Carolina Visit - Aunt time & culinary tour of Charleston

Well, today is the last day of my visit in North & South Carolina. It seems like forever ago that we arrived in Raleigh (it was only Feb. 24). We had a great visit with my family, and I'm off to Austin tomorrow (Kent flew there a few days ago). Did I mention I love being and aunt to my sweet niece and nephew???

First we spent a week in Raleigh with Jen, Matt and Ben just hanging out and playing with Ben. He's such a great baby (10 months old) and smiles all the time. He loves reading books (especially turning the pages) and playing with his toys with you. Ben and I did a few workouts together and he even learned to pull himself up and sit back down when we were there! Thanks Jen & Matt for giving us a place to relax and decompress from the trip. Jogs around the neighborhood and sleeping late were just what we needed. We didn't do too much in Raleigh proper, but I did get to have lunch with Katie one day, dinner at Anita & Jason's one evening, and run a few errands. Ahhh Target, how I've missed you. Here are a few pics:


Ben loved the kiwi bird hand puppet from New Zealand

New wheels

A yogini in the making - he kept crawling under me and then did this downward dog out of nowhere!

Last Friday, Kent and I drove from Raleigh down to SC to my parents' house....and I realized we hadn't been there in about 2 years! Over the weekend we all drive to Greenville and had a nice visit with Adam, Jenny and Amelia. They have just finished up some major renovations to their house - all new hardwood floors, crown moulding, chair rail/portrait moulding (not sure that's the right description?), and paint. Jenny put the finishing touches on with beautifully chosen accessories. They did it all themselves and it looks awesome!

We basically played with Amelia and had great meals together - exactly what Kent and I were looking forward to. Amelia is such a sweet little girl - almost one and a half now. She loves books and invited me to read in her cool tent. She's saying all kinds of words and smiles all the time, just like her cousin. Thanks Jenny & Adam for hosting us - we'll be back soon. :) A few pics -- (note the new floor)

We made our way back to Charleston on Sunday. Did a few good 6-7 mile runs with Dad before he had to travel for work. On Kent's last evening in town, Mom took us downtown to one of their favorite restaurants, 82 Queen Street, for some authentic Lowcountry fare. Mmmm mmmm.

Kent was off on Tues to Austin, so I dropped him off and had a nice day out in Charleston on my own. I did a little window shopping , walked around downtown taking in the architecture, had a nice break in a cool coffee shop called Caviar & Bananas . Basically counting down the minutes until my cooking class at Charleston Cooks. Mom gave me a gift card a few years ago, and this is the first opportunity I've had to use it. I even had some $$ left over to buy some fancy kitchen gadgets -a heavy meat mallet and a cherry/olive pitter (I didn't know I needed that one but it's awesome).

The class was great! The subject was "Classic Sauces" which is something I have wanted to work on. We made a few of the classic French "mother sauces" and then incorporated them into dishes - then got to eat them of course.

• Hollandaise over Asparagus
• Tomato Beef Stew (espagnole base
• Cajun grilled steak with Blue Cheese Aioli
• Cheesy toasted Croque Monsieur sandwiches (bechamel sauce)
• Cinnamon Orange Sabayon over roasted apples

There were only 10 people and we made the different dishes in groups of 2-3. I was on the hollandaise, which can be a little finicky to cook the eggs slowly so the sauce doesn't break, but I must say ours turned out perfectly! I'll make it again for a special occasion (as it is made of 4 egg yolks and 1 whole stick of butter!). The croque monsiuer and the steak - despite the blue cheese - were my other faves.

The kitchen and my teacher

Our meal of samples of our dishes

I spent the rest of the week burning some of those calories and getting myself organized. Taxes - ugh! 1200+ photos from our round the world trip...yikes!

To wrap up the "culinary tour of Charleston" Mom and I are going out to dinner tonight at a wine bar called Muse and then to a play. Should be a fun night!

Off to Texas tomorrow, where it's already summer in March.....