I should have been better about taking more pictures of the people and food, but I was busy grilling.  Megan also made a chocolate almond cake topped with cheesecake topped with dark chocolate frosting with raspberries on the side that was every bit as delicious as it sounds!  Here are some of the recipes so that I can repeat them some other day.

Spiced Chicken and Grape Skewers

These were fun because most people haven’t had grilled grapes before. They go really well with the chicken, and their juiciness makes up for the fact that I tend to overcook everything when I grill!  This is pretty much identical to the recipe from the Food Network.

Ingredients
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 tsp lemon zest
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp salt
1 pound chicken breast, cut into cubes
1 1/2 cups green grapes
8-10 skewers

1. Whisk together the oil, lemon, garlic, and spices in a small bowl.
2. Pour over the chicken and let marinate for 30 minutes (I kept it in a plastic bag for easy mixing).
3. Alternate grapes and chicken pieces on the skewers
4. Grill for about 3 minutes per side

Veggie Kebabs

A simple vegetable marinade with some middle eastern spice that goes well with the grape chicken above.  This recipe is also similar to one from the Food Network.

Ingredients
2 bell peppers
1 onion (I forgot to do this)
1 zucchini or summer squash
a few handfuls of grape tomatoes
1/2 container of mushrooms (not sure how big the container was…)
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 1/2 tbsp honey
1 tbsp lemon juice
salt and pepper

1. Chop up all vegetables into skewerable shapes, cut mushrooms in half
2. Place vegetables on skewers
3. Whisk together all marinade ingredients
4. Brush marinade over vegetables and sit for 10-15 minutes
5. Grill for about 3 minutes per side

Deluxe Israeli Couscous

This is basically the recipe you get on the back of the box from Trader Joe’s Israeli Couscous, but it is even better if you use their Harvest Grains mix since it has couscous and a few other colorful grains as well:

Ingredients
1/2 cup chopped onions
1/3 cup pine nuts
3 tbsp butter
1 stick cinnamon
1 bay leaf
1/2 package TJ’s Harvest Grains(or just Israeli Couscous)
1 3/4 cups chicken broth
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup raisins
1/4 cup dried cranberries
optional: lemon rind, parsley, etc
(Note: this is from memory, and may be wrong… if in doubt, follow the package)

1. Fry up 1 tbsp butter and the pine nuts until golden (2-3 min), then set aside.
2. Add remaining 2 tbsp of butter and fry up onions until tender
3. Add cinnamon stick, bay leaf, and couscous. Fry 5ish minutes, stirring occasionally
4. Add chicken broth and salt and bring to boil, then reduce to low heat
5. Wait until liquid is all absorbed (10ish minutes)
6. Turn off heat, add pine nuts, raisins, cranberries, and any other goodies you can think of

Back in May we bought some plants from the town farmers’ market to grow in pots on the porch.  We started with three types of flowers, two Early Girl tomato plants, and some cilantro.  We added basil a few weeks later.

Many of the plants have been growing well since then. The tomatoes started sprouting tomatoes a few weeks ago, although they haven’t grown much since then. The pansies and “pink” flowers have been doing great, although the snapdragons lost all their flowers and didn’t seem very happy after a week. We haven’t had much luck with the cilantro either… it quickly shot up very tall and sprouted flowers.

Originally we planted everything in pots that were much too small. Last weekend I repotted all the herbs and fed them and the tomatoes with some organic plant food. I did an experiment with the basil and only gave half of the plants the food… after one week its pretty clear that it does make a difference!

I’ll let you guess which is which…

The biggest surprise in our garden came the morning after we had a very violent thunderstorm at the end of May. We went down to check how the plants were doing and found this little guy hiding among the flowers! I have no idea how we got there–our porch is 10 feet above ground level and cement on all sides. My only guess is he was up in one of the trees to the side of our porch and parachuted down.

However, most of us had canoed this same trip at least once before, so we were confident we would find ourselves a campsite for the night. So we set off in a pair of canoes and a kayak. The weather the night before had been miserable, but fortunately the skies began to clear as we headed downstream.

We’d been let off at Dingman’s Ferry along with a busload of other canoeists, including a horde of boy scouts, so we tried to get a quick start and pull ahead of the crowds. Before long, we had the river to ourselves, and we paddled on at a reasonable pace. We stopped for lunch at a large campground which conveniently had picnic tables and bathrooms. The delicious meal of bread, cheese, and salami refueled our bodies, and we sped off again as the boy scout troop, screaming and waving pirate flags, nearly caught up to us.

Typical canoeists we were not. For one thing, we paddled rather than just letting the current carry us downstream. Second, for some reason, beer had been deemed too bulky for the trip since we lacked a large cooler. Instead, we floated down the river sipping whiskey (and large quantities of water as the sun attempted to bake us alive later in the trip).

