Catching Up - and ASPARAGUS

I think this title has been used before (except for the ASPARAGUS), but it deserves to be recycled.  There is some catching up to do before I head out.

We've been busy with the usual things, of course :  working (for me, a fair amount), eating, sleeping, keeping up the house, trying to fit in some gardening between bouts of rain and cold, getting to the gym more or less irregularly, lots and lots of visits to Mutti (mostly for Werner). But there's been time for other stuff too.

There was a group trip to the Hamburg Kunsthalle (the art gallery) sponsored by our local gallery where we visited two shows - Giacometti, a general overview of his sculpture, and Paul Klee's Angels.  The Giacometti exhibit showed much more than the famous, thin, stretched out sculptures he's famous for.  And the angels -- well, I came away thinking that most of Klee's angels don't fit nicely into the pantheon of standard.  But two great guides, fun folks to visit with, and a nice trip where someone else did the driving.

And our little local gallery had a new show as well, though that hardly takes a day trip.  A three-minute walk to the harbor, up a flight of stairs.  The building is an old storage house, half-timbered, and makes a pleasant backdrop for most any painting. And as you can see, we have the luxury of what seems a private showing!

Another day I took a train trip with a friend down to Celle to visit Lorraine, a transplanted Virginian who directed the Sampler Museum in Celle for many years.  She has a fascinating and wide-ranging collection of her own that we just loved looking at.  And her brownies were not bad, either!

Now, finally, the real reason for this post -  Spargelessen at Ilsemarie and Ulli's!!  Of course, the older we get, the shorter the time seems between these yearly events (and of course, it is, because as we all know  time speeds up as one gets older !) ,so it's only been a "month" since our last dinner, and that was waaaaay too long ago! We were all ready.

Ilsemarie has such a green thumb - and here's an example.  What a hibiscus - and blooming inside!

And what a great sous-chef she had.  Or maybe Ilsemarie was the sous-chef.  Hard to say.  Ilsemarie's sister Meckie came to help out and join in the fun.  She's always been a part of the dinner, though before always in the background as supplier of fresh asparagus and soup and ice cream.  This year she was front and center!

Presentation - it's not the whole but a big part of the whole.  The table is lovely, the ingredients are fresh from the field and, well, it's just right and just perfect.

Asparagus soup with shrimp, the wonderful local fresh perfect asparagus with either butter sauce or freshly made Hollandaise sauce (with eggs from Meckie's own chickens!), home made ice creams (vanilla, strawberry and rhubarb) and of course strawberries.  Later chocolate.  And coffee. I think there was some wine, too.

 And talk.  And dancing.  Since I was dancing myself, there's no pic of that, but believe me, I did. We did.

We had a great time.  Again.

Already looking forward to next year!!