chilled carrot soup with lemon-buttered farfalle

It's been a few weeks since my last post because we've been away on vacation. In addition to sharing a few vaca snaps with you, I have a delicious new recipe you'll love for a Chilled French Carrot Soup with Lemon-buttered Farfalle which I'll share in my next post.

Our vacation was spent in beloved Chatham, Mass (Cape Cod) and Nantucket, a part of the world where the weather is always mild and the sunlight ever clear and bright. We adore the salty sea breezes, beautiful sandy beaches and silver, cedar shingled houses covered in climbing pink roses with hydrangeas galore and the lushest of English gardens.

We biked and we hiked, Jim fly fished and I sketched (lot's of material for upcoming paintings!). We strolled lazily through beautiful art galleries, window shopped and frequented The Bean (our favorite Nantucket coffee house) a couple times a day. Dining on Nantucket is absolutely fabulous. So much so that we simply allowed ourselves to steep in the romance of beautiful, fresh flavors and wonderful ambiance rather than bothering to photo-document it all. Just a few of our favorites are Company of the Cauldron, Oran Mor, Pearl, Lola 41 and Toppers. All amazing.

Meanwhile, miles away back at the home front, our garden was going into overdrive, providing us a bounty of fresh produce to help keep us light and cool for the hot, steamy weather that welcomed us home (think 95+ and high humidity). Jim brought in beans, peas, jalapenos, ruby beets, herbs and gorgeous baby collards, red leaf lettuce, beet greens and nasturtiums (DELISH in salads) plus six pounds of beautiful baby French carrots… I'm sure I'm forgetting some things too!

Our abundance of carrots resulted in a delicious Chilled French Carrot Soup with Lemon-buttered Farfalle I'll share in my next post… The perfect, light meal for this hot, steamy weather.

Nantucket and Chatham Snapshots ~ Part I

Stay tuned… I'll be sharing a few more snaps with you soon!

(As always, click images for a better, larger view)