Happy 1st Birthday Cooper!

My adorable nephew is a year old today - WOW! Nothing makes time go faster than a baby. Snap your fingers and a year is gone (and I'm 40!), sheesh. That's because they're so FUN, especially when they belong to your sister and you get the win-win of babysitting AND getting a good night's sleep, ha. If you can't tell by my many postings about him, Cooper is the light of our family right now, the only baby. I can't wait to see him tomorrow to lift my heavy heart. We are missing dear old Sigmund very, very much.

On a food note - yes, I will write about something other than Sigmund and Cooper - I walked up to the fish counter yesterday and said, I'll take what just came in. Happened to be whole trout, so I took two, and completely winged it when I got home to prepare them. They were gutted, and I had the heads taken off, but that's about it, so I did pause for a moment thinking hmmm, what the heck am I doing with you? I started with a smear of olive oil and a sprinkling of sea salt - can never go wrong there. Added a pinch of dried herbs de Provence. Opened them like a book and filled them with lemon and shallot slices. Baked them at 350 for 20 minutes and voila, the bones lifted right out and left behind tender, fragrant fillets. Absolutely delicious. So John and I dined on fresh fish, sipped a lovely pinot noir, shed a few tears, and toasted ol' Rufus. We sure miss you, Roo. Sigh...