Last night, we had some friends over, serving our Pumpkin Raviolli using up the last of our pumpkin puree with an awesome beet-blood orange-fig chevre salad, fresh bread courtesy of the guests, and good wine and conversation courtesy of all involved. For dessert, I finally attempted my grandmother's strawberry shortcake, whipped-egg-risen cakes and all. It turned out well, but still a bit eggy (I used farm fresh eggs).

We ended the night with some creative Manhattans, and all was good.

Tonight, we continued on the celebrate-spring trajectory with a seared steelhead filet (with parsely, chives, lemon zest and a dusting of garlic and sage powder) served alongside some fiddle-head ferns which I blanched then sauteed with already-carmelizing onions and mushrooms in bacon fat. To both dishes, a dash of white wine was added.

In other words, I'm very happy it's spring. We've begun haunting the various nearby farmer's markets for any sign of garlic tails.

So it's snowing here in DC. Though it seems to do this every year, it remains a surprise to DC residents ... every year, causing panic on the level I associate with Texans who deal with this whole freezing precipitation problem less reliably.

My tomato plants didn't really get the memo about summer being over, so remain(ed) laden with tons of green tomatoes (and blossoms...). I tore them up this morning as the snow was getting started and now have a rather large pile of green 'maters to deal with. I'm already ripening some in newspaper wrappings in a closed off bag.

Bottled this weekend was the previously-mentioned Pilz. The West Coast Pale Ale was a resounding success; one of the cleaner, most balanced (sweet, light, hoppy) beers I've made in a while.

To be fair, I try to brew stuff that's not available in stores, like Pumpkin porter (a repeat favorite, coming in late October), and Coffee Bock (a new recipe for my annual Octoberfest bock).

Crab Carbonara - yummy, but really would benefit from fresh peas

Wild mushroom and mozzarella risotto cakes - excellent but a bit hard to form and fry

Seared tuna salad

Asparagus and prosciuttio fritatta (we used green beans)

Sunday: Paella

Monday: Spanish-inspired Salad night

Tuesday: Spanish Tortilla using these two recipes