hurrah II

In between the drizzly gray August weather, Frankfurt's been sneaking in a few hours of pretty summer weather here and there. All last week I spent my lunch breaks on a picnic blanket in the park near work, basking in the sunlight. And Saturday was glorious: breakfast at Familienbetrieb (new favorite Frankfurt café); full afternoon of poolside lounging with Megan (German pools, with their huge grassy lawns, have it all over American pools, with their concrete); courtyard Grillfest with some of my neighbors; and a fairy tale themed costume birthday party hosted by Snow White, for which we naturally went as the Seven Dwarfs. (Well, six of the seven; Sneezy was on vacation, that slacker.)

I cooked some of the things you see above, all of which were delicious:

- these cheese grits (with English white cheddar rather than pepper jack, which improves them, I think, after having tried them both ways)

- this roasted eggplant salad with saffron-yogurt sauce (I added a bit of garlic to the sauce, and used fleur de sel instead of regular salt, but otherwise followed the recipe exactly; amazing)

- this coleslaw (you wouldn't think the texture mix would make that much of a difference but it really, really does; I leave out the bell pepper and halve the sugar and tend to add a bit of lemon juice to taste, especially if I'm using German mayonnaise)

I'm home in less than a week! Home in the sense of Stone Harbor, which counts. Bethany's getting married! And there's talk of going to see a Phillies game! And I'm hoping for plenty of glorious warm air/warmer water early fall beach days and daily bike rides. Riding bikes on that island in the early mornings never gets old.