Bread, Brisket and the dreaded Balm

OK - back after a long hiatus and Manisha's insistence.  I feel like we've entered a mild and early retirement that's only interesting to us, but she seems to want to read about our snow and sledding groceries.  So, here we are!  Actually, I've found that blogging is harder than it looks.  It's easy to post a photo on facebook, click a thumbs' up and write in fragments - harder to sit down and form coherent or passably punctuated thoughts.  Well, I'll give it a go again. 

Today, to Brian's anticipated depair, the sun was out and hot - a balmy spring day that indifferently turned our fluffly two feet of powder into slush.  Looks like spring is about here after 3 months of a non-existent winter.  However we (and especially Brian of course) have managed to get out and about the hills here and there.  Below was on a gorgeous moonlit night:

Looking at it now it must have been cold, what with my frozen hair and Brian's sniffles.  Or maybe we're just getting old and nasally incontinent. 

Hopefully more snow will come this March, not only for skiing but to prevent a drought-ridden summer.  In the meantime, I've been trying out new and old recipes to cheer Brian up.  Today was my Korean mom's adaptation of my Czech Grandma's Hungarian beef brisket.  Turned out pretty good!  Then tomorrow I'll bake bread from Dave's fabulous NY times no-knead bread recipe.  This was our last loaf:

Cheddar and green olive.  Yum!  Who knew I would sometimes like bread as much as rice?  Haha just kidding, rice will always be supreme. However it was so good and easy that we're on a bread kick.  Tomorrow will be cheddar and asiago.