Cooking for the Church

During the first weekend I was in Boerne, I wandered around Berges Fest (German-inspired festival) and introduced myself to the local chapter of the Knights of Columbus.  I also met a couple of the wives, one of whom invited me out to her family's celebration of an uncle's birthday the next day.

The gal and her husband are pretty involved with the Church, and during the course of conversation I mentioned that I have just gotten into cooking and baking.  Heidi mentioned that the Church hosts a coffee break between the morning Masses, and they're always looking for help.  I promptly signed up to do some baking for later in the month.

I started out thinking I was going to be super ambitious and try some home-made blueberry muffins.  By the time my scheduled Sunday rolled around, I toned things down and went with the first round of honey cookies.  

I tried a little experiment with the shapes of the cookies, and discovered that just putting dollops of cookie dough on the sheet do not make for good cookies (at least not with this recipe).  I did discover that everyone really loved the star shaped cookies.  The good news is, there were only about a dozen of the dollops left over (considering I made about 4 dozen cookies plus they had donuts, breads and cake to choose from, I'd say the cookies were successful)!

I'm thinking the next time I'm in town, I'll make those blueberry muffins, just to change things up!

The Non-Cooking Adventures

Yes, I realize it's July 5.  Yes, I realize I haven't posted anything since the chicken casserole dinner in March.  Yes, I've failed miserably of cooking something from the recipe boxes every week.  But, I have had some great adventures in between!

March was spent with some travels to Texas.  I had the opportunity to check out the southwest part of the state.  Highlight of the trip:  seeing my first armadillo roadkill!

Actually, this was from a second trip
out, since I missed the first guy.

I brought in April by heading to the Maxium Yield show in Denver, CO with Emily Walter.  While not as insane as the San Francisco show last year, there was still a good turnout.  Shout out to Humboldt Wholesale for an awesome industry party!

Can you tell it's a hydro show?

I flew straight to Boston for some sales training, and learned how to get from Point A to Point B.  And then I took the train to NYC to spend a few days with my sister.  If you make it out there any time soon, I HIGHLY recommend seeing "Avenue Q" off Broadway.  Wow!  I hadn't laughed so hard in ages!!

Some other highlights of the NYC trip included seeing the Statue of Liberty (from Liberty Park, tickets were pretty much sold out).  But, I did make it up to the top of the Empire State Building.

From NYC I head to Kansas City, MO for the annual NAMA convention.  While we didn't win any national awards this year, it was still a great trip.  I even managed to snag a free ride in a Hummer limo and had it all to myself!  That's good stuff right there.

After a brief visit home, I headed back to Texas for a couple more client visits and a little bit of house scouting.  I had a pretty good time, and really, one can't argue with field fresh watermelon:

Desperately trying not
to drip down my shirt!

Dennis W. enjoying a fresh slice.

May brought another trip out to Texas.  I snagged my great new house in Boerne, TX and I started wrapping things up at home.  

June brought about my going away shin-dig, in which I cleared out the freezer.  I cooked up my ducks,  pheasants and chukars, and served them up to everyone.  Despite the torrential downpour (WTH Mother Nature?!), I had a great time, and loved seeing everyone before the move.