dear maple ice cream

You get it, we had a great time in Italy, we took a lot of photos and are thinking of culling the blurry ones and inviting you over to watch them on our basement wall.

But I digress, because it's summertime in Vermont. As a few of you know, there's no drug better than a Vermont summer. Mossy walks and crisp streams. Hot days and perfect outdoor evenings. It's lush and enveloping and a kind of heaven. Foliage and ski side nights are great, but nothing is better than summer here. Especially if you discover the one food item I would choose in the game of "if you could only eat one thing for the rest of your life what would it be?" Easy: Maple Ice Cream.

Specifically, Strafford Farms Smooth Maple Ice Cream. Where the cows eat alfalfa and are happy and make ridiculously delicious ice cream.

To hold the ice cream I got these adorable little bowls (that are much bluer than the photo lets on) at Anthropologie last weekend for .95c each.

All I want in my kitchen are white bowls. And white plates and white mugs and mismatched vintage silver.  And maple ice cream. Someday. When someone builds me this house to tuck into the woods. And I have tea parties again.

Florence: the sweetest things

The 48 hours following our return trip to Vermont included: overnight flight delays, sleeping, overflowing suitcases, napping, celebrating Drew's birthday, napping, eating, snuggling with the kiddos, napping, stocking our kitchen (enter: cured meats, cheeses, nutella, bread and olives), napping, mowing the lawn, a visit from the tooth fairy (reporting in for a double-header of a tooth loss), napping, making espressos, waking from napping and groggily realizing we had to go back to work. Basically in that order.

Yesterday, Drew told me he took a break from work to just look at the photos, and I couldn't blame him. Except I did because he has them all on his computer. I had none. So I began the process of transferring them. This is decidedly less fun than taking photos so I'm starting you off with the best antidote I can think of: a series of some of the sweetest things from Florence.

All you have to do is step outside and cafe doors open to the street with cases of incredible desserts. Row upon row.

 Many (arguably not all) streets in Florence smell amazing, in part because there are waffles being made. On the street. If it were up to me, this would happen far more often.

These popsicles were my favorite. I didn't have one, only because I already had a gelato in one hand and a camera in the other.

And then there's the gelato. Heaping piles of something you may know as icecream in a gazillion flavors, with cones galore exploding from case tops. Oh gelato.

Somehow we don't have a photo of the actual cases, which are literally these swirling lovely piles of flavors garnished with giant chunks of whatever flavor they are (melons, coffeebeans, coconut chunks, etc). Probably because there's no time to photograph when you're in the agonizing process of choosing a flavor. In any event, here's the first, and so certainly not the last, gelato of the trip:

 .

Edible.

I meant to post something for Valentine's Day but got lost (metaphorically) on a long xc ski with Casey, the happiest dog on the planet, while the boys were off downhill skiing.

I could describe all of the things I don't like about valentines day. But it turns out, I kind of like the underlying sentiment. I love love and dopamine and all of those chemicals. And I'm totally charmed by things like this. My imagined Valentine's Day post was a list of things that make me feel fluttery and love-filled. So I was gathering all of the things I love and I found this photo of olives from our mini-moon to Stowe. I got distracted. This kind of thing happens to me, a lot. Especially if the task at hand is looking at pretty things. So here we are: you, me and this adorable mini-cast iron pot of olives and I don't really want to list things.

Last night Drew actually came home with olives  and flowers. I made purple rice which the boys refused to eat until they tried it, ate half of it and remembered they didn't like it. Everyone ate most of their dinner and we iced cookies and laughed about things and fell asleep watching the Olympics. So I forgot to post about what I really wanted to post about (dopamine, norepinephrine and oxytocin). Maybe I'll do that today. 

In the mean time here's a tiny cast iron pot with olives. It's pretty great. 

And really: Everything I would have conveyed is summed up in this and (for me) a little of this (plus all of the images in the links to the right) and whatever music makes you glad you were born.