Hello from the Mitten State!

I've been on a quick, whirlwind tour of my home state. I'll be back later but I thought I'd share some of the fun with my CF friends. Please forgive the Michigan-centrism of late, y'all from FLA can post about how sunny it is there in February and how great your tomatoes are then, and you CA'ers can brag on your wines and cheeses and TWO strawberry seasons and the east coasters can make us drool on your crabs and other great seafood, and the great bagels, but for one brief shining moment, life is GOOD in MI!

I ate my way up one side of the state and down. Starting with fresh picked strawberries which I turned into jam, then dinner overlooking my hometown lake (Coldwater) with a delicious but OVERPRICED salmon dinner, then lunch later in town at a very nice restaurant situated in a gorgeous old Victorian mansion (parquet floors, fabulous woodwork, leaded glass and built-ins, sorry no pics).

The weekend began with a picnic on Lake Michigan's Beach (clean out the fridge and deli, but including mom's great homeade potato salad), then a picnic dinner/barbecue at my cousin's for her 50th anniversary (the culinary highlight of that do was cuz's carrot cake, grilled chicken, and awesome albeit rich fruit salad (the kind with the multicolored marshmallows!). That night was fresh asparagus and strawberry shortcake.

I farm-marketed it back home, picking up maple syrup, sweet cherries, asparagus ($1.00 a lb.), more strawberries, tortilla chips, and dried cherries, (some of this gotten at Horrocks, one of the greatest stores on earth! They have plants (I picked up several perrenials for my home garden), and every kind of food imaginable, and garden tchotchkes galore. And I also scored some fine herbal soaps there, which I am loving! You name it having to do with food or plants, they have it there, with high quality! Oh yeah, and I got some Good Harbor Bay chardonnay, amazing you can buy wine almost anywhere here! (Unlike PA where I live now and you have to shop at special state stores to get alcohol).

In between I had some time for swimming in the Big Lake, chillin' with family, boatin' and just listening to the waves lap the shorline and watching the sun set or come up. And a few awesome thunderstorms and gorgeous full moon thrown in for good measure. And some nice wildlife at my friend's house, she's got a veritable "Watership Down" going on in her back yard.

I posted my photos on a gallery to avoid clogging this post with photos, but I will add two here at the bottom.