Weekend Round-Up: Country & City

It was so nice to have two extra days for this weekend. I really needed the rest! Rob and I drove out to Sanger on Thursday morning to celebrate the holiday with his parents. As soon as we arrived, Rob and his dad headed outside to practice their survival fire-making skills. I set out to gather the last of the season’s tomatoes and managed to pick a few pounds to take home. After rubbing sticks together for a few hours the boys had developed a healthy appetite, but no flames!

Dinner started at 2:00 with a beautiful turkey (those adorable frills are from Sur La Table) and a wealth of sides: mashed potatoes, yams, shrimp salad, green salad, pomegranate jello, stuffed tomatoes, ginger cranberry sauce, brussel sprouts, avocados, and more.

Follow all that with homemade pumpkin pie and I was completely stuffed. It is amazing we were able to waddle out to feed the goats on time. Rob even got to be a mama goat to two of the cutest kids:

We spent the rest of the night relaxing with a big fire in the fireplace. I read old issues of Taste of Home Magazine (I have never seen so many recipes for jello salad in my life!) and discovering Rural Free Delivery TV and Andy Williams (you have to love a show with singing men in matching red sweaters, pants, socks and shoes). Rob’s dad made us popcorn and hot cocoa over the fire as a late night snack!

On Sunday morning, we woke to a huge breakfast of waffles, bacon and homemade elderberry jam. We needed all these calories for the work we did out on Rob’s grandmother’s ranch that afternoon. We harvested about 40 gigantic pomegranates from her tree, stacked firewood and cut back an elderberry tree.

It is such a beautiful ranch and full of friendly goats!

We loaded up the car with a true harvest of tomatoes, turkey, oranges, grapefruit and pomegranate and drove our very dusty selves back to the city that night. Before going to bed, I boiled down the ripe tomatoes in to a soup base and tossed it in the freezer.

Rob went for a long run on Saturday morning while I worked at picking the seeds out of the pomegranates that were split. Apparently, the seeds freeze well. Five pomegranates in, I had about a half gallon of seeds in the freezer, stained yellow hands and the kitchen of a serial killer! Rob and I spent the afternoon working on our top-secret Christmas card photo. We spent the evening with a brief trip downtown to Gump’s and to see Casino Royal.

Rain on Sunday morning thwarted our archery plans, but allowed me to stay in bed until noon with the paper, a pot of coffee, pistachios, grapefruits and pomegranate seeds. What a perfect morning!

It was miserable all day, so we stayed indoors until Rich and Molly arrived around 6:00. The newlyweds were driving back to Hayfork from Los Angeles with a horse trailer full of belongings. A real city parking challenge! We finally found a huge spot in front of an elementary school and walked down for dinner at Catch in front of the fire. I stuffed myself with white truffle fries, a huge pot of cioppino and a hot brownie for dessert!