Later in the afternoon of our first day, I spotted a bald eagle perched in a tree on the bank. We slowed our pace to see if it would move, and before long it gave us a nice show: it swooped down from the tree past us and ripped a fish out of the water before returning to a new tree to consume its prize. Take that terrorists! America is AWESOME!

We saw at least one other bald eagle further down the river, however, as the afternoon wore on we began looking more intently for something else: a campsite to stay in for the night. The Deleware Water Gap is a great place to do overnight canoeing because it has dozens of small campsites along the sides of the river, as well as on some of the larger islands. However, the majority of the sites are located in the first half of the trip, and we soon realized that we were well past the halfway point, and that the pickings ahead would be slim.

At the time we didn’t realize it, but at this point we had traveled over 20 of the 28 total miles in our two day trip. Twenty miles of canoeing, even with a moderate current is pretty hard work, and we were getting increasingly tired and desperate as we knew there were both limited campsite options, and a handful of other canoes ahead of us looking for spots. If we slowed down, even more might catch up.

We came upon one of the many small islands in the river. Chris, alone on his kayak, decided to head to the left around the island in search of camp sites, while the rest of us in the other two canoes stayed to the right. We soon realized that the island was much longer than we had anticipated. While almost all of the campsites up stream had clear signs indicating that they were indeed camp sites, the park service apparently decided to not only make the sites on the bottom of the half less frequent, but also less well marked. Megan and I spotted a path on the island, and pulled up our canoe. My investigation found that the island did in fact contain about six different campsites, as well as the fact that it was completely covered in poison ivy. Unfortunately, Chris, having kayaked along the other side of the island was nowhere in sight. Mike and Matt continued paddling downstream hoping to catch Chris at the bottom of the island while Megan and I saved our campsite. About ten minutes passed, and I became increasingly concerned that we would all become separated. I was partially worried about the bears and river pirates who might like to eat us alive, but mainly focused on the fact that all of the food was in one of the other canoes.

Luckily, I soon spotted Mike, Matt, and Chris wading back up along the edge of the island pulling their canoe and kayak. We spent another ten minutes trying to pull the canoes up the absurdly slippery mud cliff that led to our site, but first Mike gave us a demonstration of “Crazy Canoeing”. By some miracle, he did not die.

We made camp, eventually built a fire (with the help of some stove fuel since the wood was all soaked from rain), and heated up some chili. We were all exhausted, so we didn’t last long before collapsing into our tents. The next day we were up early, and after a hearty oatmeal breakfast we set off on the rest of our adventure. We knew we were well beyond the halfway point, but we were surprised when we came upon our pullout spot at Kittattiny Point well before lunch time. All in all, a pretty great trip.

A few more pictures, mostly of the bald eagle, are here.

I just got back from a conference in Big Sky, Montana. The conference hotel was up in the mountains at a ski resort, and although they were starting to get their first snow of the season, the slopes weren’t quite ready yet. The scenery was quit breathtaking (especially for someone from New Jersey), but unfortunately I only got to walk around and take pictures during one of the cloudy days. The conference itself was quite interesting. It was much busier than any of the others I’ve been to. I met a number of new interesting people, and got to see a few other familiar faces which was nice.

We spent our days relaxing on the beach, and our nights at Sweetwater Forest Campground, which had decent size camp sites that were reasonably separated. One afternoon Bobby fished in the pond near our campsite, and caught us two small sunfish… better than the guy near us who only pulled in weeds. On the Fourth we made our way through the crowds of men in muscle shirts to see the fireworks in Provincetown. Megan and I spent part of our last day biking along the Cape Cod Rail Trail, which was a very nice ride. We also zipped through some of the more hilly trails in Nickerson State Park, before returning to the more leisurely CCRT.

I just moved back to New Jersey for an internship at AT&T Research (more about that another day). As a New Jersey native, I have every right to make fun of my home state. On the other hand, sometimes ol’ jersey can surprise you with some unexpected beauty. I went for a walk early this morning around the Loantaka Brook Park right down the street from my apartment and managed to see some very pretty sights: several deer, some beautiful folliage, millions of geese (more noisy than pretty), a pair of swans, and an amazing great blue heron.

It didn’t rain on us too much, but it was very cloudy and gray. I’ll add some more of the pictures that Megan and I took later.

I love how some of them come out looking like nebula filled starscapes.

I had been to the top of the mountain once before, about a year ago with Nic and Alison. That time we went in the winter, and we had to trudge up to the top, at times through about eight inches of snow. It was right after a storm, so the trees were still beautifully coated with ice and snow.

On our way home from Mt. Holyoke, Gal, Megan and I stopped at Flavors, one of the best ice cream places around. The ice cream is so good because it comes from 2 foot tall miniature cows (see below). We also found that the cows also love the taste of ice cream. Delicious!