Long Beach in the Fall

It is no small secret that I don't like halloween. I don't even want to give it respect by capitalizing the word. It's not that I think it's just pure evil, even though it's hard to find much good in the day, I know that there is nothing evil about wearing a costume and going trick-or-treating. We sure loved it as kids. Its just that I can't get behind it. If I'm going to celebrate something, I need to know what and why I'm celebrating. The more I think about what Halloween is, the more I despise the energy and effort that people put into it. Why? What, really, are we celebrating with our ghosts and skeletons and all that candy? Now, I know many people that have no problem with the day, and that's okay with me too! I just can't get behind it and so instead, I avoid it! We have successfully avoided it for the last three years now.

This year (and last year) we avoided it by going to the beach. Rain or shine, the beach is relaxing and a great getaway. This year, my parents came with us! It was so much fun to have them there and share our routines with them. We did the usual, breakfast out, wandering through antique stores, searching for the thing we can't live without at Jack's Country Store, getting an amazing latte and a good book at Adelaide's, and making a great dinner with a movie playing in the background.

Here's my antique store find: it's a Norwegian cookie press. As far as I can tell from a good, solid Google search, it seems to be for making Goro, or Gode Raad, a holiday cookie-cracker with cardamom (which I love). I can't wait to try it out this Christmas!

This time the cookbook I bought was Harvest to Heat. It has the most incredible pictures and could easily be a coffee table book in addition to a cookbook. I've tried one recipe so far and loved it. Not surprisingly (given the end of this post), it was a clam and bean soup.

I just really love the grays and blues and muted colors they use. These pictures are all from their website and are also in the book. No credit to me for any of these foodie pictures!

The other highlight of the trip was some more clam digging. Remember our last adventure with clams? Well, this time it was at night! Clam digging at night is all together different! Not harder or easier necessarily, just completely different in how you find them. Digging them out is the same of course, and it's also still quite frustrating when you are getting skunked and can't find a hole in sight! That is what happened for our first hour out on the beach. It was a lovely sunset though, and the sky was as clear as could be. We could see every star in the sky until we were too busy looking down for clam holes to notice.

Our clam crew: (L to R) my dad, mom, me and Blake.

Head Lamps: not just for knitting in bed!

Waiting... waiting for the tide and the clams.

Hunting for holes.

Clamming off into the sunset.

It was such a great weekend. It is weekends like this that make us wish we could live closer to home tomorrow instead a few years from now.

Now what to do with the rest of the clams....