Berry good times? Eat, drink, and be berry? I can't decide.

Whether you spent your holiday writing lame/awesome blog posts or watching fireworks at Stooooone Mountain, I hope you had a fabulous fourth. Personally, I was quite active this holiday weekend...up until my evening of gluttony on the 4th.

Saturday: Went for a run, then had brunch with Josh's family and some of his visiting relatives. Stopped by the USA vs. Barbados rugby game over at Stanford, where we watched the home team soundly beat the opposition. We headed home to do our regular first-Sat-of-the-month car rallye with the Veltman parents. I think we actually did rather well, despite unanticipated Lego-related delays.

Sunday: The most mellow day of the vacation. Exercise and smoothies to start the day, followed by a visit to Costco and the batting cages. I know my hits aren't particularly powerful when I just use my upper body, but I'm less accurate when I swing through fully. I get a bit frustrated by putting a lot into the swing and not connecting with the ball one bit. Alas! I guess practice will need to occur. To the batting cages, Robin! Speaking of sidekicks...I watched the glorious high-quality early-'90's film of the same name on Sunday night. Josh and I are pretty sure we saw a fist come out from behind Chuck Norris' beard at one point. True story.

Monday: Picnic! I don't know why, but eating outdoors on the ground is one of my favorite things. It's fun to slather on the sunscreen and consume as you commune with nature. A sandwich from Eric's (smoked pepper turkey with jack cheese, lettuce, cucumbers, and salt/pepper on a whole wheat role--DIVINE), a blanket, and a book, and I'm one happy luncher. We also tossed around a baseball and discovered I do not like to catch ground balls, as apparently I have a bizarre paranoia about the ball banging my shins or bouncing up and breaking my glasses. Later we played tennis with Josh's friends Andy and Meredith, which most certainly did not result in much hysterical laughter and inaccurate shots by me.

We also went to see Superman Returns, which I have so many thoughts about that I'll devote a whole post to it later.

Tuesday: Berry picking! Fortified with bagels, Josh and I had a picturesque drive over to Pescadero, where Phipps Ranch is located. It's olallieberry season, and we had wholesome fun picking out some dark, delicious beauties for pie and ice cream. Observe the process. Respect the effort. Enjoy the results!

Step 1: Pick berries. It was sort of cold and cloudy, but the weather improved as we filled our buckets.







See? Full bucket! I don't have the best idea as to what constitutes a good olallieberry. Basically, if it's dark in color and comes off the vine easily, I think it's ready for consumption. I think our lack of berry expertise resulted in some semi-tart berries, but they were tasty nonetheless.






Step 2: Wash!
Step 3: Add sugar, a thickening agent, and creme de cassis. Stir until it gets a bit thicker and tastes goooood.






Step 4: Using pre-made pie crust (if you happen to have one lying around, which the ever-resourceful Veltman family does), dump the berries into a pie pan. Expertly do some finger crimps around the edges if you are competent like Susan. If you aren't, move on to...



Step 5: Covering and beautification! Cut out some sort of pretty/functional decoration on the top of the pie crust. It goes a long way towards making it look like you knew what you were doing all along.




Step 6: Bake. Then feast your eyes (and lips) on this marvel! A nice shade, and the cut-out pieces on top remarkably managed to keep their shape.





I didn't actually eat any of the pie, as I was too busy stuffing my face with brownies, but I have it on good authority that it was quite delectable. (Josh made olallieberry ice cream too, but I lack photos of that process.)

Thanks to the success of our culinary exploits (and to the Veltman's as-always stellar menu offerings), it was quite a lovely Fourth of July. Sole disappointment of the weekend? That I didn't get to hang out with Abbey before she jets off to Kentucky for a couple weeks. Quel domage!