I’m back from Alaska, and my toes are finally starting to warm up! William Carlos Williams invented the word “greeny” but it suits my feelings about Maryland quite well.  The branches were bare but budding when I left; now, like magic, everything is at full greeny and the dogwoods are in bloom.  It’s gentle on the eyes, for sure.

Maybe I will write more about the nice trip later, when everybody gets their pictures up on flickr (we forgot our own camera).  It was a great opportunity to remember why I like those old friends so much (genial flexibility, sense of adventure). For now, I will just tell you about our

 food mascot for the ten days: chocolate

My friends are a bakerly bunch, and we ate our way through two or three dozen homemade cookies a day.  Cookie flavors:

  • chocolate ginger snaps
  • chocolate oatmeal bon bons
  • chocolate walnut chunk
  • and several batches of good old chocolate chip

Plus, one day Nate made chocolate almond creme brulee, another day a friend brought over a chocolate mint cake.  Store-bought chocolate included:

  • chocolate ice cream
  • chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream
  • Clif bars
  • Cadbury fruit and nut bars
  • Hershey bars for smores
  • cadbury milk chocolate eggs
  • egg-shaped chocolate malt balls
  • chocolate peanut butter egg-shaped m and ms
  • chocolate chips in trail mix

If chocolate were rationed out in ounces to every person in the world, I’m sure we would have left at least a few dozen poor souls completely bereft of chocolate.  Now that’s what I call “Vacation Eating.”