The Intersection of Design & Motherhood
The cherries are starting to ripen.
Both Ben Blair and I grew up with cherry trees in our yard. And we both have parallel memories of cherry pit spitting contests. Cherries feel like summer. What are your summer foods?
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My name is Gabrielle Blair. I'm a designer and mother of six. We are currently living in a dreamy farmhouse in the French countryside. (I have to pinch myself each morning!) I post on the intersection of design and motherhood.
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New to Design Mom? Here are 10 posts to get you started:
What to Wear To Middle School
Napoleon Dynamite
Our Birth Announcements
Potato Print Clothing
Having Another Child
Young Einstein Birthday Party
Little Red LightHouse Outing
Porch Makeover
Waving Goodbye To The Atlantic Ocean
Build Two Toddler Beds for $75
Pimp My Ride: Family Edition
We've used our base in France to do lots of traveling. It's addictive! Here are some of our adventures:
A trip to Amsterdam.
Canoeing on the Dordogne River.
A Belgian Waffle Tour.
A wintery visit to Cologne.
Three cheers for Barcelona!
The tulip fields in Holland.
We saw the final match of the French Open.
One of our favorite spots is Mont St. Michel.
I wonder where we'll wander next! To see more of our travels, click here.
Here's something fun. Our family was featured in an episode of House Hunters International! Spoiler: we choose the gorgeous French Farmhouse. It's called La Cressonnière and we take pictures of it all the time. If you're curious, try these links:
The Kitchen
Summer at La Cressonnière
The Halfbath
The Stairwell
The Neighbors
Ralph's Bedroom
The Studio
Springtime at La Cressonnière
The Living Room
Maude's Bedroom
The Artists
Oscar & Betty's Bedroom
The Exterior
The Floors
Olive's Bedroom
The Treehouse
The House: La Cressonnière
I hope you enjoy the house tour! Oh. And if you'd like to see the episode, you can find it on Youtube here (it's in four parts).
I write a weekly column called Inspiration Scout on Cafémom. Find new posts on Thursdays.
I write a daily post (Monday through Friday) for Babble's Family Style blog.
{ 23 comments… read them below or add one }
favorite summer foods…
asparagus
strawberries
fresh corn on the cob
BBQ
Home made ice cream that you cranked yourself
Ice cold watermelon!
And charred hot dogs.
Peaches and tomatoes.
cherries are definitely on my list… but at the top of it is fresh peas from the garden! nothing better.
PEaches, tomoatoes, corn-on-the-cob and freshly shelled raw peas.
this changes almost weekly with what is coming out of my garden… this week it's strawberries and peas, and the last of our delicious lettuce. I love eating from my garden, every thing just tastes better when you grow it yourself.
Basil, strawberries, homemade lemonade with raspberries, tomatoes, peaches – especially those flat donut peaches, those are so good and the season is really short it seems.
Watermelon: I always pull the trigger too early and buy an underripe one in early June.
Corn: I was only just introduced to it Mexican-style, with chili, lime juice, butter and mayonnaise. Like I died and was eating in heaven.
Tomatoes: I have sworn off buying any "imported" winter tomatoes. Right now I have two quart jars full of ripe homegrown tomatoes – one is salsa, the other is an Italian-type marinated salad. Ahhhh, the only good thing about summer is the food.
Georgia Peaches!
things from my granddaddy's garden: lots of different varieties of tomatoes, beans, squash, watermelon, and ice cream we'd take turns cranking.
when i was in high school (boarding school) there were cherry trees on campus. now that we have our own house, i really, really want a cherry tree in the backyard.
Corn on the cob, and we used to eat it raw, it was sweeter that way.
I also used to eat the peas right out of the shells without picking them off the vine. So when my dad would go to pick peas all there was was empty pods still on the vine.
We had a hazelnut tree as well and we ate so many of those. I will always remember smashing them open with a rock up in our tree house.
That's summer to me.
blackberries, basil and tomatoes.
can't imagine cherries in my yard. yummy!
make sure you pick them before the birds eat them! that has happened to me for the last two years. :(
summer foods for me are corn on the cob, sorbet, watermelon, cherries, peaches, tomatoes, zucchini, and mexican food!
Here in Ontario we have a lovely, yet very short, cherry and strawberry season so those are a favourite at the moment. I also love corn on the cob, pink lemonade, fresh basil from my garden which becomes pesto and any kind of BBQ's burger…preferably with cheese.
I would love to have a cherry tree.
FSF: Hot dogs, cherries, fresh corn, popsicles
huckleberries!
Strawberries and home made ice cream!!! Both together is WONDERFUL!
peaches and strawberries remind me of my childhood during the summer! Oh, and let's not forget – popsicles ;-)
Home-grown tomatoes (by my parents, ha ha… not me), watermelon, summer squash… ahhhhh. Enjoy your summer!
I never had fresh blueberries growing up. I hadn't even tasted them until 5 years ago when my mother-in-law taught me how to make blueberry jam. Since then, I've beena ddicted. Now, there's nothing like buying a huge 2# container of blueberries and eating them all in one sitting (with help from the kids of course!).
Watermelon straight from the truck of the guy who just picked it on his farm. There was a man who came to our neighborhood every summer when I was a kid.
Every summer when the blueberries come out my mom would make a blueberry tart called a Kuchen. So delicious! And every August a local farm sells delicious corn in these little green huts stationed all over town. We definitely look forward to August:)