peach party

Peaches at a farmers’ market. (Photo: Stephen Morton for The New York Times)

I’m going to an “Iron Chef”-type party this weekend, and the secret ingredient is peaches. I’ve been scouring the internet and my cookbooks looking for something budget-friendly and unique. I’ll let you know what I come up with.

Here are a few I’ve found so far:

Chipotle Peach Salsa from the New York Times Bitten Blog

Peach and Plum Crisp from 101 Cookbooks

Butterscotch Peaches from the New York Times

Peaches with Roasted Brown Sugar and Basil from the New York Times

Cornmeal Olive Oil Cake with Poached Peaches from Emeril Lagasse

UPDATE: I ending up making the Chipotle Peach Salsa. I served it with baked plantain chips. Very yummy!

blueberry picking and blueberry scones

blueberry scones

Friday marked the beginning of blueberry picking season over at Dexter Blueberry Farm. We picked about 3 pounds of blueberries at a nice price of $1.55 a pound. So, while blueberries are great to eat on their own, I also decided that I needed to bake something with our bounty. I had some leftover buttermilk, so I adapted this scone recipe which utilized it. Normally I make cream scones which don’t use any butter, or I make scones which only use butter and no cream. These buttermilk scones were a bit lighter- more cake-like- than the ‘butter-only’ scones, and had a similar texture to the ‘cream scones.’ The addition of the blueberries was wonderful. They burst open as you eat the scones.

Click more to read the recipe.

michele oka doner (ann arbor visit)

Michele Oka Doner “Third Nature” 5:10 pm, Thursday, April 3rd, 2008 Michigan Theater, 603 E. Liberty Reaching back to nature primordial and existing through existential transformation is the work of Michele Oka Doner. In her career of over four decades Oka Doner has taken nature at its most basic level – a stick, a twig, a palm leaf and the spiraling of galaxies – and made it the subject of her art. In her talk Oka Doner will present a selection of her public art projects, sculpture, jewelry, furniture and design objects. Oka Doner’s work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York. Supported by the UM Museum of Art.
Michele Oka Doner’s lecture is a part of the Penny W. Stamps Distinguished Visitors Series. With the generous support of Art & Design alumna Penny W. Stamps, the Distinguished Visitors Series brings to the School a broad spectrum of emerging and established artists/designers to engage with students, faculty, staff and the larger University and Ann Arbor communities. Depending on the length of their stays and their particular areas of expertise, visitors present public lectures, work with students, participate in panel discussions, generate site-specific works, and give public performances. For more information, call (734) 764-3464 or visit: art-design.umich.edu/ev_lectures.php. *if you can’t make it, they do a great job of archiving the lectures through video and audio documentation. visit their website, or subscribe on itunes*

Trust, Distrust, and Social Class in the Black Community (ann arbor)

Jobs and Housing: Trust, Distrust, and Social Class in the Black Community

Monday, January 21, 2008. 3 – 5 pm.

Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy

Annenberg Auditorium, 1120 Weill Hall

Hosted as part of the University of Michigan’s 2008 Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. Symposium.

Mary Pattillo is a Professor of Sociology and African American Studies at Northwestern University. Her most recent book, Black on the Block: The Politics of Race and Class in the City (University of Chicago Press) examines the simultaneous processes of low-income housing construction and gentrification in a black Chicago neighborhood. Pattillo is a founding board member and active participant in Urban Prep Charter Academy, the first all-boys public charter high school in Chicago.

Sandra S. Smith is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. In Lone Pursuit: Distrust and Defensive Individualism Among the Black Poor (Russell Sage Foundation Publications) Smith advances current and enduring debates about black joblessness, highlighting the role of interpersonal distrust dynamics between low-income black jobholders and their jobseeking relations that make cooperation during the process of finding work a problematic affair. In future work, Smith will further interrogate the process of finding work by examining racial and ethnic differences in trust dynamics and exploring the social psychological, cultural, and structural factors that generate these differences.

Both scholars will discuss their books, followed by comments by University of Michigan professor David Harding.

Seminar is co-sponsored by the National Poverty Center.

Reception and booksigning to follow. Free and open to the public.

summer fun in A2

(picture from Summer Festival website)

When I moved here a year ago, I never imagined that life in Ann Arbor could actually be fun! Well, it is. And the summer is the perfect time to enjoy it. Last night kicked off the Summer Festival with the Top of the Park. Check out the sites to view the schedules of the Mainstage, Top of the Park, and other venues.  They are packed with live music performances, free outdoor movies, art workshops and more.

eating outdoors

As I was explaining in my last post, the weather has gotten warm in Ann Arbor, and my mind is fixating on ways to get out and enjoy the warmth. A few weeks ago, when the air had just started to warm, my hunny and I set out on a picnic at the Botanical Gardens. It was a beautiful day. We enjoyed lovely foods from Morgan & York, including a fresh baguette, cheese, and apples (ok, those were from Whole Foods).

 

On a different kind of picnic day, I was craving something that my mom used to make for gatherings at our house- pigs in a blanket. The dilemma is that I’m vegetarian, and I really have no desire to eat real hot dogs. So, I bought veggie dogs and some low-fat crescent rolls, and I was good to go. These are really easy to make, and they make the perfect dish to bring over to a friend’s house.

what’s your favorite?

(cabanas on Miami Beach, April 2005, and a snowy, foggy Ann Arbor, January, 2007)

Growing up in Miami, I never really understood the concept of a “season.”  I mean, it’s hot or not so hot. We had the occasional cold day and many rainy days.  More recently, we are concerned most of all with “hurricane season,” which is somewhat of a new phenomena stirring up a lot of anxiety in the South Florida area (as well as other coastal areas too, I’m sure).  It’s not that we didn’t have hurricanes before, but we never had so many that the region had to be on guard for the whole season.  But, I digress. My point is that since Miami was pretty much always warm, I never thought about the luxury of eating outside.

Currently, I live in Ann Arbor, where it has just started to warm up after months of up and down weather (mostly down, below 40).  For the first time since September, this morning I went running in a tank top and shorts! It’s going to be almost 80 degrees here today.

So, with warmth in the air, and a little more time on my hands now that the semester is over, it’s the perfect time for picnics.

What’s your favorite food to take on a picnic? 

Where’s your favorite place to go on a picnic? 

Tomorrow, I’ll post some of mine . . .