Long weekend with the parents.

Cabbage and citrus slaw with avocado and pickled red onion

Sweet potato and black bean soups... swirled. 

I know we've been over this, but few things inspire my cooking like the people I love best.  I recently spent a long weekend at my parents' beautiful, peaceful home in Fresno-- a place that really is a solid contradiction to everything negative you've ever heard about that town.  I've been saying for years, "well, my Fresno is awesome!"
They have a beautiful, extremely productive garden, and often meals are made simply from what one finds on a little stroll around their raised beds.  I swear, the best broccoli I've ever worked with came out of their parking strip; and every now clichéd, reverent reference you've ever heard about the tomato still warm from the vine is rooted firmly in the image of their sunny, cheerful backyard.

Chocolate-toffee cookie

My parents are both educators, and had a four day weekend for President's Day- which inspired my trip.  We spent the days like we always do, I cook while Moma (that's what we call her- she's very artistic) reads me poetry or short stories aloud.  Ron, my step-dad is gardening or Mr.-Fix-It-ing something in the yard.  We eat, lingering over the table, drinking wine at ANY AND EVERY hour of the day.  We play in highly charged tournaments of word games, card games (Hearts, please!), and dominoes.  We sit in the living room, which has the most exquisite, amber light I know, and Ron plays the piano or we talk.  We are so comfortable surrounded by the book-lined walls and the animals who have finally tired from their incessant play and lay, collapsed, at our feet.  My Fresno is peaceful, and beautiful, and I fall backwards into the hammock of my family breathing a deep sigh of relief.  There are so many things we don't and can't know in life, but this?  This I know, and this I believe.

Spicy cauliflower pizza. I tried, unsuccessfully, to innovate on the baking-pizza-at-home-without-a-stone issue.  Still delicious!

I mean, seriously, in could be nine in the morning.

This is potentially my favorite dish of the weekend.  A bed of creamy hummus, pickled rounds of roasted beets, halves of beautiful five-minute eggs,  a garlicky mortared walnut and diced avocado relish. 

Doesn't everybody love befores and afters?
Apple-raisin tart with hazelnut-oat crumb topping.  Family food.