Challah-days (pronounced: holidays....get it?)

Hello friends and loyal readers! Adam came up with the clever title! It has been awhile since I've blogged and lots of fun has happened in the past month! Below you'll see a picture of a wonderful Friday night dinner Kristen, Adam and I shared. We have caprese salad and a charceuterie platter full of delicious meats (sopressata, prociutto, salami) from Southern Seasons. What is a charceuterie platter? That is the exact question Adam asked my culinary school graduate brother a year ago. The answer: fancy word for fancy deli meats. There you have it.

A new hobby of mine happens to be going to the library. I go about every 2-3 weeks on Friday since I have the day off. Usually, I pick up some cookbooks and see what fun I can have in the kitchen. One of my current favorite books happens to be a bread baking book. The picture below is of the humongous Challah bread I made. We made several sandwiches, french toast casserole, and used them for hamburger buns. It was quite delicious!

On the Fourth of July, we explored the festivities with a couple we have started to get to know from our small group at church. Will and Janice let us join them at the Eno River festival in Durham since they had gotten 4 free tickets. We enjoyed hot dogs, corn on the cob, and blueberry peach pie (I made from scratch!) at their house before we headed to Raleigh for their festivities at the Fairgrounds. Sadly, the fireworks were rained out about 30 minutes before they were going to go off. Hopefully, we'll get to see more next year!

We had a wonderful surprise when we found out that some friends from Boston were coming into town. Rich was Adam's old roommate back in Watertown, MA and he married the beautiful and talented Jenny. We got to enjoy their company for a few days while showing them some of the high spots in the Triangle area.

If we haven't had enough adventures yet, Adam, Kristen, and I went blackberry picking on Sunday. Last Sunday at church, Adam and I parked in a different lot than usual. (Our church is rather large and they direct us to where we park when we get there). When we got to our car after the service, we noticed we had parked in front of blackberry bushes. Since there were honey bees flying around, Adam suggested we come back after the sun goes down a little. So, we did. 90 minutes later, a few scratches, and purple fingers, we emerged with 4 pounds of free, fresh, and juicy blackberries!! Now that is what we call good fruit!

Random Fact from Adam: "The first TV station in the U.S. to broadcast in HD was WRAL, the CBS affiliate in Raleigh. More historic NC firsts include the first English child born in the U.S., the first Engish colony in America, and of course, the whole flight thing."