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Hot Air Balloons Rising at Dawn at the Adirondack Balloon Festival 2012
We stumbled across this incredible event, the Adirondack Balloon Festival, based at the southern end of the Adirondack Park, in Queensbury, New York. We have had such fun and our exhaustion from rising well before dawn is born with a huge smile in our hearts for all we saw. This is but a small sampling of what we hope to share in the not so distant future.
Niagara Falls ©2012 Claudia Ward
Sent from my iPad
Blue Hour in the Dome of the West Baden Springs Hotel © 2012 Claudia Ward
Sent from my iPhone
Claudia Danforth Ward
Lake Monroe is the largest lake in Indiana - well really it's a man-made reservoir - near Bloomington Indiana where Indiana University (IU) is located. Our family congregated in Bloomington once more this past week, this time for the marriage of my nephew, who earned his PhD from IU two years ago.
My sister rented a house on Lake Monroe in order to host the rehearsal dinner in a homey environment set in a location with natural beauty all around.
The east-facing house she rented was perched half way down a steep hill which ended on a beach along the lake's shores. Every morning we were up before sunrise, cameras and tripods at the ready, and piping hot coffee in hand.
The peace and quiet in the woods above the lake was wonderful and each sunrise was unique - one had patches of fog drifting along the water's surface appearing pale pink and very ethereal, another was brilliant and clear with bright reds and oranges streaking the sky above the dark tree-lined hills on the far shore.
Fish jumped, cranes swooped, squirrels scampered, and acorns dropped to the forest floor with a thud - these are the noises of early morning on Lake Monroe that we became accustomed to over this very busy week. More details later about that later.
Robin White (a transplanted Cape Codder like me) is the personal chef for an online life-style magazine that I subscribe to called The Daily Basics. One of her posted menus was for a Duck Salad with Dried Cherry Chutney & Pickled Red Onions. I haven't had the chance to assemble this entire meal, but I had dried cherries left over from the holidays and thought the chutney sounded "very interesting". I read it to Peter and we agreed, we'd either love it or hate it with all those spices. Well the jury is in and we love it.
We've enjoyed it in a turkey sandwich, in a red wine and port reduction that accompanied duck confit, and (I cannot tell a lie) spread thinly over an English muffin one morning. This chutney is the happy orchestration of exotic spices with the wonderful textures of the cherries and onions and a dollup of zing provided by the fresh ginger and jalapeño pepper. This truly is easy - there's only one step ... put all the ingredients in the pot, cook for an hour or so, and then put the chutney in containers to enjoy over the next couple of weeks. No canning, no fuss, and no muss.
Dried Cherry Chutney
(Makes over a quart)
1 3/4 cups sugar
1 cup water
1 cup port wine
1 1/2 cups red wine vinegar
1 cup diced sweet onion
1/2 cup raspberry vinegar
2 tbsp minced peeled fresh ginger
1 tbsp minced jalapeño pepper
2 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground cardamom
1 tsp curry powder
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp grated orange rind
3 whole cloves
1 (3-inch) cinnamon stick
4 cups dried cherries
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Try it, what have you got to lose? Got any chutney recipes to share? Please do ....