Soba Noodles with Salmon

A few weeks ago, I went over to a girlfriend's house for lunch who is also at home on leave with her sweet baby girl. She made this incredible salad with soba noodles, which I'd strangely never eaten before. So good!

Gorgeous wild-caught sock eye salmon was on sale at the grocery store, so that got added to my re-creation of her salad. If you use prepared smoked salmon, this would be a nearly no-cook meal since you just need to boil the noodles for 6 minutes or so!

Soba Noodles with Salmon

You will need:
3/4 lb salmon (or prepared smoked salmon - see above)
1 lb package soba noodles
1 cup arugula
1 diced avocado
1/2 English cucumber, sliced into half rounds
Scallions
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
Juice of half a lime
Salt and pepper

Grill the salt and pepper covered salmon. Peter's been making little foil packets with water soaked wood chips to put at the back of the grill, and the grilled the fish at the front over indirect heat. Delicious! It does take about double the amount of time this way - our cooked for about 20 minutes with the cover on to trap the smoke from the chips.

Meanwhile, boil water for the noodles, and cook for 6-8 minutes. While the noodles cook, prep all your toppings. I also think slices of pepper, carrots, shredded cabbage, and cilantro would work beautifully in addition to or instead of arugula, avocado, and cucumbers.

Whisk the sesame oil, rice vinegar, lime juice, a bit more salt and pepper, and chopped scallions together for the dressing. Toss with the cooked noodles, and assemble the salad. This tastes great warm, at room-temperature, or cold, making it my new favorite summertime meal.

The skies cleared

After a week of rain and lots of crying (I blame the full moon/Friday the 13th/Mercury retrograde triumvirate), the skies cleared and we high-tailed it up to the beach. It was desolate because of the rain that morning - Peter's favorite kind of beach day :) 

When Peter first came on vacation with my family, he was a bit shocked by the sheer amount of stuff we bring with us. Same goes for Tanglewood visits. I'm slightly better about packing light for these trips than my Mom is, but I'm just not a simple towel on the ground kind of person. Know thyself, right?

This was a good trial run to see how we did packing for ourselves and Lizzy. We have a little baby tent for her, and brought some diapers and blankets - she actually didn't add too much at this point since there weren't any beach toys or mini towels to haul :)

On the way out, I popped into Russell for cider donuts, two giant heads of lettuce, and spicy hot pink radishes. Instead of our usual dinner at the Clam Box, we tried Salt in Ipswich - the lure of an amazing rum cocktail was too much for me to resist. Lizzy was a champ during dinner - not a peep. That salty sea air was good for everybody.

Summer Reading

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Here's to lazy summer evenings with lots of light to read by! What's on your summer reading list? Do you have any good recommendations for me?

These Days

Almost two years ago I did a little post chronicling a fairly typical evening at home, and I thought it would be fun to put together another one, except this time, I get to start with the morning! I thought they would look and feel so different (new house, new baby, etc.), but it's sort of amazing to see how similar the pictures look, even though the descriptions are very different.

On this day (which was May 28, when Lizzy was one month old), she slept next to me on the couch while I ate breakfast, checked email, and read a bit of This Old House (my favorite magazine). I watched Kelly and Michael, which, to me, is one of the big perks of being home in the late morning and fed her (again - notice the always within reach lanolin!), and then I put her down for a nap. She sleeps in our room during the night, but I'm trying to put her in her crib for at least one nap a day now so she'll start to think it's a wonderful place to sleep in the not-so-distance future :)

While she slept, I worked on a project I'd been chipping away at during naps for at least two weeks - painting the stairs. The treads and hand rail got two coats of French Grey in Annie Sloan paint, and then the risers and spokes (are these all the right terms?!) got painted in Simply White. For reference, they used to look like this! I have a runner that I still need to put down, but I need to re-stock the staples for my staple gun.

She woke up, ate again, and then suffered through some tummy time while I made my lunch. This was such a good salad, you guys. First I sauteed the stems of rainbow Swiss chard, then added in a handful of sugar snap peas and a splash of water and cooked those for maybe a minute. Once the stems are a little soft, add in cut up Swiss chard leaves, some chunks of pepperoni, and a nice glug of olive oil. I obviously ate it on it's own, but I think it'd be great mixed in with pasta or with an egg on top to make it a bit more substantial. 

