Sweet Summertime

I'm Homaha for the summer, on break from law school (ONBREAKFROMLAW SCHOOL!!!ZOMGG) and starting work for the public defender in just a couple weeks.  Matt and I are heading to California next week for Kim and David's wedding, and I'll launch into work immediately upon my return.  In the meantime, though, I'm taking a few days to run, play, read, write, generally decompress, and -- of course -- eat.

My mom and seven year old niece grow an amazing garden every year, which means there are always fresh vegetables and herbs for our meals, hand-picked only moments before cooking: as fresh and as local as you can possibly get.  (Photos coming soon).  Summer makes slow food so much easier.  

This morning, for instance, Mara and I set out to make parfaits with organic yogurt, summer-sweet berries, and the granola mom recently baked up:

(The granola is just old fashioned oats, shredded unsweetened coconut, and chopped pecans coated in a little canola oil and honey, baked until golden and then tossed with tart dried cherries.)

We layered the ingredients.  As one does with a parfait.

But when it came time to photograph, she grabbed some mint she'd picked from the garden last night for a garnish, and suddenly, your average fruit and yogurt parfait became a SUMMERTIME WORK OF ART:

You can't tell me that's not the most beautiful thing you've ever seen.  Go on.  Try it.

Liar.


In any case, we heartily enjoyed them:

And when they were gone, we had to do something with the extra few mint leaves and strawberries...  Luckily for us, there was lemonade in the fridge.

I'm rapidly revising my list of favorite months of the year.  February?  You got nothing on June.