bachelorettes that we are/were decided to spurn the "singles awareness day" theme and rearranged the "Kiss" and "love" stickies into the above message. Clever? I'm thinkin' yes.

ANYWAY! Pass off-- one cooking class and making homemade Dutch letters.