Afternoons are a weird blur to me. We probably snuggled, read some stories, and Lizzy likely got  to take a nap while I held her (her favorite). Then Peter comes home, and it seems like a switch is turned on and it's crying time on and off for the next few hours. I prepped dinner while he played with her for a bit - this basically involves letting her hold your fingers at this point! - then I fed her while Peter finished pulling everything together for this peanut noodle salad we had with left-over steak.

These pictures are blurry because time is of the essence during dinner since I never know when she's going to happily hang out in her swing for 45 minutes, or when she'll scream bloody murder five minutes after going in. We took our chances this night and put on an episode of the Sopranos - I've never seen it before! We ate, and then Peter and I passed her back and forth between us until her bath and bedtime routine. I know these days of happily passing around our little meatball for extended snuggles are short, so we're tying to enjoy them to the utmost.

Old Manse

Saturday was a beautiful day, so we headed up to Concord to check out the Old Manse and the surrounding grounds. This had been on my to-visit list for a while, so it was a nice surprise that they were having an open house that afternoon!

The trails and gardens behind the house are stunning. Everything is in bloom right now! And, an important battle happened on that little bridge. (I think it looks way too small for an important battle, right? Peter assures me it occurred there.)

Afterwards we went into the town center to hit up the Cheese Shop and a few other favorite spots. Lizzy was snoozing in her Ergo, so we took our chances and ordered a drink and some snacks on the front porch of the Colonial Inn. As soon as our drinks arrived, she started crying a bit (how do they always KNOW?!), but Peter walked her around for a few minutes and she settled right down, and we were able to toast to successful little adventures!

Mysteries Revealed

Checking in from Babyville, where the laundry is suddenly never-ending (and cuter than ever). 

Lizzy is long like me, and extremely hungry like Peter, so the darling pudge is starting to fill in. We can both say, "Yes, we were just like that."

Like all sane people, she's extremely annoyed by the hiccups. And unfortunately, she gets them all the time. I sometimes take her into our downstairs bathroom where there's an unreasonably loud fan that helps to distract her a bit from the injustice of another case of hiccups.

And of course there are all kinds of things we never could have predicted, but now happily know. She loves to tightly hold our hands, tightly grips the curtains in her nursery that hang over her changing table, and sometimes accidentally hit her own face.

We call her Lizzy, but I am such a nicknaming expert that she also gets called a lot of other things, including: Lizbert, Lizzy Bean, Gremlin, Piggy, Sweet Pea, Girly Girl, Diva, Demon Eyes, Milk Face, Lippy Lou, Missy Mae, and Lizzy Bizzy (by my Mom). The use of each one obviously depends on her mood and behavior :)

11 Questions Answered

A few pictures of life lately! The most delicious lamb ragu with feta and peas; Lizzy suffering through tummy time; a walk in the wood; and a photo my sister took of Lizzy and me on Mother's Day.

Melissa invited me to answer a few questions she posted to her blog, and while my answers are far from riveting, it was fun to put together. You should totally play along!

1. What has been your most favorite vacation to date? 
Paris! It's hard to beat Paris. 

2. Do you prefer big city life, suburban life, or a life in the country? 
I love that I have a quasi-suburban life right now. We are still super close to the city (10 minutes to Cambridge, and just a bit further from Boston), but I love our little house and neighborhood and yard. 

3. What is your favorite type of food?
This sounds boring because I like to think of myself to be kind of an adventurous eater, but I think my favorite would be classified as American! But maybe fancy-ish American?! Ha. My favorite type of recipe is basically everything on Food 52. 

4. How would you typically dress for a night out? 
Fun patterned shirt (like so) and hot pink flats (like so). Though it's been far too long since these items have left my closet!

5. What are you go-to accessories?
Scarves, earrings, necklaces, sunglasses.

6. How do you fix your hair?
Lately it's been air dried, but typically I give it a quick blow dry and smooth it out with a big round brush. I'm useless with hair products, so I tend to skip them all together. 

7. What make-up do you wear on a daily basis? Do you have preferred brands?
I wear tinted moisturizer, mascara, and blush every day, and sometimes add eye shadow and eye liner to the mix, as well. And always (always!) Vaseline on my lips!

8. What is your preferred workout?
I'm terrible about working out in the formal sense, but I like walking a lot, and will occasionally do some yoga at home.

