Catching up……..

One week from tonight is the big Pig 101 dinner, which means the rest of this week I will be knee deep in pork! While Jasper is in Arizona, I will be stuffing the Zampone, making the Pork Pate and of course, babysitting with the marinating boar.
Reservations are filling up! I am so pleased to have some very dear friends coming to share the evening with me. It is going to be a great evening!

I am looking forward to moving away from pork as soon as the dinner is over….I think my next obsession will be over spring vegetables and seafood. I hope you love both! I know I have an evening with friends coming up and I have promised a big pot of cioppino. I also have a dinner for friends coming up on April Fool’s Day….have to think of something fun for that one! One of my guests is anxious to hear about Taormina, Sicily, so I suspect it will be a Sicilian menu.

Painting is still my ”high” for the week, I absolutely love it! Spending time at ARTichokes, surrounded by incredible paintings, and learning from the talented instructors is just what I need. I have a makeshift studio downstairs here at home, but I just don’t do well down there by myself. I need to have questions answered, I need to be encouraged…let’s face it, I need someone to coddle me, to praise me! I’m such a baby!
It has been years did I worked on Abstracts, I’m not sure I understood the process then, but with Becky Pashia’s help, by golly, I think I’m catching on!
I am painting Thursday nights, Friday nights and Saturday afternoons at ARTichokes this month. The open studio session on Friday nights is a favorite of mine. This last Friday evening there were canvases, oil paints, live music, wine and fellow painters. What more could I want?

The plans for the 1st Annual Art in the Vines are moving right along. I am pleased with the artists that have committed to the show. Somerset Ridge Vineyard and Winery is going to be a beautiful setting for the show. The buds are out, everything is beginning to turn green. By June, it will be a magical setting.

I scheduled my trip to Smith Mountain Lake today; bought my airline tickets on line. I’m not real thrilled with having to go through Washington, DC on the way to Roanoke, but I’m even less thrilled having to change planes in Chicago on the way home. Air travel is difficult at its best, but it is a two day drive each way and I am just not up to that by myself! I am looking forward to having the family all together again. The last time we were all at Smith Mountain Lake, the kitchen was a very busy place. We have, over the last few years, started new family traditions

with food, feeding 30 people gives you plenty of opportunities! Our first year there, we gave the teenagers meals they were responsible for. One morning two of them made German Pancakes and another day, 2 of them made Sloppy Joes for lunch. On the last evening, my nephew Neal and his son Josh fried all the fish that had been caught during the week. That was 4 years ago....just imagine what great cooks they will be this summer!

Cookies are always a big part of the cooking and baking at family reunions, and with the many hollow legs attached to teenage boys, they help stretch the time between meals. I think this is a cookie that everyone will enjoy.

Hazelnut-Nutella Sandwich Cookies

2/3 cup roasted and salted hazelnuts
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 sticks unsalted butter (1/2 pound) softened
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 large egg yolk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Nutella or another chocolate spread

1. In a food processor, finely grind hazelnuts. In a medium bowl, whisk the flour with the ground nuts, baking soda and salt. In a standing electric mixer fitted with a paddle, or using a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter with the sugar at medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Beat in the egg yolk and vanilla, scraping the side and bottom of the bowl. Beat in the dry ingredients at medium-low speed. Divide the dough in half. Pat each half into a round, wrap them in plastic and refrigerate for 15 minutes.
2. Preheat the oven to 350°. Position the racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven. On a lightly floured surface, roll out each piece of dough 1/8-inch thick. Using a 2-inch biscuit cutter, stamp out rounds as close together as possible. Arrange the rounds on large baking sheets, about 1 inch apart. Gather the scraps and reroll, cutting out more cookies.
3. Bake the cookies in batches for about 20 minutes, until golden; shift the pans from top to bottom and front to back halfway through baking. Let the cookies cool on the sheets for 5 minutes, then transfer to racks to cool completely.
4. Sandwich the cooled cookies with Nutella or another chocolate spread.
5. Make Ahead: The cookie dough can be wrapped in plastic and aluminum foil and refrigerated for up to 1 week or frozen for up to 1 month. Thaw in the refrigerator before using. The baked cookies can be stored in an airtight container for up to 1 week or wrapped in plastic and foil and frozen for up to 1 month.