Sunday Silence

Sundays are so nice and quiet!  I was very aware of this while living in Peru.   They are SERIOUS about their horns there but Sundays are for family and church and not road rage.  Tate and I always tried to get out and about as much as possible on Sundays and enjoy the tranquility (if there can be such a thing in a city of 10 million in a developing country).

One thing I don’t love about our new house is that it is on a pretty busy street and thus a bit noisy.  But Sundays are chill so I will enjoy it while it lasts.

Friday night after a sweaty and high-energy BodyAttack class at Gold’s (awful name, no? Makes me think of an autoimmune disease, not an interval cardio gym class) I had an urge a need to bake.  But not just any kind of baking, only brownies would do.

I literally whipped these suckers up with the not-so-traditional ingredients I had on hand.

In went

• 1 cup barley flour
• 2/3 cup cocoa
• salt
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 tbs olive oil
• 1 1/4 cup pear puree

I mixed the first three ingredients and the last three ingredients separately then together, popped them into the oven for 20 minutes, and it was time to chow!

They turned out quite nice.  Note for next time, little less sugar in the batter and some chocolate chips thrown in would be pretty amazing.

Saturday was super nice and super active.  My day started with a BodyJam class at Gold’s (hip hop with a bit of Zumba) followed by a Vinyasa yoga class.  Both classes were very enjoyable but the yoga teacher played what I think is an odd music mix for yoga.  Black Eyed Peas “Where is the Love” was in there somewhere.  I love running to that song (and have been known to sing along) but I find such strong lyrics really distracting in crescent pose.  Perhaps that’s what people expect from “gym yoga”…

Post-gym Tate and I headed out of town for a hike.  We went to “Blue Hole”, apparently a quintessential C’ville swimming hole because when we asked someone in the parking lot which trail it was he said “you don’t know where Blue Hole is?”  The actually hole was only fair (we have high standards for swimming holes) but the drive and 2 mile hike in were gorgeous.

That blur above the water is Tate plopping off the rope swing.

By the time we reached the car we were ready for a snack and went in search of apples.

And apples did we find!

This box of “mixed seconds” was $8 at Henley’s Orchard! And, yes, it’s even BIGGER than it looks!  I see apple pie in our future.  And sauce.  And muffins.  And cobbler.  And…?  Any suggestions?  Maybe a chutney or two  :).

We decided to take the scenic route home through the tiny town of Crozet.

Love how there is an ‘d on the street sign!

We happened onto a fireman’s parade so we got to see this little town in full swing.

Back at home it was most definitely happy hour.

That’s a blob of fig jam in the forefront, some herbed yogurt cheese in the middle, blue cheese from Foods of All Nations, and apples of course!

BTW, we bought that glass table at a yard sale Saturday morning!  Score!  I was nearly desperate for an outdoor dining space but hadn’t found the right look/price combo.  Now we need some chairs…

After our snack attack I decided to pot these little beauties that I picked up at a nursery on our way home.

That would be a mesclun mix in the urns and mint and dill in the tricycle.

We still hadn’t had enough of the great outdoors so we walked to the downtown mall to check out the Widespread Panic show and the Saturday night scene.

This morning was all about the Ployes!

I found this on the clearance table at Whole Foods last week and was intrigued.  Basically they are pancakes but super melt in your mouth light.  Unfortunately, they are not as buckwheaty as I had hoped.

Topped with yogurt, peaches, strawberries, blueberries, and cinnamon, they made the perfect Sunday morning breakfast.

Enjoy the tranquility!