9. Where is your favorite place to shop online?
Oh gosh. Predictable, but probably Amazon. I also buy things from Lilly Pulitzer online when they have big sales, and like Terrain a lot for gifts. 

10. Do you enjoy entertaining guests in your home or would you prefer to be a guest? 
I LOVE hosting people here - it's one of my favorite things. But because I know how much goes into it, I also really appreciate how wonderful it is to be a guest in someone else's home. I always pick up tricks that I want to steal from our friends who are also fantastic hosts! (The trick I'm always trying to relearn is "just relax and everyone will have fun," ha.)

11. What quality do you really value in your significant other?
Goodness, this is tricky, because is truly a very long list. Peter and I have opposite personalities in many ways (similar values, though, which I think is the key). He is patient, even-keeled, focused, and is an exceptional listener - all qualities I lack, and value very much!

Loving Lately

I got this book a few weeks ago, and have been slowly reading a few of these quirky, funny stories each day. It's perfect for these fuzzy, jumbled newborn days because each one is short, compact, and satisfying. 

I am usually very brand loyal, but after years of using Laura Mercier's tinted moisturizer, I decided to give this one a go after seeing it mentioned on Whoorl (she is so lovely, and I tend to trust her beauty product recommendations). I was a little nervous about the fruit extracts being too scented for my sensitive skin, but so far, no issues at all, and it smells heavenly. And there's something very satisfying about being able to say your make-up comes from France, right? 

Oooh goodness, we are deeply entrenched in True Detective. The chemistry between Matthew McConaughhey and Woody Harrelson is fantastic, and the whole thing is just so suspenseful and well-done. Highly recommended if you're looking for a new show to become obsessed with :)

And finally, a few good things I've read lately:

• My Early-Life Crisis - "I was born a friendless virgin."
• A Day on Long Island with Alex Lee - James Beard award winning article by Francis Lam
• The Ultimate SoWa Food Truck Guide - excited to get back here soon!
• My Other Mother's Day - from new blog favorite Wee Mountains

Dining Room Re-Do

Oh, the dining room! We naively thought that the dining room would be one of our easiest spaces to give a little make-over to. Strip the wallpaper, pull up the carpet, add some paint...not too bad! But as I mentioned before, the wallpaper was actually covering paneling, which was covering up crumbling plaster walls. The built-in hutch was nearly impossible to strip, and the floors were in very rough shape underneath the carpet. 

When we decided to re-do our kitchen, we also opened up the wall between the two rooms, re-did the plaster on the walls and ceiling, and Peter installed the new hardwood floors, which are the same in the whole first floor now.

The walls are painted Silver Mist by Benjamin Moore, which is the same color as the kitchen for continuity. That rug is Dash and Albert from the clearance sale they have each summer in Pittsfield. It might end up in the nursery eventually, if I find something more substantial at the sale this year to put in the dining room instead. 

The hutch got painted in Simply White by Benjamin Moore, which is the same color I've been using on all the trim and doors throughout the house. And the chandelier was replaced with one my Mom had been using for a while, but was sitting in her basement. I gave it a coat of white spray paint to spruce it up. (But I failed to cover up the sockets before doing it - don't make that same mistake! Peter had to clean them out to make all the lights work again...). The art work over the side board is a painting was picked up in Brazil years ago, and the one above the chair was purchased to celebrate our first anniversary.

We are gearing up to host some dinner parties (of the come-over-for-take-out variety, let's not get too ahead of ourselves!).

Lilac Sunday

I heard about Lilac Sunday at the Arnold Arboretum last spring (after the fact, of course!), and thought it would be a pretty lovely way to spend my first mother's day.

We were driving back from Connecticut on Sunday after visiting family for the weekend. It was very warm in the car, traffic was crazy near the Arboretum, and Lizzy was hungry and had a dirty diaper. We really thought about turning around since it was starting to feel a bit more stressful than fun, but I'm so glad we stuck it out and were able to take a walk among the flowers.

It will take us a little while to figure out how to handle these little outings with grace and ease, but the only way to do that is to keep trying it out, right?

When I was saying good-bye to my Mom yesterday she said, "Mother's Day is a funny little holiday, isn't it? But it's an important one, too."

I hope everyone had a lovely day, whether you were celebrating your own mother or grandmothers, or were happily being celebrated. So many of my girlfriends have become mothers in the last year, and it was so fun to text each other throughout the day to check in with well wishes. I'm sending lots of love to each and every one of you!