And Now We're Married

It's true what they say about your wedding day flying by. It was a wonderful day, sunny and warm for New England October, but it seemed like we woke up, put on our party clothes and BOOM, it's over. Who's taking home the centerpiece? Is there any cake left? (No, there was not. I only had about four bites of cake and I WANT MORE.)

These wedding photos were taken by our photographer David Barnes. If you want to see more wedding photos, you can see some on Facebook on the David Barnes Photography page. I also want to point out that David is awesome: he is calm and collected even though we didn't have a ton of time for photographs (read: didn't stress us out one bit) and he still managed to get a ton of awesome shots. I can't wait to see the whole set!

Two other local Somerville businesses were totally awesome, so if you're in the market for flowers check out Nellie's Wildflowers in Davis Square. My bouquet was freaking gorgeous and it had baby pine cones in it! The centerpieces were exactly what we wanted, even though I was vague and unhelpful with my ideas. Our amazing cake was from Lyndell's bakery in Ball Square: holy chocolate frosting. I might have to go down there on our one month-iversary (please, did you think I was going to wait a year?) and get myself a tiny cake just so I can eat more of it. Four bites is not enough. 

The day after the wedding we headed home from the Museum, packed up, and drove up to Woodstock, Vermont, to the Village Inn (warning: their website plays music) for a three day mini honeymoon (mini-moon?). It was perfectly delightful even if we were the youngest tourists in town. The thing is, retirees make dinner reservations, and we are young! and crazy! and newlyweds! Which means we only had reservations for one night (at Simon Pearce, where we had a gift certificate from the best man - thanks Tyler!) Luckily, there are tons of awesome restaurants in and around Woodstock and we managed to find great food every night. We had a really wonderful crab cake that I can't wait to recreate at Richardson's Tavern, and the house special whole fish at Mangowood was crispy and flavorful. 

In addition to awesome food (breakfast at the Village Inn was unbelievably good), we got in two solid mornings of hiking and plenty of cribbage. We also tasted cheese and maple syrup and brought home plenty of deliciousness to savor for the next little while.

We've been back in Boston for about a week, and it's been a little weird adjusting back to real life. Not much is different, except that Adam wears a ring now. He still goes to work, I still go to school (oh, and I got a part time job doing prep work, so I go there, too, and make hundreds of spinach triangles), but we're not planning a wedding any more. Frankly, it's pretty nice. 

I'll be back again soon enough with something more substantial, but to ease back into things, here's a blurry picture of a salad for fall that we had a few days after we got back. It's made with a bunch of raw lacinato kale, center ribs removed and sliced into 1/4 inch strips, one sliced honeycrisp apple, and a nub of diced smoked gouda, with a handful of chopped walnuts for crunch. The dressing is red wine vinegar, salt, and olive oil, and you can just mix it all up and let it sit for an hour while you make the rest of dinner if you want. Raw kale can stand up to the vinegar without wilting much; it's even good the next day! 

Sunday Night Special: Apple Picking

It's fall in New England, which means it's time for cider doughnuts. The thing about cider doughnuts is that they're best hot and fresh from the farm where the cider is pressed, so in order to get cider doughnuts, you have to go to an apple orchard. While you're there, you might as well pick some apples.

We like Cider Hill Farm in Amesbury, MA, though this year we arrived a week too late to pick peaches - it's been such a warm season in New England that every crop is about two weeks early this year, which means they also finish two weeks early! Cider Hill has five apple orchards with several different varieties of apple grown in each orchard. We got Cortlands, Galas, a few Macintosh and some Honeycrisps (my favorite for plain old eating) and then we grabbed a few Fortunes, a new variety. As you can see from my ridiculous expression below, I was pretty shocked by how enormous the Fortune apple is.



Thanks to Adam for letting me climb on his shoulders to pick the ripe ones, and thanks to Julia for taking pictures! So is there an apple picking tradition near where you live? Do you have a favorite orchard? What's your favorite kind of apple?