Blooms, Blooms, Blooms...

Spring in Ohio. It is a riot of color! I think it's nature's way of rewarding us for putting up with a long, cold, and colorless winter.  We go from bleak and gray to absolutely incredible in a matter of weeks. In the blink of an eye all is gorgeous. But then in another blink the blooms are over and verdant, colorful  Summer takes over.  It's a fair and welcome exchange.

Popovers!

I never made a popover until I was well into my third or fourth year of college. I don't recall my mother, a wonderful and adventurous cook, making them.  My mother made Yorkshire Pudding with Roast Beef.  She loved it. But never a popover to be seen.  Perhaps it didn't enter her culinary psyche - Yorkshire Pudding.  Popovers.  Yorkshire Pudding.  Popovers...  the connection was never made. No grandmothers or maiden aunts pulled a pan of these from the oven on a cold winter morning -- or any other morning I can recall. They pulled many other wonderful baked delights from the oven on a cold morning, but not popovers... at least not in my experience.

Pho Much Disappointment, So Little Time...

I love Pho.  I make Pho. I love journalist Linda Ellerbee's recipe for Pho. It's good anytime... In the winter, nothing beats a steaming bowl of Pho when the wind is howling outside and you've been shoveling or skiing and the snow is either making life miserable or a joy.  I love Pho in the spring -- and those other two seasons.  This lovely beef soup, with its spicy fragrant broth, stirs my soul.  In Vietnam Pho is often the breakfast of champions. The tender slices of beef, the basil, the sriracha hot sauce, the lemon grass and anise infused steam rising, filling my nose with delectable aromas.  Pho is a sublime experience, when it's done right.

Pfoto Pfriday -- Photovisi

Pfridays are for Pfhotography, at least when I have something valuable to contribute (therefore it may not be every single Friday that I post on photography since I'm a bit of a slacker when it comes to working on the best day of the week...).  I taught photography for years, and when I run across something I think others will find valuable, I like to pass the info along.  I have run across this bomb of a site that allows you to create very cool photo collages for FREE! That's right, for FREE! Photovisi allows you to upload, very quickly I might add, up to 30 of your photos and drop them into one of their styling collage templates, then download them to your computer or send them out for printing on various surfaces - mugs, prints, calendars - you know the usual photographic emulsion suspects.

This site is blazing fast. Below, I offer a couple of collage examples I whipped up in about 60 seconds each -- seriously!  These photos were something I put together to illustrate a series of podcasts my college student daughter produced. (Collages for college?  Hmmmm -- what a difference one little letter makes.) While these images do illustrate a serious subject (drinking and sexual assault on college campuses -- growing more serious every day), the collage tool on Photovisi is just a plain ol' photographically-good time! 

You can move the images around, re-size, insert a background image, add a pattern or graphic you created in Photoshop, whatever.  The sky is the limit! So go out to Photovisi.com and collage your brain's out! And did I mention it's FREE?
 

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Blood Orange Upside-Down Cake

I love blood oranges. My introduction this red globe of goodness was when I was in school in Europe.  The lady with whom I lived, aka Frau Mudder (a rather fierce Viennese lady -- very formal and somewhat frightening to this fish out of water American who was living with her urbane  German husband and she during a semester abroad) placed a small glass of blood red juice on the breakfast table in front of me.  "Ummm, what is this?" I asked quizzically but politely, not wishing to offend with my ignorance.  "Blood orange juice," she replied in that somewhat clipped manner of which she was so very fond.

A Flea Market Morning

This Wednesday's morning was a beautiful morning -- the first in many months!  It was right out of a Rogers & Hammerstein musical -- at least one comes to mind.  But this morning was absolutely golden!  I tend to suffer in the winter months, not from snow, but from lack of sunlight.  I suppose I'm a S.A.D.  person. But, for me,  getting outside to enjoy a sunny morning is one of the true joys of Spring.  I love to take the camera and just go. I'm a real road trip gal so even if it's only 30 miles it's a trip. That's good enough for me!

Since I could find no like-minded adventurous soul to join me on my journey I decided to head out alone for the local Wednesday morning Indiana flea market in nearby Brookville.  White's Flea Market is rain or shine, all year long.  It's mostly outdoors so it tends to photograph well and this market is one of the bigger flea markets in the area that doesn't run on the weekend.  That means it's not quite so crowded and the selections are more flea market and less schlock.  I'd rather stay home than wade through massive crowds looking for all the As Seen On TV stuff.