Life's a Stitch

The trip to California covered the family portion in the last post, this one’s dedicated to the friends who visited this year.

First up were our camping pals, Mack and Rika. My favourite part of their visit was our hike on the ladder trail of Painted Canyon, with Mari and KC,  as well as all the good food and wine. I’m looking forward to camping with them again this summer.

Next was Nancy, who we know from our years in Omaha. She arrived bearing gifts including two dozen frozen runzas, my favourite fast food from over 40 years ago. I never thought I’d taste them again. What a treat. I inherited the cabbage loving genes from the Polish side of my PoliRican heritage.

We hadn’t seen each other in 20 years and we picked up right where we left off.

Karen and Allan arrived the day after Nancy left. K was a former colleague of C’s and they were neighbours of ours in North Vancouver. We have shared so much together including the simultaneous selling of our family homes and renovating and moving to our retirement places. We’re all artists in our later years and have enjoyed travelling together.

Good food comes with good friends and family. Where else but in California can you get artichokes at the dollar store?

I spent lots of time in the kitchen, which I enjoy. This year’s new menus included an Indian meal: eggplant bharta, butter chicken and beef Rogan Josh, the latter two recipes from this fantastic cookbook.

We discovered gnudi, an easy homemade low carb pasta, made with ricotta, eggs, cheese, and a wee bit of flour.

Family, friends, fun and food, that about sums it up. Now let’s see if the photos will upload! Fingers crossed. 

Update: It took an average of two tries per photo, but it worked. This gives me incentive to try to catch up with the trip to Iceland and beyond.