Oh Baby! Roasted Asparagus, Bacon & Cheese Tart

My food blogging pal Shelley, of the lovely Franish Nonspeaker, is expecting the arrival of dear sweet baby Ruby very soon, and a few of her friends decided to throw her a virtual baby shower.  Neat, huh?  Shelley was one of the first food bloggers I connected with almost right off the bat, in early 2011, when I was just a blogging newbie.  I don't think she's missed commenting on a single one of my posts, and that's a lot of posts!  So with our back and forth banter we've sort of gotten to know each other and I have no doubt that if I was in sweltering Austin today, this tart would come with me to her house, where we'd drink lemonade and talk about boys and babies and True Blood.  I'm hoping one day I'll have the honour of meeting Miss Ruby in real life.

Summer Lovin': Strawberry, Rhubarb & Mascarpone Crepes

Today is the first full day of summer - hip! hip! hooray!  Saskatchewan summers are terribly short, so the thing is to make the most of them because before you know it we'll be bundled up in parkas again.  There's so much to love about right now, this time, this place.  My yard is bursting into colour and the most dramatic Oriental Poppies are beginning to open so like a total dork I stare at them constantly.  I know their moment to shine is fleeting so I'm savouring their beauty while I can.  There's a lesson in that, right there, which isn't lost on me.  The next 90 days will be jam-packed with bonfires, star gazing, picnics, ice cold beers, pool side margaritas, outdoor concerts, garden goodness, bare feet, sunburns, strappy sandals & sundresses, (old) friendly faces, ice cream and more ice cream, wishes on shooting stars, road trips, skinny dips(?), sand between toes, kids blowing bubbles, hammock afternoons and lots and lots of BBQ.  So much to look forward to I can't stand it.

Meeting: Mango Coleslaw with Maple Lime Vinaigrette

It's not everyday your new boyfriend meets your family.  In my case it had been almost 8 years since a person of significance met my mama.  Long time, but well worth the wait.  K and I have been romantically intertwined for the past two glorious months (we met on a blind date on Easter Sunday - how very urban legend, I know) and it was time for my family to see who has been making me so damn happy lately.  Ideally, it would have gone down in my backyard, over barbecue and booze.  But then the rains came and didn't let up.  My tiny house wouldn't have held all of the adults and little humans and hungry cats, so we packed up the food and took it over to mom's larger house, just three short blocks away.  Hugs and handshakes later, it was as I knew it would be. A perfect meeting.

Road Trippin': Pecan Caramel Fudge Pie

I feel like I've been gone from these pages for eons!  Okay, it's only been 10 days but feels like forever. I've missed you guys!  In case you missed it earlier, last weekend I was hired by Tourism Saskatchewan to be the chef for a group of travel writers and Tourism Sask staff, while we explored the Grasslands National Park area of southern Saskatchewan.  Two RVs were to be our home base for the four days while we were trippin the roads down south.  I knew it was going to be an adventure, because seven women traversing the prairie is always an adventure, but I had no idea it would be as adventurous as it was.  So let me get the dirty deets out of the way first.  The rental RVs we were travelling in were completely dilapidated and pieces of crap from the good old days of 1986.  I'm still in awe that we actually didn't break down on the side of the road somewhere.  One of them, we found out the first morning, did not have a working refrigerator, so most of my dairy and some meat was ruined. Boo to that.  But the biggest, baddest let down was having no running water the whole entire trip.  I'm not a camping girl, nor do I have any experience with RVs but I just assumed they came jam packed with water.  Not ours.  So we had to haul it and boil it for food prep.  I felt a little like Laura Ingalls Wilder, minus the petticoat and bonnet.  Needless to say, this threw a huge wrench into food prep, making cooking for seven take much much longer than it normally does.  But in the end, the food was made and was very warmly received and no one got sick (my biggest concern the whole trip) and I have an arsenal of stories I can whip out during a lull at dinner parties.  We all need those, don't we?