The Cluttered Pantry

March?!  How could my last post have been in March?  It’s June, 3 months have flown by and I haven’t had a moment to spare since March…  yoikes.   So, here we are, the first week of June – Mark is leaving for shoots in Dublin and Madrid for the first half of the month, but then we are packing up the whole family (wee kahunas plus the newly dubbed Chef Kahuna) and jetting out to the island of St. Maarten.

The process of getting the girls US passports was far less painful than we expected, even though we did have to run around like crazy people to get certified translations of their birth certificates and adoption decrees. (Note that there were already certified translations of these done while we were still in Russia so that US immigration would let us bring the girls home and make them citizens….those translations were good enough for that process but the same US immigration offices wanted a USA certified translation for the passport process.)  I would complain or get grumpy about all that paper chasing and crazy double rules stuff… but we are such pros now after the actual adoption process that now I just ask what I have to do twice and in different colors and wait for the answer.

Mark will be shooting for the first few days, and I’ll be working at nights to keep up with post production on images for two clients and several web sites that we are working on, but seriously? Working from a beach front condo, 10 days with my little family, on an island filled with french food and shops and ummm rum?  ok.. Our great friend Swank Kahuna will be staying at the studio/house and keeping the four legged kahunas and things loved and happy and running while we are gone (she’ll also be studying her ass of for her Medical boards so SHHHH be quiet!) Remind me to use the word GRATEFUL as often as possible.

Beyond the obvious things like the girls getting to play in the ocean for the first time, a real family vacation for the 5 of us, the hope of a slower pace each day….I’m super excited about the food.  The combination of Carribean flavors and spices with French Supermarche living seems just about perfect to me.  The bonus of Chef Kahuana (AKA our son Jordan) being with us to help experiment with the foods and cooking options both on the beach and in the little condo we are renting just puts me over the top.   Did I mention the word grateful yet? (did I spell it right? sheesh I never do!)

So, now the mad rush to get everything in order and projects launched so that we can really enjoy ourselves once we get there.  I’ve been trying to prep the girls about the trip since our last flight with them was the trips from Chita to Moscow then Moscow to Chicago. Elena (almost 4 years old now) has recently announced that she is actually a polar bear.  She approves of the plans for the airplane trip but pointed out that she’d need lots of water to swim in. (Lots of water on an island vacation? CHECK!) Zhanna (turning 5 in a month) was mostly concerned about what shoes she might wear on the plane.  I’m not sure I can do the conversation she and I had justice, but at some point I actually said “Yes, Zhanna…if you want to bring the sparkly pink shoes to wear just on the plane that is fine.” (She wanted to only bring them and I pointed out that they weren’t so much meant for the beach and 20 minutes later I was agreeing to a wardrobe change for a 4 year old during travel.)

The girls start summer camp in one week, and now with Jordan helping us here at home and in the studio as both a personal chef and assistant life is really smoothing out.  In some ways I can hardly remember our lives before we started the process of adding to our family..and in others it seems like only yesterday.

This summer we’ll be doing some major garden experiments and farmer’s market gathering for putting into the pantry to make the next winter a nicer place to live through.  I’ll be posting recipes and photos from all of that in the coming weeks.  Nothing funnier than a city girl with a bent toward tech nerd trying to figure out how to preserve/jar/can in a manner that will keep the food worthy of actually cooking with once the frost comes back.

best wished to everyone for a great summer!

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