Dear ones,

Did you need some recipes for this transition from summer into Fall?

I thought you might!

Hence the late-summer tomato-bread salad, here.

And the early-fall potato-leek soup, here.

Also, not to taunt you or anything, but there's a photo at the end of that last post you might want to see. I'll give you a hint. It's of a baby. Not this baby

Although, yes, that is a very cute baby. Okay, another hint. It's about a birthday. Not my friend Chris's fortieth, for which occasion I made this t-shirt that I am hereby showing off:

I would actually like to make a little tutorial, because a layer-cake shirt is such a fabulous birthday present. . . 

But okay. Here's your last hint:

Yay!

xo Catherine

p.s. If you are serious about Europe or the huts or Paris or wanting more information, maybe email me directly? That way I don't have to bore everyone with all the details or try to figure out if you're just being polite. But about those hut shoes: a hut is like a hostel, and when you arrive you take off your stinky, muddy boots and put on a pair of crocs. They have dozens of pairs for this very purpose, so I took a photo to remind us of them.

Seriously, what was I thinking?

Of course I wanted you to ask about that photo! I posted it, right? But then I have been paralyzed by a feeling simultaneously of not knowing where to start, and also of life barreling forward, into the fall and school and work, and away from the heavenly heavenified heaven-on-earth that was our trip abroad.

But let me interrupt myself to say this:

Over on family.com, I've got some new recipes posted, and I hope you'll visit me there, and even leave a comment if you have a mind to!

• I posted this best-ever one-bean salad in honor of Anni's baby shower.
• And this pizza, which is one of the recipes I have worked on the most and over the longest period of time. In fact, go there for the tomatillo salsa recipe alone.
• And then there are these circle-of-comfort oatmeal cookies, along with my blahblahing about what an act of devotion it is to make them. What is wrong with me? I don't know.

But back to Europe. The short version: Michael's brother and his family have been in Lithuania for two years; my brother and his family live in Geneva; we hatched a plan a year ago to save up and go--and we did. To Paris for a week, where we met Michael's brother's family; and to Switzerland, where we hiked in the Alps with mine. In the Alps! Where we stayed in "family friendly" huts--even though "family friendly" turned out to mean only that you could hike to them in 11 hours but without an ice-axe or crampons. (Crampons! Ha ha.) Insanity in every amazing and unforgettable way. It was, to put it as simply as possible, the trip of a lifetime, and in two weeks we must have generated a couple hundred thousand memories. Can I share just a tiny few?

Birdy on one of the jasquillion carousels they rode in Paris. Gorgeous.

Name that Cathedral! Our Lady of Perpetual Amazement. Even an old atheist Jew like me is moved to tears by the majesty and devotion of such a beautiful piece of architecture.

A promise: skinny dip in a glacial lake, and your young nephews will never ever stop talking about it.

Heading up, up, up to the top of the world where one of our huts was perched.

And then looking down. Wowza.

Hut shoes.

I am dying a little from wishing we were still there. But so glad to have been.

Thank you, friends, for indulging me.

xo