noms, please?

so, food has been on my mind a lot recently......it's always on my mind, actually.  but recently, there has been additional reason to dwell on the gift of eats!  mike is a wonderfully supportive husband and always building me up as i learn how to cook and meal-plan.....but i have often joked in the past two weeks that i would understand if the recent feasting would turn him discontent with my own cooking!

(please stop reading if you are a fellow food-lover, and don't have something to munch after these pics make you hungry....)

to start, mom decarlo makes the.most.amazing chili.....it's fabulous!  i've been wanting to make it, but it takes a bit of planning, and i haven't quite gotten to it yet.  two weeks ago, mom emailed me the recipe, and i made the mistake of mentioning this to mike.  poor man, he thought that i would be making in the NEAR future, which i couldn't because we were gearing up to be gone a lot (time to eat left-overs!).  he understood, but it really made me sad to compare other dishes back to what we could be eating......mom's chili!  something to look forward to!!!!

also, we went to the klears (jaime's parents') a little over a week ago, for a seafood feast!!!  unsurprisingly, i was too busy scarfing down all kinds of goodness to take any pictures......and in true klear fashion, they even sent us home with left overs!  it was phenomenal.  pics before the feasting:

and then the picture i took as we were pulling away, after i realized i hadn't snapped any of the fabulous nom'ing! 

and, ohhh my......went went to muv and dad's this past friday, to enjoy time with just them.  muv made a truly gourmet 4-course meal......i "helped" a wee bit, mostly chatting with her while she cooked.  we were all wow'd.....view these pics at your own risk of becoming ravenous!

Vicychoisse (a cold potato soup, with cream swirled on top, sprinkled with onion grass that mike and i contributed)....i don't remember having cold soup before, and i don't know that i would risk having it again if prepared by someone else - muv's was AMAZING.

tomato slices w mozzarella and fresh basil (we ran out and cut the basil from muv's garden a few minutes before dinner, truly fresh!)

grilled strip steaks, grilled potatoes & red onions (wrapped into a foil packet with an assortment of herbs from muv's garden, then grilled), and honey-seared green beans (my contribution to the meal!)

 
mint ice cream w chocolate shavings & whipped cream (whipped cream whipped was whipped by hand prior to dinner, and the chocolate was also shaved right before we sat down).

told you!  enough to make anyone feel starved!!!!  a fabulous meal.....muv, thank you for your work to design and prepare it for us!

lastly, we went to the wedding of our wonderful friends, barbara and eric, on saturday.  was such a fun affair! some shots of us before heading into the chapel (where, a few shorts weeks ago, we were ourselves married!!!):