A lovely Saturday morning

Yesterday was a lovely Saturday morning in America... after breakfast coffee and toast (with fresh bread, pumpkin butter and raspberry jam - all homemade!), Jim headed upstairs to the study for a few hours of reading and researching, and I headed out on a walk. It was a beautiful, cool morning, with intermittent clouds and sunshine and trees beginning to show autumn colors, and as I walked I passed many typical weekend scenes - all that made me smile - like people out walking their dogs and others driving to the hardware store. We live very close to a high school and to one of the city's "sports parks" so as I walked I could hear the announcer for the football game calling out statistics on the loudspeaker. Then as I rounded the sports park on its trail/loop, I stopped briefly to watch a girls' little league softball game and hear the parents cheering and clapping, and later I passed the tennis courts where a Dad was playing against his son and giving tips and encouragement. What a lovely morning.

But enough of that! No photos of the studies or the walk or even of how our new condo is shaping BUT we do have some photos of recent eats here at 795 E Sherwood Hills Dr. (which is fun to say because it rhymes). Here's one from a supper during our first week. As you can see we were still unpacking at this point. And there are two of my lovely plants from Auntie Jo! They survived the road trip from NY.

Jim's 31st birthday cake! (rooibos chocolate cake) We celebrated the birthday meal two weeks late this year, once we had moved in.

Below is pizza with spinach, onions, artichokes, red peppers and peppadews. Weeknight pizza worked well because I made the dough in the KitchenAid in the AM and popped the dough into the fridge until I got home from work. (behind and above Jim you can see the wallpaper border in the kitchen - can't wait until Katie's visit and time to strip it off and re-paint!)

As it's September and winter squashes are becoming abundantly available, butternut has featured in many of our meals. Here are two: spicy butternut & parmesan risotto ...


And curried butternut soup (with cheese toast) - one of our favorite South African recipes, thanks to Ina Paarman. This time we topped it with some roasted tomatoes and plain yogurt, which adds a nice tang - YUM.