Weekend fun

The last few weekends have been anything but fun: the weather has been cold, snowy or both, James has been battling cellulitis in his right leg, Aidan and I both got colds, yada yada yada. After all that dreariness, it was particularly wonderful to have an entertaining and enjoyable Saturday and Sunday.

We attended our first Syracuse University men's basketball game on Saturday. We were guests of our friend Gina, who also happens to be a sales rep for a local freight forwarder who provides a lot of service to James' company. In other words, James' employer is a major client of Gina's company so part of her job is to take us out occasionally. Since we have become friends with Gina and her husband, we all have a fun time together and her company pays the tab. Did I mention that Gina's employer is James' former employer, the company that fired him? Yes indeedy...and when the Powers That Be at that company learned that James was working for one of their major clients, you can imagine what hit the fan. Insert big smile on my face.

The game was originally scheduled for 3 pm on Saturday and our plan was to eat lunch near campus, meet up with Gina at the game, then go out to dinner afterwards. About thirty minutes before we were to leave the house, we found out that the game had been moved to 7 pm. SU's opponent, NC State, had been unable to fly out on Friday as scheduled due to ongoing weather issues and was arriving in Syracuse on Saturday. Gina soon made contact and we modified our plans to meet at World of Beer mid-afternoon, then head over to the game.

And what a game it was! The Syracuse Orange men's team is ranked number one and is undefeated, but NC State made them work incredibly hard for Saturday night's win. Our guys played sluggishly and won the game by only oe point in the final seconds, with help from a likely questionable call by referees. It certainly was exciting to see them play in person and be part of the 31,572 in attendance (yikes - 31,572!):

Yes, our team is still number one. For now.

We woke up to more snow yesterday morning and since James' leg felt strong enough, we went on a snowshoe hike at Beaver Lake. The snow was still coming down as we trekked through the forest:

It's not an easy thing to do while wearing snowshoes, but Aidan did manage to make a snow angel:

Our weekend ended with a belated Valentine's dinner. James grilled ribeye steaks while I prepared a potato gratin (topped with gruyere) and roasted broccoli. It was an absolutely delicious meal followed by molten lava cakes that James offered to make for dessert (and by "offered" I mean that I bought the ingredients needed and strongly suggested that he make it). He topped each cake with fresh whipped cream:

It is difficult to see the molten center of the cake but trust me, it was there in all its rich and gooey glory:

Three out of three people in our family agree that it was a mighty fine weekend.

The fresh scent of summer

It may not look like much, but this freshly made pesto brought the lovely smell of a summer garden into my kitchen on this bitterly cold winter day:

Each summer, James grows basil in a planter on the patio and my green Adirondack chair is placed next to it. I adore relaxing in that chair, watching the bees hop from blossom to blossom and inhaling the fresh scent of basil.

For many years I have made a pasta dish with pesto, andouille sausage, chicken, and jar pesto, and we liked it just fine. But when James brought home fresh pesto last fall that was made by the staff at MacKenzie-Childs using basil grown in the farm's garden, it was glaringly obvious just how much better fresh pesto tastes. When I made pesto using the last of our basil and used it in the andouille-chicken pasta recipe, we were wowed by the greatly enhanced flavor. No more jar pesto for us.

Now that it is winter, I am fortunate to buy fresh basil in the produce department at Wegmans (the world's greatest grocery store). I admit that making pesto is a pain in the tookus and messy as hell, but it is so worth it. I've been experimenting with different nuts because pine nuts, which are traditionally used in pesto, are practically worth their weight in gold. The recipe card from MacKenzie-Childs suggested substituting walnuts or almonds. I first tried the walnuts but none of us cared much for that option, so today I used almonds and I think we will like that version much better.

And just how cold is it? When we got up this morning, it was minus 10 degrees Fahrenheit with a wind chill of you don't want to know. School was canceled due to the extreme cold and the high temperature barely managed to reach 4. But it was a gorgeous sunny day, and when I looked at the bright blue sky and took a whiff of the fresh pesto, it almost seemed like summer.