Berrylicious!

I've been picking black raspberries from the yard already. I think it must be the earliest I've ever picked berries in my life. And they say climate change is a myth...

In any case, they are delicious. I haven't had a chance to cook with them yet but I've been enjoying them with vanilla yogurt and in cereal. Anybody have some good recipe suggestions? Baking some type of pie is probably in order.

Our neighbor/friend graduated with her PhD last weekend and I made her a red velvet cake decorated with berries from the yard. It was a big hit!

Piearchy

Last weekend we had some surprise visitors--some friends from Minnesota's Iron Range. Kevin and Sela were taking a road trip (which we discovered via Facebook) and just happened to be traveling through, so we invited them to stay with us on Saturday night. 

It just so happens that Troy had entered the Charlottesville pie contest (also a benefit for a homeless shelter). He had to turn the pie in on Sunday morning, which ended up being kind of a challenge since Saturday with our visitors was a really fun but late night. He didn't actually start making the raspberry chocolate chiffon pie until around 7 am...

Sela is a singer/songwriter who must require little sleep. She got up and played guitar and sang for Troy in the kitchen--surely inspiring the process and then later assisting with the mad pie preparation. When I woke up, the kitchen was chaotic and they were both delirious. It was complete piearchy--that's for sure.

But the results were still beautiful and tasty.

The contest pie!

Contest and test (tasting) pie!

Ready to hit the road after a pie breakfast and packing some Robot Roast Coffee.

Unfortunately, Troy's pie didn't win. He received some serious criticism from one of the judges (who we found to be a little pretentious). We were told we could go down to the basement to sample some of the competition. Since the judges only took a small taste of each one, there was a lot of leftover pie! Interestingly though, by the time we went downstairs, Troy's pie was nowhere to be found (though there were many others left). Troy's pie had already been eaten, which proves to me that despite the judge's ample criticism, it was still a spectacular pie.

Robots on Tour

The first leg of the EMMI tour kicked off right after Troy's birthday. Unfortunately, there was hardly any time to stop and celebrate. The boys didn't get much sleep at all as they were feverishly trying to finish the robot building. Troy was literally sleeping (if at all) on the floor of the work space that week.

Aurie and I made pies and brought them to the space so that we could at least bring a little celebration to the day. It finally dawned on me this year (thanks Aurie!) that I should make pie instead of cake since Troy is obsessed with pie. Not sure why I didn't ever make that connection. I guess I've never considered myself much of a baker. In any case, I made my first real crust ever and filled it with strawberries and rhubarb. I was pretty proud of the results. And Aurie made a decadent, bourbon, pecan and chocolate pie with a hazelnut crust. Troy was thrilled.

Although they weren't able to complete all of the robots they had planned (due to many ridiculous, uncontrollable hold ups and delays) the tour was still a success. There were a number of stops, including Brandeis and Franklin Pierce universities and MIT, and they made some great connections.

Steve and Troy returned on Sunday night and have continued to work at full speed in order to complete some more robots before they leave for the European tour on Friday.

I'm sad not to be going along, especially because there is a stop in Ghent, I've been missing it a lot lately. For Aurie's birthday, we decided to recreate part of our Belgian experience. We made wafels from a recipe that we got from Godfried (Troy's mentor at Logos). Jaimee and Peter brought over their waffle maker and I inherited by mom's old one, so we had dueling waffle irons!

These are not quite they same as the wafels I blogged about previously, these are more yeasty and not as sweet. They are made with real Belgian beer. We served them with freshly whipped cream and strawberries. It was fun to share this treat with some of our friends.

Speaking of friends, I'm truly grateful for the kind dinner invitations I've been receiving from them lately. It seems they'll make sure I'm not too lonely over the next couple of weeks while Troy is touring.